Croatian open water

IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member

Initially, I thought I'd just write @Niek and ask him. But then I thought there is most probably someone in the MSF who has personal experience. So after a quick search to make sure this thread/question is not already on here, I submit to you the following:

Anyone know which of the many open water swims in Croatia are for slow people? I ask, because a) I cannot tell from their website and b) I've gone down this route before in Cyprus.

On the Croatian Union of Long-distance Swimmers (Hrvatski Savez Daljinskog Plivanja) website there is a very handy calendar (albeit, for 2014). Many swims are listed there, but I cannot tell if these swims will be filled with a bunch of young, fast swimmers or if they'll be filled with those of us wanting a nice few hours on the water competing against ourselves?

The fam and I are looking at traveling to Croatia for 2-3 weeks sometime in July to the beginning of August. If anyone has any personal experience with swimming these events, please let me know! And I thank you in advance.

We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

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Comments

  • suziedodssuziedods Mem​ber

    I don;t have personal experience swimming the events, but I have spent 15 weeks working on a small island ,(Privic Luka )and I do know that what I experienced was a huge water polo base as well as these fabulous ladders, EVERYWHERE, to get in to the water. There is a history of long OWS there and I just LOVED my time there. Very salty, very clear, great food, kind of a combination of Italian/Med and a touch of eastern European.
    That's not really the answer you are looking for but , hey, we swim for food and the experience right? If you think you might be near Sibenik/ Privic Luka, let me know.

    IronMike
  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member
    edited April 2015

    Niek said:

    If interested I can send you a few email contacts I have.

    Thanks @Niek. Yes, please pm me some email contacts.

    Thanks @suziedods!

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • Hey folks.

    First post on this forum.

    So, swimming in the Adriatic (Jadransko morje as it is called here). Let me just say that I am considered local on the croatian coast (Slovenian by nationality :)). All the marathon swims I have done were in Slovenian lakes (Bled, Bohinj), Austrian lakes - Karnten province (Osiacher See, Fakker See) and in Adriatic. As it was stated in previous posts this link : http://www.hsdp.hr/kalendarall2014.html should be your bible. All the contacts are already in the last column. Almost all the swimms have traditional dates (like first saturday in July or similar) except Crikvenica which is held every year on the Virgin Mary (Vela Gospa) day on August 15th. I personally attend only swims that are colored yellow in the table on the link above, meaning that they are organised within CroCup competition where swimmers gather points throughout the year and there is a winner based after the season. Why I mention this - becouse it is a fact that this competitions are on a totally different organisational level that some of the others. Also non crocup competitions sometimes tend to be canceled without prior notice (becouse of weather or something else) while crocup events are always held even in case of rain (except in the case of Bura - cold strong wind from coast towards sea). Please dont take this as something negative, since I was swimming in all kind of events throughout the Adriatic and not even once had a bad experience. This is a personal preference regarding the organisation standards.

    Let me just go through the process: Depending on the event propositions (which sometimes are in english and sometimes not) you have to give an application through the online form and pay in front (so that organisers can prepair tshirts, giftbags, etc) and on the day of the event application is not possible, whereas on some events same day day application and payment is possible. The main race is always a CroCup race where all the young racers are. Amateurs can also be part of this race but their score is not valid for the CroCup competition. I always swimm in this group and I dont regard myself as a fast swimmer (1.45min/100m avg. on marathons). And almost always the organizers prepair some kind of additional amateur swimms (for elderly, families and children) on the days when the course is marked (with buoys or continious ropes with small buoys) on shorter distances or non-fixed start times.

    The thing I like the most in this events is the free food for swimmers after the swim which is marvellous on any of this locations (usually sardines, squid, octopus, fish brodet or gullash with pasta or patatoes).

    @ironmike and anybody else interested in Adriatic open water swimming I would be very happy to help with your application or otherwise (since I am swimming most of them anyways) so dont hesitate sending me a personal message

    evmoaTorrigino
  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member

    @landlord, thanks so much and welcome to the forum. I am definitely interested in talking to you more. I am happy to see that slow swimmers can attend thesel. Frankly, the sound CroCup scared me from even looking at those races. If you read my link to my Cyprus experience, you will know why!

    We have settled on staying on Brac, in Sutivan specifically. I see Omis is right near Split. And if the Supetar swim is before we leave the island (4 Aug), then I'll try and do that one, too.

    My Hrvatski is very rusty (Ucio sam hrvatski prije 18 godina!), thus I will definitely take you up on your offer of help!

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • landlordlandlord Member
    edited April 2015

    @ironmike, please check the link :http://www.hsdp.hr/dokumenti/2014/CRO-CUP/REZULTATI 10 km.pdf . You can see the results for OMIŠ 10km race here. Proposition for this competition states that only 50 swimmers can start - if this happens all outsiders without offical licence (meaning croatian citizens) cannot attend. But this never happened (27 swimmers in 2014, around 30 all other years) and even if it did - the way things function I think you could definetly start with the group but might not get the braclet for the time monitoring.

  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member

    Wow, hvala vam puno, @landlord. Appreciate that. More to follow as it gets closer!

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member

    Looks like the Croatian Long distance Swimming Union updated their CROCUP calendar. Hoping they'll update their 2015 calendar for the non-CROCUP swims soon.

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member

    I signed up for a 5k on 25 July not too far from Split. And I'm looking at a 5k on 19 July (day after we arrive) and a 10K on 1 August.

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member

    Yep, that's the one @Niek. The 5K I signed up for is the Raslina 5K on 25 July.

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • Leonard_JansenLeonard_Jansen Charter Member

    Wow! I am green with envy. I had a look at pictures from all those areas and they all seem like gorgeous places to swim and just beautiful places to be in general.

    -LBJ

    “Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” - Oscar Wilde

  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member

    Leonard_Jansen said:
    Wow! I am green with envy. I had a look at pictures from all those areas and they all seem like gorgeous places to swim and just beautiful places to be in general.

    -LBJ

    I'll take lots of pictures!

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member

    MSF in da houzz!

    grappledunkLeonard_Jansen

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member

    Just did the Raslina 5K yesterday. Brilliant swim and wonderful volunteers and organizers. Full write up at my blog.

    Two thumbs up and can definitely recommend this swim if you're in the area.

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

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