Water sports enthusiasts whose boats and yachts are based in Tisno on the Croatian island of Murter can breathe a sigh of relief: the bascule bridge that connects the island with the mainland has changed its opening hours again and will now also open in the mornings. Here are the current opening hours, which will be valid from June 2022: Daily mornings from 9:00 h to 9:20 h and from 18:00 h to 18:20 h, as announced by Tourism Organization Visit Tisno.
Opening hours bridge Tisno long “bone of contention”
The opening hours had already become something of a bone of contention between Croatian authorities and a large number of water sports enthusiasts whose boats and yachts have moorings behind the bridge in July 2020, as SeaHelp reported at the time. They had to take a morning detour of 13.5 nautical miles to get to their ancestral moorings in the bays of the island of Murter. Only on the return trip they could use the shortcut through the bridge.
Faithful guests felt alienated
Boat and yacht owners with moorings in the protected area of Tisno behind the bridge were not upset without reason, as they have been among the most loyal guests of the place for decades and it is rumored that moorings in the area are allegedly even inherited…!
Also SeaHelp intervened
SeaHelp intervened at the time with the relevant authorities and mediated a conversation between the person in charge of the local authority and the boat and yacht owners with the result that they wanted to take care of the situation and showed understanding for the anger of the water sports enthusiasts. They said that the responsibility for keeping the bridge closed in the morning lay with the higher authority in Sibenik, and that they were worried that the traffic that was jammed in front of the bridge with the engine on (because of the air conditioning) would pollute the environment too much. In addition, this was to unduly hinder delivery traffic to the island of Murter.
Compromise for bridge opening hours
The bridge remained closed in the mornings of 2021, but in the meantime several Croatian water sports organizations in Croatia increased the pressure on the responsible authority until it finally relented. From June 2022, the bridge will be open for 20 minutes in the morning and evening instead of 30 minutes as before. A compromise that the water sports enthusiasts in Tisno and the authority responsible for traffic matters in Sibenik can obviously live with.
New Tisno bridge opening hours reasonable
A SeaHelp member who has spent much of the summer in the region Tisno, expressly welcomed this regulation and is pleased that with this reasonable solution the concerns of the most loyal tourists of the island of Murter and the village of Tisno have been taken into account. However: this solution could have been had earlier, because exactly this compromise was already discussed in detail in 2020 at the meeting with the representatives of the authorities.