by Dan Underbrink
In early-August, TWIM members Emily Castillo, Kelly Vikstrom, Carl Haynie, Laurie Jones, Mary Underbrink, and Dan Underbrink all arrived at Prvic Luca, a town on the island of Prvic, in Croatia, to participate in a seven-day SwimTrek, along the Dalmatian Coast. We were joined there by TWIM friends Amanda Lumbard (Sammamish, WA) and Debbie Pederson (San Antonio, TX), and seven new friends.
Back row (l to r) Debbie (TX), Fareen (NY), Kelly (TWIM), Carl (Twim), Cordella (Switz.), Siskia (Switz.), Sally (UK), Mary (TWIM), Amanda (WA), Andrew (UK), and Emma (UK)
In the days preceding this adventure, each of us travelled there by different routes and had different experiences along the way, and some of us followed up with further adventures after the swim week. Here are those stories:
Carl:
I planned both pre-trip and post-trip excursions around our SwimTrek vacation. Both trips were geared toward my other passion: birding. And I made Frankfurt Germany my hub for all trips. For my pre-trip endeavors, I rented cars in Frankfurt and Split. Post trip, I took an 8-hour flight to Nairobi, Kenya for a few days and hired a guide to get around. Why Kenya? It is in the same time zone as Frankfurt and would net many more new birds for me than any other place in Europe. While I picked up 6 new birds between Germany and Croatia, I picked up 127 new ones in Kenya!
The best part about our SwimTrek vacation for me was spending time with both new and old friends in our group, closely followed by watching the sea floor change below me as I swam. The towns we stopped at during lunch were fascinating in their own right. The Dalmatian Coast is a very scenic place!
Emily:
A few of us arrived in Croatia a few days early to adapt to the time change and explore a bit before the SwimTrek. Amanda, Laurie, Laurie’s daughters (Summer and Kyla), and I spent our first day at the beautiful Plitvice Lakes National Park. The turquoise water and countless waterfalls were stunning, and we ended up hiking about nine miles through the park.
The next day, we explored Split on an e-bike tour. We rode up Marjan Hill for incredible views of the coastline and islands.
From there, we traveled to the small island of Prvic Luca, our homebase for the SwimTrek. Swimming in the Adriatic was wonderful; the water was warm and clear, and the swims seemed to fly by. Each day, we’d stop for lunch on a different island and spend some time exploring the local communities. The whole experience was very relaxing. After the afternoon swim, a few of us would often meet up at the hotel for a Hugo Spritz and enjoy the evening.
I celebrated my 48th birthday in Croatia. I spent the day swimming in that beautiful water and hanging out with a bunch of fantastic people. At our team dinner that evening, the group surprised me with a cake! I couldn’t ask for a better birthday celebration.
Laurie:
Before the swim trek began, Emily, Amanda, my two daughters, and I explored the towns of Trogir, Zadar (complete with a sea organ), and Plitvice! We hiked 10 miles through the lakes and waterfalls and loved every minute of Plitvice! After the swim trek it was back to Trogir for more exploration and amazing food!
Favorite parts of the swim trek…the color of the water and all the great laughs with people from our group as well as our swim trek mates from around the world!
Kelly:
Kelly started her trip to Europe by flying to Stockholm, Sweden, via Amsterdam. She visited the famous Swedish ship, the Vasa, which sank on its maiden voyage in 1628. The Vasa was raised from the sea bottom in 1961, largely intact. Kelly says it was fascinating! She also did an archipelago boat tour and had several other adventures in her short time there, before moving on to Croatia.
After the SwimTrek, Kelly returned home, again stopping in Stockholm. Here is what Kelly said about the trip in a Facebook post:
SwimTrek Dalmatian Coast trip is a wrap! I’m back home exhausted (in a good way) after 7 days in the Adriatic and with amazing memories. I highly recommend SwimTrek Swimming Holidays if you’re interested in doing a swimming adventure vacation, they kept us safe, fed us ample yummy food and snacks, and taught us about local places and history. We covered almost 16 miles swimming to and around the islands of Prvic, Otocic Lupac, Zlarin, Tijat, Zmajan, and Kaprije. We saw tons of fish, several starfish, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, coral, one possible octopus, and baby jellyfish (aka sea lice) which were too small to see, but certainly made their presence felt! I’ll miss the sea and Croatia – it was a truly wonderful experience!
Dan and Mary:
Our first trip to Europe! We started by flying into Budapest, Hungary, with a short layover in London. We toured Budapest for about a day and a half and then boarded a bus to Zagreb, the Capital of Croatia. In Zagreb, we met up with our swimming friend from Texas, Debbie Pederson, who joined us for the rest of the trip. Debbie has swum in relays with Carl, Mary, and Dan at several National Senior Games.
We toured Zagreb for about two days, then went in our rental car, down to the Plitvice Lakes region. The next day we hiked through the Plitvice Lakes National Park, visiting 15-20 scenic lakes, and probably 250-300 waterfalls. After that we drove out to Nikola Tesla’s birthplace and toured the interpretive center there (which was completely fascinating!) then continued on to the coastal city of Zadar.
The next day, July 31, was our 45th anniversary! That day we toured the island of Nin (a half-kilometer-diameter ancient Roman fortress, and later, the first Royal City of Croatia). We also toured a salt works, which has been operational for 1500 years, and the city of Zadar.
We turned the car in at Zadar, and then had a driver, who took us to the city of Sibenik, where we toured forts that were built to (successfully) repel the Ottoman Turks in the 15th to 17th centuries. We also saw many other sights in Sibenik. Later that afternoon, our driver dropped us off at the water taxi in the town of Srima. A quick trip over to Prvic Luca, and we were at the start of the SwimTrek!
After the SwimTrek, we were picked up by another hired driver and we headed south along the coast, stopping for lunch in Trogir, and then continuing on to Split. In Split we visited Roman Emperor Diocletian’s palace, much of which is still in use, and today houses what must be over 100 hotels, restaurants, and other small businesses. It was simply amazing to see and fascinating to learn about!
We stayed there for two nights and flew out of Split, homeward via Helsinki, Finland. We made it home intact, but for Mary’s backpack, which was somehow stranded in Helsinki. The next day, the air tag inside showed that it was in Iceland, but it took the airline a full week to get it back to us!
The Swim Trek:
The SwimTrek was everything we hoped for! Gorgeous scenery, fascinating sea life, a fun group of people to swim with and hang out with, fun towns to explore during lunch breaks, a great little hotel – Hotel Maestral – which was our base of operations, a trusty boat, the Luce, and its captain – Bojan (pronounced Boy-an), two great SwimTrek Guides, Maddie and Kaja (pronounced Ka-ya), and many little historical notes about our host country, Croatia.
The first evening, we had an assessment swim of about 400-500 meters, where the guides were pleased to find that our group of 15 were all pretty good swimmers. The next five days consisted of morning and afternoon 2.5-kilometer swims. Most of these were “coastal swims” (swimming along a shoreline), but we also did one circumnavigation of a small island, and one inter-island crossing. The final morning, we did a “farewell” swim, of about a kilometer, to close out the SwimTrek.
Swimmers were divided into three groups, identified by swim cap color. Maddie and Kaja each piloted a motorized inflatable boat and each of them monitored a group of swimmers. The third group was tracked by Bojan, in his boat, the Luce.
At one point on the first full swimming day, the SwimTrek guides took video of each swimmer with an underwater GoPro camera. At a group meeting, later that evening, each swimmer got to watch themselves and received tips from the guides on stroke efficiency and technique. Very useful for all the swimming we had in front of us!
After the morning swim each day, Bojan would take the boat to a different island town or village, where we would explore for an hour or so, and then come back to the boat for lunch (which was packed for us each day, by the restaurant at Hotel Maestral). Then we would typically have another hour or so to hike, take pictures, or shop, before getting back to the boat and motoring out to our afternoon swim.
In that region of the Adriatic, and at that time of year, the wind typically shifts in the afternoon and blows in from the southwest, so afternoon swims were mostly on the eastern sides of the various islands. The SwimTrek personnel were very diligent about keeping the swimmers safe and comfortable.
TWIM members, TWIM friends, and new friends from various places around the world, all had a great time at this SwimTrek! I think that any of us would recommend a SwimTrek vacation to anyone who loves to swim; and swimming or not, I would like to recommend Croatia as a fascinating and fun country for anyone to visit!
