Where are we? The waterway crossing looks the same everywhere: mandarin trees on the right, mandarin trees on the left. Mandarin trees in front and behind. Where to steer the boat? We don't have a chart, compass or GPS on board. I look for the evening sun. As if in mockery, a wall of clouds pushes in front of it and sends cold gusts over the subtropical jungle. Our lađa (pronounced ladscha) is a traditional wooden boat with an outboard motor. We have a smaller lađa in tow, fully loaded with mandarins.
Gusts drive our tow into the reeds. No signs point the way through the labyrinth of tens of kilometres of waterways with hundreds of small islands. Mandarin trees are everywhere. The orange-coloured splendour of ripe fruit shines as far as the eye can see. If we can't find our way out of the maze, at least we won't starve.
What use are harvesters with boats full of mandarins if they are unable to sail the fruit to the collection point? I stand on the bench in the boat. No chance of seeing across the sea of millions of mandarin trees. Seabirds fly overhead. On the shore, croaking frogs make fun of the disorientated boaters.
More information? You can find the Croatia Journal with many more pictures in BOOTE issue 06/2021 from 19.05.2021 at newsstands or online at Delius Klasing Shop.
The sweet scent of freshly harvested fruit hangs in the air. I feel transported to an exotic region in South East Asia. The climate, the wild animals, the exotic fruit - it can only be in Asia! But no, mandarins are not harvested by boat in Vietnam or Malaysia, but in the EU. But most EU citizens don't realise this because these delicious mandarins, which aren't really mandarins at all - more on this later - are (almost) nowhere to be found in the EU.
We switch off the outboard motor, listen to the frogs and eat mandarins. What else! I call out to the frogs: "You'll stop croaking today. In the evening, we'll have frog pan!"
We hear an outboard motor. Is that our tangerine farmer looking for us? The sound comes closer, disappears, comes closer again. Yes, he will find us. As the sun sets, it quickly gets cold and dark. I transmit our location to the farmer by mobile phone so that he can "rescue" us more quickly.
The Neretva Delta in southern Croatia is the only area in the world where mandarins are harvested by boat. With an area of 120 square kilometres, the delta is roughly the size of the Müritz in Mecklenburg. As early as 1881, the fringes of the marshland were made usable for agriculture through melioration. The first mandarin trees arrived in the Neretva Delta in 1933 as a gift from the Japanese consul to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
To the astonishment of the local farmers and the Japanese guests, the small trees rooted in the mud of the river developed so splendidly that they bore much more and much larger fruit than in Asia. Above all, the mandarins from the delta were incomparably more flavoursome and juicier than those from Japan.
The central part of the Neretva Delta could not be used for agriculture, hunting or fishing until the 1950s, as the malaria mosquito was widespread there. After the Second World War, the communist head of state Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980) had large parts of the Neretva Delta drained with technical assistance from the Soviet Union. This was partly to eradicate malaria and partly to provide farmers from neighbouring villages with fields for growing vegetables through melioration.
More information? You can find the Croatia Journal with many more pictures in BOOTE issue 06/2021 from 19.05.2021 at newsstands or online at Delius Klasing Shop.
Modern machinery was used to dredge hundreds of kilometres of canals that could be navigated by boats and small ships. In between, hundreds of small rectangular islands were created, most of which were originally accessible by boat. Tito's plan for the vegetable fields was only partially successful. The Neretva farmers multiplied the Japanese mandarins. Today, there are more than 2.5 million of these trees in the delta, displaying their orange-coloured splendour at harvest time from September to November.
The Neretva mandarin is seedless, has a thin peel that is easy to remove and has a fruit juice content of 52 per cent in the Delta. And it tastes so incredibly delicious that you will never want to eat another mandarin again. Strictly speaking, it is not a mandarin at all, but a citrus tree called Satsuma (Citrus unshiu) grown in southern Japan for ornamental purposes and is not identical to a mandarin (Citrus reticulata).
The sound of the outboard motor comes closer. Farmer Vedran Jurinovic shoots out of the thicket from a fork in the road that we didn't even see. He gives a short signal for us to follow him. He leads us criss-cross through the reed thicket. Mandarins hang everywhere over the waterways so that you can grab them from the boat. We cross a river, then an open lake and can already see Vedran's delta house in the jungle.
We load the freshly harvested fruit into fruit crates. Some of it will be sold on the market, some will be pressed into juice. Vedran's family heritage consists of 50,000 mandarin trees, most of which are on islands and have to be harvested by boat. As more and more permanent roads have been built in the delta in recent years, only around 20 per cent of the trees are now harvested by boat. However, this way of harvesting mandarins is an unforgettable experience.
More information? You can find the Croatia Journal with many more pictures in BOOTE issue 06/2021 from 19.05.2021 at newsstands or online at Delius Klasing Shop.
The idea of tourists travelling through the delta on chartered boats is still new. Vedran invites us onto his terrace. He takes the peka out of the fire and opens the iron casserole. A delicious aroma wafts over the reeds. When I see the contents of the peka, the corners of my mouth pull down. It's not lamb or fish swimming in the gravy, but hundreds of frogs. But contrary to expectations, the frog peka also tastes delicious.
Vedran, who is actually a fitness trainer, is the first to organise guided boat trips through the delta. If you want to get to know an area of Europe that is still completely unknown to tourists, you should contact him: +385-95-888 54 78, www.exploreneretva.com.
Trips with a fast RIB through the main routes of the delta are organised by the sailboat charter company www.plocesailing.com.
The Konoba Neretvanska kuća ("Neretva House"), which can only be reached by boat, is located in the centre of the delta: http://neretvanska-kuca.com.
