2013Lighthouses - Sheetlets

Although the talk is here about one island, the fishermen still call its greater, western part Greater Pločica and its eastern part Smaller Pločica. In winter, just a few meters wide land ridge connecting the two parts of the island is often flooded by waves crashing from both sides. The islet situated six nautical miles south from the island of Hvar and only somewhat shorter is the navigation to the island of Šćedro, in the north-west. The position of the islet was ideal for navigation signalling in the sea corridor which connects the channel of Pelješac and the channel of Korčula. This was also the reason why the Austo-Hungarian Monarchy in the highest, western part of the islet - at that time completely bare - built a lighthouse in 1887. The tamarisk, fig trees and olives were planted later by lighthouse keepers who were there on duty.
The tower with light was installed at the façade of the one-storey lighthouse building whose vast interior measures 165 square meters. The building is surrounded by a large stone yard and its old wall. From the yard and through the autochthonous Mediterranean bushes there is a neatly arranged path leading to the small port in the central part of the north shore of the islet. There, in the only islet’s lee from strong south and western winds, there is a lift for the boat and the boat shed. When the winds would get too strong, the lighthouse keepers would house their boat there - their only connection with the civilization, four miles away at Prigradica, in the north coast of the island of Korčula.
Oral transmissions of the oldest living fishermen in Korčula have reported about once very rich underwater world of Pločica. Once, the lighthouse keepers from Korčula used to pull nets full of red scorpion fishes and dusky groupers. On the islet people were born, have lived and died for generations. There, the lighthouse keepers lived with their families, feeding on caught fish and agricultural products grown in the poor soil of karst sinkholes protected by dry stone walls. In one room of the lighthouse building a child was born when because of inclement weather it was not possible to cross the channel and go to Korčula; in the other room a lighthouse keeper closed his eyes for the last time.
In the central part of the south coast of the Islet there stands a century old stone cross, a memory to the death of a fisherman on the rocks beneath. From the eastern shore of the islet beautiful, unique sunsets can be admired. The sun sinks into the blueness of the horizon, with the silhouette of the century old lighthouse building, wherefrom the light beam directs navigating ships to the left and right from Pločica that dwells alone in the blue vastness.
The lighthouse was restored according to original drafts in autumn 2001, when it was also touristically valorised. In the building there are two renovated comfortable apartments for 14 persons. About the beauties of the tourist offer of Pločica and its underwater world many respectable European and American magazines have published their reports and now these beauties are evidenced also on the stamp.
Neven Šerić, PhD