Rowan’s spring break is coming to an end, and tomorrow they will rejoin the rest of their cohort for the final month of the semester. In order to have some time to see the town where they have been living, we decided to travel there a day early and stay the night. Lošinj (low-SHEEN) is an island in the Adriatic, fairly large but not connected to the mainland, so the only way to get there with our car is by ferry. The ferry schedule runs every two hours. We had hoped to catch the 11:30 AM sailing after our scenic drive across the southern part of Istria, but when we arrived a little after 11 there was already a long line of cars waiting in line. The incoming ferry discharged 37 cars, and there were nearly 100 ahead of us, so we grimly imagined waiting around for four hours to get on the 3:30 boat.

Fortunately for us, things turned out much better than we had feared. First, it turned out that the incoming ferry had not been completely full, and the true capacity is far more than 37 cars. Second, since there were so many cars waiting in line, the ferry returned right away after making one trip to get the rest. In the end we made it onto an unscheduled 12:30 sailing, having just enough time for a light picnic lunch while waiting.

Rowan has been living in Veli Lošinj, the smaller of two nearby towns in the southern part of the island. Mali Lošinj, the larger of the two, is a short walk away. (Ironically, “veli” means big in Croatian, and “mali” means small — the names once matched the populations, but no longer do.)

We arrived in time for a special treat: at the sea turtle rescue organization that Rowan has been working with, feeding happens daily around 5 PM. We even had a chance to feed some of the turtles ourselves. One of the turtles had to be taken out of her tank while it was cleaned, and Rowan got to put her back in afterwards.

After our turtle visit, we drove to central Veli Lošinj to see the place Rowan currently calls home. When Rowan arrived in February, few stores or restaurants were open in either Veli or Mali, but now with the start of the tourist season, a lot more places are starting to open up.