Driving the Dalmatian Coast
After exchanging emails and hugs goodbye early Wednesday morning in Dubrovnik, we disembarked our sail and embarked on our driving adventure up the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia. In our tiny red VW Up!, we cruised quickly North along a high coast road with wide winding lanes and guard rails,
It is September and the highway is empty and the 57 km to reach Mali Ston fly by. Mali Ston sits on the Peljesic peninsula, a peninsula with so little attached land to the Mainland, it feels like another of of Croatia's many islands. But we are going because they claim they are the Capitol of oysters. 
We zig zag our way down the cliffs to the harbor and can already spy the hundreds of oyster beds below and mentally taste the brine of the sea and feel the shell in our mouth.
There are three restaurants nestled on the water, not ten, not twenty, they are not big or busy. No waiting for a stool or lining up like when you want a bowl of clam chowder at Smitty's. We take a table for two where we can look through some palms to the water, small boats bobbing at the dock. 
We order a dozen of the famous Mali Ston oysters with glasses of local Posip, chilled white wine. The amuse bouche is fish pâté on toast and we clink our glasses and make the 90th or 120th toast of the trip.
The oysters arrive, the shells a bit rounder and flatter than the Chesapeake Bay, and they are fresh and delicious. They still don't quite compare with my first and best ever taste of oysters from a sail boat on the Chesapeake. A sunny day sailing, the captain lowered the dredge down the side of the boat, pulled up some oysters and they were shucked and eaten two minutes out of the water, briny and fresh. But these are delicious and they do come close.
Back in the car and on the coastal drive, we are heading to Makarska to catch a ferry to Brac Island, but we still have kilometers to go. We approach what looks like a toll booth, but there's no toll takers and no tickets???? We go right through. Five seconds later, the lightbulb goes off. We just entered Bosnia.....Bosnia!!!! That war torn country of Angela Jolie movies where, despite the current peace, you get as creepy of a feeling as the movie Midnight Express.
Like lifting your feet or holding your breath in a tunnel, you drive through, looking at new and odd signs, yearning for those 20 or so kilometers of Bosnia to go by quickly.
You keep your speed down and watch with a bit of relief for that next blue toll booth looking thing and are glad to show your passports to re-enter Croatia. And when you are 'back in' you don't even really understand why it felt that creepy but you are sure you don't want to vacation there.
The vista on this drive are stunning. The mountains and cliffs meet the sea and you are wi ding through, on the edge, up and down. There is green below and craggy limestone above. We pop inland a bit through vineyards and skirt around an beautiful and huge lush valley of farms. We have a few road challenges like the motorway is not completely finished everywhere and the detours are longer than planned. But we don't get lost and we actually arrive in Makarska at the exact right time. The ferry boat ticket office has just opened, there are spots left for us and our car and another thirty minutes to wait, 
sitting on a newly painted bench at the Marina, catching up on our email with the free citywide WiFi. We watch the boats bobbing and realize that yes, after a week of sailing, we are bobbing and rocking a bit too, but oh so pleasantly.
The hour ferry across the eight kilometers allows us an ever diminishing view of the charming town and harbor against the backdrop of white craggy hills and deep blue sky.
And somehow, even though we just ended a week on a boat, I am happy to be on the water again, feeling the wind and watching the wake.
We arrive in Sumartin, 
an adorable little harbor town and drive another 25 or so kilometers to Bol and the Hotel Bol, where we are welcomed to this newly opened (2 months ago) place with a chilled glass of local wine and shown to our room, as big as six sailboat cabins. With a balcony with a bit of a sea view and a bathroom with a shower you can move in, we know we picked a great spot for a few days at the beach.
We shower and change, walk into town, which had much more to offer than expected. We have a small bite and a bit of wine at a table less than one foot from the water and watch the brightly painted boats bobbing and the small fish swimming in the clear water lighted from the bottom and we already fall in love with Bol.
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