June the 17th, 2023 – Domagoj Jakopović Ribafish’s previously announced RokPoluotok is set to begin in just a few days. Here’s more on what you can expect.
Preluk near Rijeka is the first stop on the upcoming swimming adventure of swimming around the Istrian peninsula. It was arranged over two summers by geography professor and food blogger Domagoj Jakopović Ribafish, and this commendable project had its preview in Plomin Luka.
The continuation of the project #RokOtok, of the eponymous Association and Ribafish, RokPoluotok – swimming around the Istrian peninsula, will begin on Sunday, June the 23rd at 18:00 on the beach in Preluk. It will kick things off with a a two-hundred-metre swim. In addition to educational workshops, socialising with children and adults, as well as numerous nature clean-up activities and interesting games, an average of five kilometres a day will be swum with visits to 12 beaches until this year’s final goal on July the 17th, namely swimming to: Preluk, Lovran, Mošćenička Draga, Brseč, Plomin Luka, Rabac, Sveta Marina, Tunarica, Ližnjan, Medulin, Premantura and Pula.
The “rehearsal” for the RokPoluotok adventure was held in Plomin Port, where about sixty hard-working people from the wider area joined in and cleaned the sea, the coast and the beaches by collecting containers full of waste. In a few hours of said action, more than ten car tyres, a couple of discarded pallets, a pile of broken up styrofoam boxes, fishing equipment, nylon, as well as clothes, shoes and classic cans, bottles, paper and bags of all kinds were removed from the environment. The youngest cleaners also went in search of hidden treasures, that is, the world-famous game for nature lovers – Geocaching, and in the end they did something good for the sea in their beach by throwing out EM Bio balls.
Ariana Brnetić, the director of the Kršan Municipality Tourist Board, otherwise the organiser of the action, concluded the following: “Every year we have at least two large actions to clean up Plomin Luka. We’re very satisfied with the response of local people, as well as those who came to our beach to do this for the first time. The most important thing is that the children had fun and were happy, and that they learned something useful about waste disposal and the ways in which we should deal with harmful plastic. We’re looking forward to swimming and the next RokOtok visit in Plomin Luka on Friday, June the 28th!”
Project #RokPoluotok – swimming around the Istrian peninsula – 2024-2025
Domagoj Jakopović Ribafish, a well-known Croatian food blogger, leader and professor of geography in hiatus, took a break after swimming to all of Croatia’s inhabited islands in the period from 2019 to 2022. Now refreshed and hungry for a new challenged, he started a new campaign in which he’ll try to swim as much of the Istrian peninsula, otherwise Croatia’s largest, over the course of two years.
The swimming will be divided into two seasons, i.e. the summers of 2024 and 2025. Next summer, he will swim from Pula to Savudrija. As it is a geographical and not a geopolitical project, the swimming will include both Istria County and part of the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County. It’s important to emphasise that these are large stretches of open water, exclusively for professional swimmers accompanied by a boat, so swimming with children as part of RokPoluotok will only be organised on the beaches.
Over about a hundred kilometres in 24 days of swimming, Ribafish and other professional swimmers will visit the most beautiful beaches of Primorje, Kvarner and Istria through 18 sections and hold 12 interesting workshops with an emphasis on ecology, nature protection and the preservation of our only planet – Earth. They will also organise a search for hidden treasures, geocaches hunts, and carry out actions to clean the beaches and the environment. In certain locations, they will also clean the sea and engage in reforestation.
Every child who comes to the workshop will receive fun and educational gifts that, like the start of the RokPoluotok project itself, were made possible by sponsors Sport Vision Croatia, Raiffeisen Bank Croatia, Hyundai, the Croatian National Tourist Board, Kaufland Croatia, Fina, JGL, Rio Mare, UHU, Lareto Food, as well as donors White Shark, Speedo Croatia, Geocaching Croatia, Offset.hr, Projekt O2, Fish Clash, EM®, and Doppelherz Croatia.
The message the RokPoluotok project wants to send out is that both children and adults need to engage in more quality socialising and time spent in and with nature. Through lectures, workshops and socialising on the beaches, they will try to spend a few hours outdoors playing and having fun with the intention of proving to everyone that everything is better when there is balance and when more time is spent in the fresh air instead of in front of screens.
the rokotok project has already received plenty of awards
RokOtok has already received numerous awards, it was declared the most beautiful story of the summer of 2019. Domagoj Jakopović Ribafish received plenty of recognition for this praiseworthy project, including those of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure, Local Hero and Ponos Hrvatske (Pride of Croatia). During the cold part of the year, with the Cleaning Bears Association, hundreds of environmental cleaning actions were carried out, including the now legendary Čikolov, where people clean up a huge amount of non-degradable cigarette butts.
“Come and hang out, swim, walk and let’s all spend less time in front of our screens and more outside in nature. Let’s do something nice for a better world around us, see you this summer from June the 23rd to July the 17th as part of the RokPoluotok project, and swimming around the Istrian peninsula!”
You can find the timetable and schedule of events below:
