Mooring at Lastovo and Ubli: the last address in Croatia.

Captain Ron shore sheet

Warnings first, because that is the job

Lastovo is the last real shelter before 62 nm of nothing on the way to Italy, and it sits exactly where the South Adriatic likes to express itself. On Thursday 18 June 2026 the DHMZ bulletin gave us NW gusts 35 to 40 knots across the South and Central Adriatic plus thunderstorm risk. Call was easy: nobody crosses today. Friday the warning was still live for the far south in the afternoon, so Friday dawn was "usable, not a blind green". Saturday opened at 0 to 7 knots. We went Saturday.

The rule that fell out of it, and it applies to anybody using Lastovo as a jump-off: you do not leave Lastovo on a schedule, you leave it on a forecast. The island is pleasant enough that this costs you nothing except pride.

One more, and this one is the park's own: boats on the official nature park buoys must vacate the moorings if forecast wind exceeds 20 m/s, which is about 39 knots. So the buoy fields are fair-weather infrastructure, not a storm plan. Have a storm plan.

Quick verdict

Ubli is the working port: ferry ramp, the island's fuel station, the nature park head office, the harbourmaster, and a perfectly good place to sit and argue with a weather model. It is not picturesque. The picturesque is elsewhere — Skrivena Luka, Zaklopatica, and the chimney-stacked roofline of Lastovo Town. Come for the logistics, stay because the weather made you, leave slightly reluctant.

Where the boat actually was

On 19 June 2026 our AIS put Everything Zen at 42°45.67'N, 16°49.22'E, about 0.85 nm from the Jadrolinija ferry Korcula lying at Ubli. Captain Ron had pinned the daily weather job to the Ubli area at 42.7460°N, 16.8270°E the day before, which tells you roughly how confident we were about leaving soon.

The AIS neighbours that week read like a small and very patient waiting room: Korcula, Fani, Angel III, Nika I, Celinka, 184 SR, Bonjour, Lei, Madiba. Everybody was staring at the same gust field and pretending to read a book.

Arrival notes: read first

The nature park, in plain English

The Lastovo Islands Nature Park covers the whole archipelago, and the park is explicit that it is prohibited to stay inside the park without a valid ticket or permit. There are two separate charges and people constantly conflate them.

• The entrance ticket. Priced by boat length, sold in 1, 3 and 5 day blocks, with a low season (January to May, October to December) and a high season (June to September). It is cheaper bought on the webshop than bought in the park. For a boat in the 11.00 to 17.99 m band — where Everything Zen sits at 14.3 m — the published one-day rate runs roughly €19 to €36 on the webshop against €23 to €45 in the park, depending on season. Check the official price list for the current year before you budget.
• The mooring fee. Separate, and the park says so in writing: the mooring charge is not included in the ticket. It is paid directly to the rangers when you pick up a buoy. Published rates from April 2024, VAT included and valid until 12:00 the next day: up to 10 m €20, 10.01 to 20 m €40, 20.01 to 30 m €60.
• Buy tickets on the Croatian parks webshop or at the park. The park has at times flagged the webshop as unavailable, so have a fallback and do not leave it to departure morning.
• Park office and contact: +385 20 801 252, head office at Trg sv. Petra 7, 20289 Ubli, with an info point on the waterfront at Obala lastovskih ribara. Both are a short walk from where you tie up.

Honest note: we could not find an official, published island-wide anchoring ban or a no-anchor zone map on the park's own site. What the park does publish is four buoy fields, a rule that mooring is done with ranger assistance, and a ticket requirement. Plenty of secondary sites state free anchoring is banned outright. Treat "use the park buoys" as the strong, sensible default rather than something we can cite chapter and verse for, and ask the rangers on arrival.

The four official park moorings

These are the park's own buoy fields, one buoy per berth, laid as a row with a line ashore. Crew are expected to remain aboard while on the mooring.

The other options ashore and afloat

• Ubli — ferry port, fuel, park HQ, harbourmaster. Our own passage plan listed the jump-off as "Lastovo/Zaklopatica or Ubli" and we took Ubli, for the fuel and for the shelter of a commercial harbour while we waited out the warning.
• Zaklopatica — several konobas run laid moorings and the traditional arrangement is that the berth is free if you eat. Water and power are sometimes offered on request. We cannot verify current policy, counts or prices, so ask on the VHF-free old-fashioned method of turning up early and being polite. In July and August it is reportedly full by around 18:00.
• Skrivena Luka — besides the park buoys there is the Porto Rosso nautical centre pontoon: roughly 30 berths, depths in the 1.5 to 9 m range, water and electricity, contact +385 20 801 261. Maximum length is quoted as 40 m by the tourist board and 60 m by the operator, so confirm with them rather than us.
• Pasadur — Hotel Solitudo has a quay in front of it, generally described as around 30 berths to about 35 m, water and power, seasonal from roughly late April to late October, with fuel about a mile away at Ubli. It is a hotel quay, not a full-service marina. There is no ACI marina on Lastovo.
• Pasadur bridge — we could not confirm the air draft over the channel between Lastovo and Prezba from any official source. Do not assume a masted yacht gets through. Check the chart and the current Plovput notices before planning a transit.

Second honest caveat: we did not personally lie in every one of these. We were at Ubli, working a crossing window. Shelter notes here are a starting point for your own planning, not a substitute for the current chart, pilot and forecast.

Fuel at Ubli

Kev's question on 18 June was, verbatim, "is there a fuel station for the boat on lastavo". There is. The INA station listed as Lastovo is at Obala Lastovskih ribara 5 in Ubli, at roughly 42.7444°N, 16.8247°E, and INA's own listing includes vessels fuel supply along with gas bottles. Diesel available includes the blue marine-taxed eurodiesel.

• INA publishes hours as 07:00 to 21:00, every day, and a station phone of 091 4971 039.
• The island tourist board lists different hours — summer 08:00 to 20:00, winter 08:00 to 12:00 and 17:00 to 20:00. Two official-ish sources, two answers, so phone ahead rather than betting your departure on either.
• We have seen alongside depths quoted for the fuel berth on secondary sites. We could not confirm them and are not going to repeat a number that might put your keel in the mud.

The crossing to Vieste: what actually happened

Lastovo to Vieste came out at 62 nm on our passage plan, the first of three big-respect legs on the Croatia-to-Malta route. Straight-line it is a shade under 60 nm on a bearing around 209°T. Either way there is nothing useful in the middle, and it runs about 11 hours 15 minutes at 5.5 knots.

• Thursday 18 June — no. DHMZ warned NW gusts 35 to 40 knots across the South and Central Adriatic, with thunder risk.
• Friday 19 June — usable at dawn but not a blind green, warning still live for the far south that afternoon. Route gusts mostly under 16 knots, waves 0.2 to 0.3 m.
• Saturday 20 June — the day. Lastovo 0.6 to 4.7 knots gusting 9.9, mid-route 1.8 to 5.9 gusting 8.7, Vieste approach 2.3 to 6.8 gusting 15.2, waves 0.14 to 0.20 m, dry. Both ends classified GO at 93% confidence.
• Lines off 05:00, ETA Vieste about 16:15 to 17:00 at 5.5 knots. The honest note in the forecast was "expect motoring more than sailing". That is precisely what it was.

The pattern worth stealing: choose the arrival time you want at the far end, work backwards to a departure time, then let the weather veto it as many times as it likes. We were vetoed twice and went on the third ask.

Get ashore

Ubli is small and functional. The island's actual charm is up the hill in Lastovo Town, an amphitheatre of stone houses that — unusually and deliberately — faces away from the sea, because for centuries the sea mostly brought people you did not want. Its signature is the fumari, cylindrical 15th and 16th century chimneys that look like a village of miniature minarets. The island runs to 46.87 km² and something under 800 residents, with Hum at 415 m as the high point, and it sits about 13 km south of Korcula, which is far enough to feel like a different country.

• Struga lighthouse, built in 1839, stands about 70 m up on the cliff at the entrance to Skrivena Luka. It takes guests. The walk and the view are worth the effort even if you are not staying.
• Poklad, the Lastovo carnival, runs from 17 January to Ash Wednesday and ends with an effigy sent down a rope from the hilltop into the square and burned. It is on UNESCO's Register of Good Safeguarding Practices, which is a serious credential for a village party.
• The night sky. Lastovo is genuinely dark and the park itself runs stargazing tours. We are not going to claim a formal Dark Sky designation it does not hold, but the difference between this and a marina at 2 a.m. is not subtle.
• Provision with intent. Remote island, small population. The shop will not have your obscure hose clip, and neither will the next one.

Getting crew on and off

Two different operators, which trips people up. Jadrolinija runs the car ferry on line 604, Split to Vela Luka on Korcula to Ubli, year round. TP Line runs the fast catamarans: 9604 links Ubli to Vela Luka, Hvar and Split, while 9807 and 9808 connect Lastovo with Korcula, Mljet and Dubrovnik. If someone is flying into Dubrovnik rather than Split, the TP Line routes are the ones you want. Times and fares move by season, so check the operators rather than a cached screenshot.

Crew missions

Captain Ron bottom line

Ubli is not a destination, it is a decision point, and it is a good one. Buy the park ticket, take fuel on a calm morning, ride the bus up to see the chimneys, then sit on your hands until the South Adriatic stops shouting. We lost two days to a 35 to 40 knot warning and crossed on a glassy Saturday at 05:00 with the engine running. That was not bad luck. That was the plan doing its job. Reef the schedule, not the boat.