Sail through St Anthony’s Channel, a narrow, cliff-lined waterway which leads from the bay of Sibenik out into the open sea to the island of Prvic.  At the far end of the channel lies the sixteenth century St Nicholas’ Fortress, a monumental triangular gun battery placed here by Venetian engineers to keep enemy shipping away from Sibenik’s port. The island of Prvic is surrounded by crystal clear waters.

There is no mass tourism here and the island’s few small fishing villages do a good job of catering for the few independent travellers and weekending Croatians that make their way here to enjoy the peace and quiet. Prvic Luka is the main settlement on the island of Prvic. There’s a sleepy air about the village, which has some imposing historic buildings.

The parish church has an eccentric collection of Baroque alter-pieces and there’s a museum devoted to the work of local hero Faust Vrancic, humanist and all-round brain-box, displaying models of the contraptions (suspension bridges, parachutes, wind-powered flour mills with rotating roofs – that kind of thing!) that he dreamt up in his book of inventions, Machinae Novae. The best beach on the island is at Sepurine, an attractive and beautifully preserved fishing village spread beneath a mushroom-topped church tower. The beach is a wonderful curvaceous bend of shingle stretching south from the village.