The Municipal Court in Dubrovnik fined a 44-year-old captain from Kaštela 100 euros for disturbing public order, after almost two years of court proceedings initiated after a summer night in a cove near Pelješac.
The night on the Tvrdi started quietly in July 2023. The captain deliberately anchored the ship in the Lokve cove near Pomena, thinking that in an uninhabited area he could allow guests to play music after 10:30 p.m.
"I went to that small cove because the guests expressed a desire to play music. I thought there were no houses nearby, so the rule about music until 10:30 PM didn't apply," he explained in a statement taken in Kaštel Sućurac.
At around 1.22am, the police tried to warn the crew by flashing a blue rotating light on the shore. The music was silenced for half an hour, but at 2.15am it thundered again across the quiet bay. The locals began calling the Ston Police Station, until at around 2.45am an official vessel from the Dubrovnik Maritime Police Station arrived in a dinghy and boarded the ship.
"I didn't notice that it was a police vehicle because otherwise I would have turned off the music immediately. The guests were playing the music themselves, I couldn't influence whether they would turn it off," the resident of Kaštelan defended himself. He added that he felt "very bad" that the police had to come by rubber boat from Ston in the middle of the night.
The court accepted as mitigating circumstances his confession, the fact that no serious consequences occurred, and the circumstances that led to the offense. Instead of the prescribed 300 to 2.000 euros, the captain was fined 100 euros, the lowest possible with the application of the mitigation principle. The verdict becomes final if no appeal is filed within eight days.
After this experience, the captain changed his approach and no longer anchors the ship in uninhabited bays, but exclusively in the port "because it's easier for him" due to the need to supervise the guests.
Photo: Canva/creative
