The varied colors of the sea are as difficult to recreate in a room as it is for a painter to replicate the movement and shadow, the darkness its depth creates, and the pure lightness of the sun’s rays on the crest of a wave.  Perhaps that’s why I find it so mesmerizing.  Or it could be that it’s the land of the beautiful people.  I mean draw droppingly beautiful.  Young, old, and those closer to my age, they are all fit, tall, and open.  It’s startling, it’s hypnotizing, it’s lovely.

Here in Croatia the sea is crystal clear.  The salt content is so high that algae won’t bother to snuggle into the nocks and cronies of the ocean floor.  Sharks won’t carve a path to this locale, and one can float without much effort at all, baking in the sun like a pancake on a griddle.  Careful now, you will sizzle – it’s that hot, but the water is cool.  So much cooler than the Mediterranean, that if you are like me, you’ll be prone to screech upon entry.  Funny, just a few days later, I’ve acclimated.  I’ve always been highly adaptable, but here it really takes no effort at all.  You just relax into it. 

The textures and colors of Hvar and Croatia in general make for an alluring color palette, a tactile sensation.  Between the deep blue of the sea, more aqua along the coastline, the bleached rocky limestone shore and cliffs, with all their jagged edges, and molten curves, curtesy of the sea’s salty air, and the Bora a fierce wind that kicks up when the cold air of the mountains meets the warm air of the sea, the white stone beaches, the dark green of the scrub pines, the sage of the olive trees, and vineyards (Hvar produces some amazing red wine), the lavender fields, and the pale blue of the sky above – it’s beyond.

The Croatian’s say that it is beauty you get bored of, but it’s this kind of breathless beauty that I would be willing to test their theory on.