TThe sound of a crying baby echoes in the night sky. It seems to be coming from an uninhabited islet called Zaklopatica, which faces our holiday rental in Lastovo. “Do you believe that’s bird?” I ask my husband. “At this hour of the night?” “I doubt it,” he replies.
In a few days, we were in a motorboat with a park ranger bumping through the vast Lastovo Archipelago. The archipelago’s 46 islands, including the main island of Lastovo, islets and coral reefs were all photographed. declared a nature park in 2006. By luck, I’m with the ornithologist whose discovery of the nesting sites of some of the Mediterranean’s most endangered birds – yelkouan and Scopoli’s shearwaters – was instrumental in Lastovo getting the official protection it deserves.
Between Robert Crnković, a retired army officer turned full-time ornithologist who surveys the birds here several times a year, and Alexandra Horvat, Lastovo nature park’s head ranger, I’m getting a crash course in the region’s birdlife and biodiversity. Robert points our right. “Oh look – shearwaters! You can see that they are smelling the water. “They’re looking for food.” He tells me that yelkouan, Scopoli and Scopoli shearwaters nest on an island in my view. “Maybe at night you can hear them calling like a baby crying … “
It’s a mystery solved. Here on one of Croatia’s most remote inhabited islands – next stop, Italy – I am uncovering Lastovo’s secrets. Time slows down on that terrace as I watch life go by in Zaklopatica Bay – fishers cleaning their catches, older ladies chortling after a boozy lunch, young boys driving and mooring their boats. As I leap into the crystal clear water, the steps and ladders along the quayside transform the bay into a huge swimming pool. On the horizon is bigger, busier Korčula.
Zaklopatica Bay is sheltered by the wooded cliffs of the northern coast and an island inhabited by shearwaters. Three restaurants along the waterside cater to yachting tourists.
The “ecological docking” system, which uses buoys rather than anchors to protect marine ecosystems and the posidonia grass, is one of the measures taken. Boats also need to have an entry ticket in order to enter the archipelago. Rangers are on hand to check for illegal diving and fishing, and maintain 200km of hiking and footpaths.
Lastovo has a fragile nature. It is in danger of becoming like the overdeveloped islands and coast of Croatia. Even though it is a natural park, some people are worried that things may change. Diana Magdić in the tourist office worries the protection may not be enough, and estimates that Lastovo has about 10 years before unscrupulous developers exhaust other areas and try to do the same here.
For the time being, the island has remained pristine. Lastovo town lies a few hundred metres inland from the coast – this distance was useful centuries ago, when marauding pirates brought violence and fear to locals’ lives. The 15th- and sixteenth-century stone homes with colourful shutters are surrounded by vineyards, market gardens, olive groves and orchards.
A squiggling road leads us downhill from the village to pretty Lučica Bay, where fishers’ cottages squeeze around a bay too narrow for anything bigger than a dinghy. At compact Konoba Lučica, we sit at one of the restaurant’s two outside tables with a romantic sea view. We dine on grilled squid served by owner-chef Ante Kovačev, who fell in love with this spot after being stranded here on a sailing trip and left his home in Šibenik to set up this enchanting pint-sized place.
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Skrivena Luka is a calm harbour that lies on the south coast. It’s a huge peninsula with scrub-covered cliffs. We find Porto RossoThe restaurant is a nautical centre with many terraces that overlook a beach shaded by pine trees. The summer season is still a few months away, but we’re enjoying a relaxing afternoon after a delicious seafood risotto. The afternoon is spent in complete relaxation, gazing out at the sea or swimming in clear waters.
Lastovo is like this. When we decamp from Zaklopatica and cross the little bridge to Prežba, the archipelago’s only other inhabited island, I immediately fall in love with the huge flower-filled terrace in our roomy apartment overlooking Malo Lago Bay in tiny Pasadur village. The calm bay, surrounded by trees, looks less yachtie and more channel-like than Zaklopatica. My husband is warned, “You will have to drag from here.”
Pine-shaded coves are tucked into Prežba’s indented coast, also pockmarked by old naval tunnels and bunkers from the days before 1988, when Lastovo was a military base and closed to tourists. The beaches are calling, but we’re again tempted by the easy access to the clear waters of the quayside.
Lastovo is five hours away from Split by two ferries and three hours away from Dubrovnik on a catamaran (you’ll be reliant on an island minivan bus). The trip is not for everyone, especially if you are a drunk partygoer from Hvar.
Diana, the woman in charge of the tourist information, is originally from Zagreb. Lastovo reminds her of Yugoslavia during 1980s, “when each tourist was treated as a guest and a friend”. Lastovo has just gained a new friend.
Studios in Apartments Marija in Zaklopatica from £60 a night (minimum two-night stay). Studios in Villa Agata Pasadur from £64 a night. Ferries departing from Split to Ubli and LastovoRun three times per day JadrolinijaCatamarans for passengers only run Every day, from Dubrovnik to Ubli by TP Line
