Croatia halts Aussie’s Adriatic crossing
An Australian adventurer attempting a perilous sea crossing to make a point about police states found out the hard way that authoritarianism dies hard in eastern Europe. Shane Braddock, 34, met with yet more official resistance on Tuesday in his bid to kayak from Croatia to Italy across the Adriatic Sea. He was making the 300km crossing from Split to Pescara to highlight the numbers of former Yugoslavian refugees who died attempting the same trip to flee communism. After finally convincing reluctant Croatian police to allow him and fellow adventurer Ray Fusco to leave Split on the dangerous journey, he set out and made it half way before being refused entry into Italian waters.
Acting on security and anti-smuggling laws, the Croatian maritime police intercepted the kayakers shortly after they left the island of Palagruza, and demanded they turn back because they had no permission to leave Croatian waters. “It is all about bureaucracy,” said a bitterly disappointed Braddock.
“The guys in the port authorities here would make the late … communist leaders Tito or Stalin feel proud.”
But the Perth man was not defeated, vowing to attempt the crossing again in a less public manner to escape police scrutiny.
“We did the 75km between (the islands of) Vis and Palagruza fine,” Braddock said.
“I knew we could do it and we’ve proven it.
“Next time we won’t tell the press and we’ll start from Italy and head towards Croatia.
“If we don’t have the publicity they will have no idea what we intend and therefore won’t stop us.”
Mr Braddock, whose mother is of Croatian origin, said some of the of the former country’s old habits needed to change if they wanted to develop
adventure tourism.
source: http://www.theage.com.au , photo: slobodna dalmacija
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