Exploring our new sailing basin, Stinjan, Stoja, Polje, Banjole, 8-31 July 2023

This is Belisama in her new home marina in Stinjan, an area of Pula, a few hundred metres from our house. We are very happy to have her here, few minutes biking from home.

So, lately, we have made a few sea excursion in the bays around Pula...

To start with, yet another sunset from our terrace.

Pula Polesana marina

Polesana marina is not the best location for boats visiting Pula as it is not easily accessible from the city. There are no buses and it is 6 km from the centre of Pula (1h15mn) walk along a narrow busy road in the summer. It would be a bit better by bikes even though it goes up and down. Walking along the shore is rocky and not easy. A taxi ride to the city cost 20€!

On the marina, there is a very nice restaurant with reasonable prices but no shops. In short, it is perfect for Belisama as it is less than 4 km from our house by a local road. 

View from the marina towards the Pula commercial harbour

View of Pula harbour from Centar Svemira, next to Polesana Marina

To depart from the Polesana marina, we have to head through a channel to get to the open sea. The Pula bay is extremely well protected from all winds but the visitor pontoon is exposed to Bora winds.

Stoja

The "weekstart" Sunday 9 to Monday 10 July, we decided to leave our house in Stinjan and head for a small cove off Pula for the evening, in an attempt to get away from the work that still needs to be done around the house, even though we are almost finished with it, before family and friends arrive. We headed for Stoja Bay, which is about 5 miles from Polesana Marina, Belisama's new home port. 

Belisama on anchor in Stoja cove

The day was very nice with swimming from the boat in crystal clear water, catching three sea bass at sunset and having a very quiet night with no swell in this bay. 

It was quite busy when we arrived on Sunday lunchtime but with a depth of one metre we were able to anchor close to the swimming area buoys and find a spot. By the end of the day all but 4 boats had left and we had a very comfortable night at anchor, despite the mosquitoes.

I read the news today that Nikon has stopped making single-lens reflex cameras in the face of the popularity of small, lightweight mirrorless cameras and smartphones with high-resolution cameras. And I have to admit that I was amazed at the quality of the night shots I took with my iPhone!

The teapot in the sky (Sagittarius constellation)

Boat anchored under the Scorpio constellation

Polje

On 18 July, after having worked like mad in the house for installing new living-room furniture and a balustrade to our stairs to the yard, we decided to explore a small bay where to anchor and spend a day and a night, to recover. The temperature of the water in the pool at home had reached 30°C.

The water in Polje was just 28°C in temperature. Such a relief :-). Over the two days, we spent "hours" in the water, like all people around us from the campsites. But overall, a very pleasant atmosphere, we will for sure come back here in the future. 

Polje is indicated as an anchorage on Navionics map as well as on Navily. It is just like 10 nautical miles South of Marina Polesana. So, we were confident about anchoring in the place when we got puzzled by a sign on the bank of the bay... Then we got the message: "anchoring here is not allowed!"

What kind of sign is this?

Usually, the "no anchoring" sign features an anchor sign with a red diagonal stripe. Very clear and unambiguous message that an anchor is not welcome in these waters. But what about this one??? A nice black on white anchor with some legend that no one can read from the sea. 

For understanding this, I took a picture using my "obsolete" Nikon single-lens camera with my 400 mm tele-lens. It indicated that beyond the small jetty, it is not allowed to anchor, but outside, it is fine. We got fully reassured then !

There was quite a of activity along the beach all day long, including some visiting boats coming for a couple of hours with visitors wishing to take a swim. 

Banjole

In the following week, we spent twice the day in Banjole, an anchorage close to Pula, for lunch and swim. It gets very crowded during these hot summer days, but we could always find good anchoring spots given our 1m draft. 

We spent very nice days there but did not stay overnight. 

These waters along the sandy shore are populated by oblades (saddled seabream). These small breams reach a size of 20 cm and are quite omnivorous. One can fish them using bread, cheese, raw turkey meat... They are delicious with garlic and parsley!

Below is our itinerary in previous 4 weeks.