01/07/2025
IN THE VICINITY OF VERUDA ISLAND
Protected from the bora and jugo winds, Soline Bay has always been a perfect refuge for sailors. It is one of the safest bays in the entire Adriatic. The bay is tourist-valued and primarily intended for mooring vessels to buoys.
In the Roman and then in the Venetian times, when sea routes were the arteries of the entire trade, the entry of ships into the port of P**a first had to meet health surveillance and anti-epidemic measures. In this regard, for ships that sailed from the ports of the Levant, Boka Kotorska, Dalmatia and the islands to Istrian towns and further to Venice, on the neighbouring P**a island of Veruda (today
'known as the Friar's Island), by the Venetian Senate decision of 1690,
- a monitoring station was established. During the 18th century, a hospice, which also served as a sanitary house (Casello di sanità) and was managed by the abbot, was situated on the island. Without his inspection of passes and the issuance of a certificate (Pedi di sanità), ships were not allowed to sail into P**a, where seafarers and merchants could be supplied with food, nor to any other Istrian ports.
Shipwrecks were known to happen outside the gentle bay due to bad weather or human factors. One of the better known occurred near the island of Veruda in the late 16th century. A recent archaeological research indicated it was a merchant ship carrying a large amount of metal, most likely robbed and set on fire by the Uskok pirates in 1597.