Rogacic Bay

Rogacic Bay lies on the northern coast of the island of Vis, about a thirty-minute walk from Vis Town. It is really two adjoining coves: Parja, the narrower western inlet, and Rogacic proper to the east, with the islet of Skojic sitting off the entrance and taking the worst of the northerly swell. For a bay this close to a town it is remarkably undeveloped — pine and scrub down to the waterline, and nothing ashore but a footpath.

Anchoring in Parja and Rogacic

Parja is the better shelter of the two, protected from every wind except a strong easterly, with a muddy bottom 4 to 10 metres deep that holds anchors well. Rogacic itself is more exposed to the northeastern bura; in settled weather it is the pleasanter of the pair to swim off, but it is not where you want to be when the forecast turns. Both coves are narrow enough that boats often lie to an anchor with a line ashore rather than swinging free, which is also how the bay absorbs a summer evening's worth of arrivals without anyone fouling anyone else.

The Tunnel in the Hillside

On the hillside above Parja the Yugoslav navy cut a tunnel into the rock in 1982, roughly 127 metres long and around 18 metres high. It is often called a "submarine tunnel" locally, though it was built to shelter torpedo boats rather than submarines. There is room inside to moor a couple of 40-foot yachts, free of charge, which makes it one of the stranger berths in the Adriatic.

It made sense at the time. Vis was the most heavily militarised island in the country, with dozens of army installations on it, and it stayed closed to foreign visitors until 1989, the Yugoslav navy keeping a base here to the end of that decade. Four decades as a restricted zone had one lasting upside: Vis was never built over the way the islands closer to Split were, and its coastline still looks much as it did.

Vis Town and the Ruins of Issa

The walk into town is worth doing. Vis Town stands on top of a Greek city — in the 4th century BC Dionysius the Elder, tyrant of Syracuse, founded the colony of Issa here, and it grew into a polis that minted its own coinage and planted colonies of its own along the mainland coast. Roman baths survive near the harbour, the ancient necropolis lay outside the western walls, and the finds — Greek vases, coins and a celebrated bronze head of Artemis — are kept in the Archaeological Museum, housed in Gospina batarija, an Austrian battery built at the start of the 19th century. The Kut quarter along the waterfront still has its cluster of 16th and 17th century noble houses.

The water outside gave its old name, Lissa, to two naval battles. On 13 March 1811 a British squadron under Captain William Hoste beat a larger French force offshore, and on 20 July 1866 the Austrian fleet defeated the Italian navy here, ramming and sinking the ironclad Re d'Italia. In the Second World War the island became the headquarters of Tito's Partisans, with an Allied airfield and RAF squadrons flying from it; the cave he used as a command post is still up on the slopes of Hum.

Around the Island

Vis covers about 90 square kilometres and has roughly 3,300 residents, and its two towns face opposite ways: Vis on the northeast, Komiza on the west, separated by a ridge climbing to 587 metres at Hum. Between them lie the vineyards the island is known for, producing the native whites Vugava and Kurteloska alongside Plavac Mali, and on the south coast is Stiniva, a cove closed off by cliffs with a gap barely wide enough for a tender.

Getting here takes some commitment: it is about thirty nautical miles from Split, two hours and twenty minutes by car ferry or an hour and a half by catamaran, and that distance is a large part of why the island still feels the way it does. Because of its shelter and its odd bit of Cold War history, Rogacic is one of the anchorages you'll visit on a private gulet cruise in Croatia, usually as an overnight stop rather than a lunch call.