Fish Picnic

One magical day in Trogir, we go for a "Fish Picnic" which is what they call a day spent on a boat, cruising around the islands, in the Adriatic, with a picnic lunch of fish.  It's large, fresh grilled sardines, with the bones still in.  The girls think the taste is OK, but hate picking out the spines, which makes sense if you're used to salmon steaks from a grocery store.  There is also the ubiquitous Croatia salad: lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and something like a cole slaw/sauerkraut hybrid.  Let's call it sauerslaw.  It's not the most exciting salad, but at least it's vegetables.  Naturally, the kids try their best to avoid it. 

 

But it's not the picnic that's magical, it's the scenery.  Specifically, the water.  We are first dropped off for an hour or so at the beach of one of the islands close to Trogir.  The beach itself is, like virtually all Croatian beaches, not what we think of as a sand beach.  Rather, it's the idea of a beach: any place the water touches the land, it's a beach!  Even if, like here, it's made up of rather large pebbles.  Some would call them rocks.  Once you can get your tootsies past all the ouchiness, the water is bath temperature, calm, and crystal clear.  It's salty enough that I float pretty much vertically (internal marbled fat?  NFDs -- Natural Flotation Devices?), and I can clearly see my pedicured nail polish.  When I say crystal clear, I mean like a swimming pool.  Only better.  We spend most of our time on a trampoline docked out in deeper water, jumping, flipping, and diving, then scrambling back up and doing it again.

 

But the best part of Fish Picnic day is after lunch, when they anchor the boat out in water that is perfectly calm, warm, and azure.  We are allowed to jump off of the roof of the boat, probably 15 down into the water.  The girls cannot get enough of this, of course.  There is a moment when everybody is getting tired and has stopped jumping, they are all back on the boat, and I take a while just to swim out alone in the water.  I have the sun on my face, and I am utterly conscious of what a perfect moment and perfect day this is.