By Drake Nanda

Let’s play a waterfront game called Good Idea/Bad Idea. The concept is simple; a situation is presented and you, the reader, get to make the call. In certain situations, this not-so-portentous port-obsessed author will help with a questioning hint. For example, the managers of the Port of San Francisco might say, "Let’s steer a course toward bankruptcy while our facilities crumble in disrepair! Bad idea? Bingo! You get the picture, now let’s play!

Take yourself back to the fall of 1991. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is breaking apart despite the best, if violent, racist, and criminal, efforts of the central government in Belgrade. But instead of holding the country together, the real intention is to create a greater Serbian nation with Serbia proper and portions of the states that are falling away. To this end, the Jugoslav National Army, known as the JNA, a modern military force that was built to ward off an attack from the Soviet Union, is being used against impromptu militias and civilian police departments in Croatia. Now for our Good Idea/Bad Idea situation. A small, historic port town on the Adriatic called Dubrovnik has been encircled by Serb irregulars and the JNA by land and by sea, although it has no military significance. Nevertheless, its civilian residents are the ungrateful recipients of daily mortar and rocket attacks, which eventually kill hundreds. Water and power are cut. Townspeople are cringing in their basements. Meanwhile, what amounts to a bunch of Serb rednecks, backed by the powerful JNA, are blasting away at the highfalutin architecture that made the town famous, and (brace yourself) sinking every yacht in the harbor with anti-tank missiles. Just then, someone comes up with an idea to break the siege. Let’s run the naval blockade with an unarmed and very slow car ferry! Bad idea? Wait a minute. Before you answer, let’s throw in a rag-tag armada of sailboats, fishing trawlers island hoppers. Good idea? Maybe you should wait to see how it turns out.

As the convoy of boats led by the lovable car ferry, the Slavija I, creep towards Dubrovnik with a full cargo of reporters and Croatian dignitaries, JNA gunboats position themselves for a naval encounter. Now, you may ask yourself, why would people put themselves in harm’s way without any chance of defending themselves? Something is missing. It’s worth pausing here to consider alcohol as a motif in the Balkan wars of the late twentieth century. It’s not accurate to say that all South Slavs, or Yugoslavs, drink a lot. But it is accurate to say that quite a few working-class men start the day with a shot or two of plum brandy. Not that they need it; it’s just as a quick bracer to start the motor in the morning. Note that when Serbs living in Croatia broke away to become part of greater Serbia, it was dubbed "The Revolution of the Logs" because Serb villagers would roll logs across the roads creating check points where they would hang out with their guns, get drunk, and shoot up folks who didn’t share their own political perspective. In addition, it was always considered safest to travel through unsafe areas early in the morning as the snipers were either sleeping it off or getting it on. One can see how the stresses of war translate easily to stresses of the liver. Let’s get good and liquored up at the car ferry bar before we run the blockade. Not too Bad of an idea?

Now, back to the action: The gunboats are lining up to stop the Slavija I by threat or by sending her to the bottom, and the indignant dignitaries onboard are becoming increasingly courageous thanks to supplements of liquid courage. Just then, as Laura Silber and Allan Little describe in their book, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, a twist of bureaucratic fate wins out. Recall that Yugoslavia was a federation, much like the United States, except that a representative of each state sat on a council that shared the presidency of the federation on a rotating basis. At this moment, Stipe Mesic (pronounced: Steep-eh) of Croatia was the leader of the federation, as well as one of the dignitaries on the car ferry. Although at this point, Stipe’s authority was wholly titular, especially considering that the national army was engaged in combat operations with the current president’s home state, it was enough to confuse the Serb skippers of the warships.

The commanders of the JNA gunboats, with canon trained on the Slavija I, ordered her to turn around or be fired upon. Everyone knew that the JNA was not afraid to attack unarmed civilians. Stipe answered the ultimatum with one of his own. "I am your Supreme Commander," he bellowed over the radio, "and I defy you to sink this ship!" The JNA was ostensibly trying to hold the federation together, so how could they refuse an order from their Commander-in-chief? Let’s out-drink our adversaries and employ bureaucratic loopholes to avoid death! Risky, and not such a Good idea, but what the hell, I’ll drink to that.

In the end, the car ferry was allowed to pass after an inspection for weapons. She was docked in Dubrovnik for 12 hours, delivering nothing besides a few hungover celebrities badly in need of a shower. The siege of Dubrovnik lingered for another six months, and then ended as the JNA turned its attention to the new war opening in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Let’s catch the next ferry for Italy! Great idea?

Dubrovnik, Croatia, you can get there from the San Francisco Bay in just 38 days traveling at 10 knots, only 8,986 miles away.