Our thanks to Mark Chais who sent this update for Ston on 18 July 2010.

It was reported in this cruisers update that anchoring is not allowed in Ston. This is not completely accurate.

We were in Ston last week. As we were attempting to anchor in about 4 meters near the quay, an old man in an undershirt (the harbour master, as it turned out) shouted to us and motioned us away. We decided not to obey him and continued with our anchoring, which took several tries, as the holding on the bottom was extremely poor.

We saw the harbour master sitting on a bench apparently waiting for us, so we came ashore and spoke with him. He spoke no English but did speak German, and fortunately, we had a German speaker with us. He told us that we could anchor there, but that as the holding was so poor, he would not take money from us, and would not be responsible if something happened.

The conclusion that anchoring is not allowed may have stemmed from a language barrier with the harbour master. In any event, anchoring apparently is allowed, however, readers should be aware that they will need to communicate with the harbormaster either in German or Croatian, and that the poor holding constitutes a risk.

By the way, Ston is a lovely little town, very authentic and untouristic, with some striking architecture. If I interpreted the Latin inscription correctly, the town fountain dates from the first century A.D.