Kaia's Birthday

Today is Kaia’s birthday so knowing what crawled out of bed yesterday, I decided that music may help start the day.  The kids get woken up by the Stevie Wonder Happy Birthday song, which turns out to be the right move.  Both kids are also very aware that they get to spend the day with Meema and Granddad so it seems to be a lot less painful to get ready.

Today’s boat is even nicer than yesterday's, however the main reason we are on this tour is because Kaia specifically wanted to snorkel around a shipwreck for her birthday.  And once we are on the boat, it is announced we won’t be going to the shipwreck as there are too many boats already, which is really shit.  Unlike yesterday’s tour which consulted the boat first, this company just made the decision and took us elsewhere.  Kaia was so disappointed but I really applaud her for trying to find the positive and got out the masks and went swimming at the beach we had been taken to instead.  It had a pontoon in the middle of the bay so off we went for the kids to do bombs off the pontoon.  The water is so crystal clear and clean, you can see the fish quite far away.  The beach bar also had swings so that was where she stayed while enjoying her forest fruits iced tea.

Next stop is the blue lagoon - turns out there are a bunch of ‘blue lagoons' on various islands, and this one came complete with a private area, and jetty to jump off.  And because Kaia hasn’t seen her grandmother in 2 months, poor Meema gets dragged everywhere.  So in the water she has to get again, Zach and Gareth are already off in the distance with the go pro seeing how deep they can dive.  Kaia is keen for everyone to know there is a giant poo at the bottom of the water and no amount of people telling her it's a sea cucumber can convince her otherwise.

It’s now time for lunch so our last stop on this tour is Trogir, and I can't understand why this place isn’t the “Hvar” of Croatian islands.  It's simply stunning.  Lined with palm trees as you float up to the shore, your boat is parked along the seafront wall and you hop off straight into a line of restaurants and bars.  I have a quiet word with the waiter to see if they have a candle we could use to put on a dessert to celebrate Kaia’s birthday, but I hear nothing back from them.  So along with all things European, I kind of give up and decide that once we get back to Split I'll see what I can find.  As I ask for the bill, a couple of mins later the people I had asked about the candle come out with a small cake and a fireworks candle and all sing happy birthday to Kaia which was pretty awesome.

Back on the boat and headed for Split, the skipper puts on the Stevie Wonder song again and the whole boat sings to Kaia.  I have a picture of this - Kaia loving the attention, and Zach to the side with a full jealousy going on.

After these two intense days on the water, our next two days will be spent doing the boring stuff like school and eating.  We did manage to get to the beach in Stobrec, but just wasn’t as good as the islands.  It's time to pack our bags and get ready for Zagreb.