To Vis (10/10)

I awake with the Sun, a common occurrence at Hera, and join others in the Company for coffee and a sumptuous spread of bread, our one-ingredient breakfast. The boat would leave around 9:00 AM, so I wanted to take one more stroll through Hvar before leaving.

Seated on the long stone wall that separates the promenade from the sea, I look around.

http://www.photocroatia.com/GALLERY/photo.php?photo=11163&u=881|19

A tall, handsome, well dressed couple descends the last few broad white stone steps of a hundred step journey down into the town, and turns left to walk toward me and the town square behind me. Each held one of the hands of a small child. Right in front of me, they stop. He kisses each child and his wife and turns right to where a couple dozen boats are docked 50 meters ahead. She takes the hand of each child and walks straight ahead into the square. I sit thinking, how wonderful to walk to work, to walk your kids to school, as the ancient, medieval fort on the hill stands guard.

We motor to Vis by the early afternoon, and as was becoming our custom, anchored in a soft bay for lunch and a swim. Vis lies before us and rambles around to our left where its peninsula pushes out into the Adriatic. On it, upon a knoll, sat what looked to be a large estate in disrepair. I jump into the water -- after, of course, Mike had leapt in and gave us all his agreeable grin -- and swam to it.

Three stories tall, with views from nearly every room, the derelict building bursts with potential. I walk throughout the building, my mind buzzing with all the visualized potential, and swim back to report my findings to the Company. The place was thereafter dubbed “Joe’s B&B”, and from there out, on each island where we would see such a place, just yearning to return to its former splendor and abide laughing, eating, drinking, sleeping people from all over the world, someone in the Company would call out: “Hey, there’s another Joe’s B&B”. Soon, in our collective imaginations, each island had such a savory place – this chain of Dalmatian islands each with its own “Joe’s B&B”.

“Ask a Croatian to name their top three islands and one of them is likely to be Vis”, says the Lonely Planet travel guide. I don’t believe the Company is in accord with this estimation, but we find that Vis is quaint, charming, and has a great cemetery.