Towards the end of our stay in Croatia, the entire study abroad group was scheduled for a boat ride in the Adriatic Sea. It was supposed to be our last group activity in Croatia before we left for Italy, where we would spend the remainder of our trip. The Croatian coast is absolutely stunning, so I was very excited about the ride. Unfortunately, we received news the day of the scheduled ride that the captain had to cancel it because the waves were too rough. The cancellation was especially demoralizing because we were also unable to go on our kayak ride in Dubrovnik a week earlier due to events outside of our control.
After we got the unfortunate message from our professor, a few guys and I decided to go for a walk along the coast and try to figure out something to do to instead of the ride. On our walk, we noticed an abandoned row boat on the grass near the shore that had obviously not been touched in years. It almost seemed like a divine message, so we began to prepare the boat for the water. It was flooded with about five gallons of water, so we first had to empty it out with a bucket. Then, we pushed the vessel into the water and had to squeeze it under a small bridge. Finally, equipped with one paddle and a bucket, we began to row out to sea.
Initially, we were very excited and paddled until we were a decent distance from the coast. However, we soon began to fear that our singular paddle would not be sufficient to bring us back to the shore, and the people with their phones on them were not too excited about having to possibly swim back. So, we began to frantically paddle back with our hands, bucket, and paddle until we made it all the way back. We put the boat back where we found it and were satisfied with our little voyage. Although the adventure may not seem very exciting from an outside perspective, it was easily one of the most memorable events from the trip.
