The spine of Šipan

Leaving the village of Sudurad for our hike back to Sipanska Luka, we wandered between quiet stone houses with their wooden shutters closed. A lone white pair of panties hung on a clothesline outside waving in the breeze (a signal to someone?). As our road climbed the hill outside of town past the remains of several stone villas, decaying since the renaissance, it became closed in by rosemary bushes and olive trees. 

After a picnic on a hillside tiered with olive groves we continued up the pathway, surprising a few people lost in quiet conversations while they picked the olives. Our road, now a rocky mule trail, climbed the ridge that formed the island's spine until we could see the Adriatic in all directions. A narrow sweep of farm fields filled the valley below us and a tiny church sat on top of another of the island's distant peaks.

A rudimentary map posted at the dock that I'd taken a picture of that morning showed our lane looping back down to the main road in the middle of the island's valley, but as we pushed further the thick brush closed in. Finally stopped by an alert, tense dog next to a stone house, we gave up on our route and found our way through overgrown orchards back to the valley floor, and the main road to Sipanska Luka.

Approaching the town in time for the evening ferry, we passed graveyards that had been bare that morning. Now they overflowed with fresh flowers and many of the same people from the morning's ride over. Back at the waterfront, among those waiting for the ferry back to Dubrovnik were chatting locals and cats roaming the piles of fish nets. Amidst the hustle that surrounded the ferry's arrival, a young island girl stopped her cat from boarding by grabbing it awkwardly under her arm. Without protest, the cat fell limp. 

  

  

  

Šipan Island changes gears

There were a few families loaded with bags of gushing flower bouquets on the 45-minute ferry to Sipan Island. It was the eve of All Saint's Day, so apparently there are a lot of ancestors buried there. I'd read that the Elaphiti Islands are the least developed of the islands along the Croatian coast. We chose Sipan for a day trip based on the relative frequency of the ferry this time of year (two trips per day). The flowers and passengers unloaded quickly in Sipanska Luka, one of two small villages on the island, before the ferry departed for the day. A few empty boats bobbed in the sun as the ferry passengers dispersed. The shops around the bay had all closed for the season except for a small store selling ice cream, fishing tackle, and some bottles of wine.

While we waited for the hourly bus to Sudurad on the other end of the island, the end of a movie played out across a gravel parking lot. One by one the main characters, four women in their twenties, dragged a summer's worth of suitcases and duffel bags from a hotel with its curtains and wooden shutters closed. Soon the local heartthrob pulled up on a moped, and they were joined by the wise father figure -a squat hotel manager, who helped them load a car until it sank. They all turned to each other for a long round of farewell hugs and kisses. With the hotel now shut for winter it was easy to see that its staff was now departing after a long summer together. A couple of group photos later and their car scooted off, followed by the moped. Our bus pulled into Sudurad in time to see them all embracing again before one girl dragged her bags onto the waiting ferry there, bound for points further up the coast.

While some locals milled around the dock saying good-byes to the few others getting on the ferry, we found the only open bar/cafe to sit down and catch up with our journals over cappuccinos. Over the next couple of hours, the only activity in Sudurad seemed to be the group of men gossiping in front of the only other store, our waitress who'd get up to change songs on the jukebox, and a busy little cat. This adolescent size-cat went through cycles of climbing onto our laps to take a nap, pushing its nose onto our table, running off to chase something, and clawing its way back onto our laps again to crash.