Spinning in Paradise - Jelsa, Croatia

"Pomalo!"

The Croatian term for "take it easy" or "chill out, dude" was a perfect summation of our week of true paradise on the Croatian island of Hvar. Since we knew we would be traveling for a while before the World Ultimate Club Championships, we thought we would try to find opportunities to play/coach while we were traveling the continent. Our friend Brummie from GB, famous from such blahg posts as "Cheerio, Mate!" in July of 2010, told us about an opportunity to coach a weekend of skills clinic in Croatia, so naturally we jumped on it. 

It turned out to be an absolutely incredible week of new friends and old flames. New friends because the people at the weekend clinic were amazing people from all over the world. Turkey, Australia, Italy, Germany, Croatia, Slovenia, Canada, GB, France, and the US were all represented in the pool of players. These people were kind, funny, talented, eager to improve, intelligent, interesting, fun to be around, and they love Ultimate SO MUCH. It was a true time warp back to our roots in the sport, a reminder of one of the main reasons we fell in love with the sport (the community), and a perfect way to begin to wind down a 14-year period where Ultimate dominated and dictated our calendar, decisions, destinations, and life goals. It was a tremendous gift to be surrounded by the collective enthusiasm and joy for the sport that brought Mike and I together and shaped our lives for so long. 

The coaching crew (Mike, me, Holly, and Brummie) and Vinko, the man with the vision and ambition to put this incredible endeavor together. 

Clinic crew plus some early tourney arrivals: Martje, Zan, Levke, Baris, Sev, Brummie, Nejc, Marko, Mafia Marco, Gerard, Zoltan, Mike, Carly, Sofie, Spela, Paul, Adam, Callum, Vinko, and Holly (less Jaka, behind the camera, and Ofolko and Ricky). An amazing group of people!

We woke up early to work out before training, then had a three hour training in the morning from 9-12, then hit the beach or mountains for 6 hours, then came back for another night time training from 6-9, then hung out at night. 

Mina Beach.  Another amazing shallow bay to play picigin and frisbee.  This was our daily hangout spot during the clinic.  Frisbee, Beach, Frisbee, Shower, Eat, Party...REPEAT!

Plenty of room to lounge and take a nap when you grew tired of the water.

More and more players rolled into camp throughout the weekend for the Hat tournament.  This is the final crew.

View of Jelsa, the city where the clinic was held. It was a 5 minute walk from town up a mountain to the fields/gym where the clinic/tournament was located. People camped in tents behind the handball gym, and we slept dorm style on gym mats on the floor.

Our snorkeling gang post swim and cliff jumping (from the left: Sev, Martje, Zoltan, Levke, Sion, Holly, Paul, Cara, Mike). Brummie caught some footage of the cliff jumping and snorkeling on his GoPro...can't wait to see it!

View of Hvar City from the castle atop the hill. Hvar City was beautiful, but packed with tourists, where as Jelsa was as beautiful and almost empty. After a day of snorkeling and cliff diving, we borrowed Barbara's (awesome Swiss player) car and explored the rest of Hvar island by car. 

Hvar city harbor

Prom pic! Beautiful Jelsa harbor 

Texas frisbee friends have arrived! The last day we were there, Charlie, Walch, and Edith came to chill on Hvar and take our place for the tourney. 

Sorry about the earlier picture Brummie.  Here is the most flattering picture of you we could find.  Peka!!! What seemed to be a whole roasted goat in a huge pan with roasted potatoes and onions. It was incredible. Let's make it a goal to share another meal as amazing as this in the future.

Huge hvala to Vinko for putting this amazing week together for the love of the game. And thanks to everyone at the clinic for the amazing times!