How to write about something if all of it, but really all, was and is utterly perfect? Does it make any sense at all to go in for something like that? Even fairy tales have entanglements but this time, really, believe me, everything went absolutely perfect!

And how to carry on now?

How to start? How should I now introduce you to a unique event which took place last weekend on the river Cetina?

What is your favourite colour? When I was a kid, I would rap out 'Blue!', while for girls it was, of course, 'Pink'... The rule which still holds true today. The blue Adriatic, the blue sky, the deep blue sea, blue jeans, blue-eyed boy, blue cheese, blue tit, blue blood, blue skies. So you can see, it's all blue, even that jazz refrain goes something like this: Sun, sky, you and I, and all blue...!

And so we continue to promote our beautiful sea, people who do that have obviously learned their trade well, and as things are now, once more they happened to be right about blue colour, obviously, a new record season is behind us. Tourists had the time of their lives while our portfolios are overflowing with money, Happy end! Happy blue!

And here beyond the hills it's all somehow the other way round! It's not that we're not fans of blue, but here green is dominant after all. Yes, green indeed! Green in all shapes and sizes, so calming and relaxing that the best thing is stay silent and write nothing! Perfect tranquility! If you think about that illegal substance, I'm sorry – you're in the wrong place.

Last weekend I took part in a unique event. Some of you would probably find it anything special, but for me it was the event of the year, you could say that it even outshone the Alka! A few civil associations from Sinj and the Cetina region organised the 2013 Cetina Regatta, with rubber dinghies and all the other kinds of craft taking part in the race from the Panj hamlet to the Despotuša ait in the Sinjsko Polje.

Without pomp, media hype, promotion and announcement more than 50 teams were entered for the race, while it was impossible to count up all those adventurers and curious people from all around. Well now, you know that those large rubber boats and similar boats for 8, 10 or 12 people are normally used in rafting, canoeing and escapades like that, it was much the same on the Cetina, only this time all kinds of craft were travelling downstream. Original Cetina boats, pedal boats, beach canoes, military landing rubber boats, life rafts, children's dinghies, one- and two-man kayaks, half-decked boats, there was even one gajeta fishing boat... We only missed the argosy and the Hvar galley.

A scene to remember, definitely!

This wasn't some sort of rampage on our part, us, some two hundred natives from the Cetina reserve. Following the clear directions of the organisers and under the vigilant eye of the Croatian Mountain Rescue Service the downstream race could start. I'm pretty experienced in sailing on the sea and this isn't something unknown to me, but sailing on a river for the first time in my life – well this was yet to discover. After a few recent summer downpours the Cetina water has risen to an ideal level, the water is powerful and you need to be careful so that your dinghy wouldn't turn upside down somewhere in the middle of the race, or that the current wouldn't sweep us to the dense willow groves and the bank.

My team was excellent, anyway, you can search the photo gallery and feel free to comment, while in the meantime I'll try to describe the mood. Just in a few sentences, without bothering you much.

After gathering under the old bridge at Panj, throwing our equipment into the boat and jumping into it, the race or regatta could finally start at the symbolic sound of a whistle. Rowing now to the left now to the right, now starboard now port, and then right the helm, anyway, after some two hundred strokes we had already learned the ropes. And yet the Cetina! Now she's narrow and now she's wide, now she's wild and now she's gentle. The play of sunlight across the water surface, her green banks and the willow groves, this, my folks, simply takes your breath away. You could just row and row again, looking at those green shades, listening to the river and admiring her beauty and power. So powerful, and clean and beautiful, and yet so delicate and only ours! Perfect! It's no wonder that the Cetina has been so many times praised, no wonder that our ancestors defended her with so much ardour from conquerors, she is our true nursing mother, she is the water of our lives. And today she has showed it all to me! The natural world on her banks is so clean and diverse, on the one hand the karst hills shadowed by pine trees, and on the other a wide, richly cultivated field in the shadow of poplars and willows. Here and there you come across a flock of sheep or a herd of cows, or even a donkey – our dear tovar! All of this the Cetina offers to every well-meaning person, traveller, dear guest!

I should indeed count up all those beautiful and neat villages we the natives of the Cetina reserve sailed around. I think that most of us have actually passed through these places on water, and for all fans of navigation and GPS and other digital devices and gadgets, let them look for Panj, Bajagić, Obrovac Sinjski, Han, Gala and Otok - Dalmatinski, so there is no administration-related confusion whatsoever. In order to make the whole thing look bigger, we sailed the territories of two municipalities, Hrvace and Otok, and one town – Sinj! There, my Columbus, now suffer, you sailed the waters of only one ocean! If by any chance we carried on towards Omiš and the sea, I'd have great trouble counting up all those lovely towns and villages through which this beauty flows nourishing them!

The Cetina also has many tributaries, this time I'll only mention her two little brothers, the Rumin and the Malin. Local folks like to say they are small, but by their power even more forceful than the Cetina. And anglers find them a special attraction since these are lively and fast waters full of fish which makes them a true hidden oasis for fly-fishermen, but let's keep it a secret. Fishermen's post shouldn't be opened, and as for me, I haven't told you about that. Well, at least not about the Rumin joining the Cetina.

Most beautiful man-made ornament to the Cetina are certainly – mills. The most famous in the Cetinska Krajina are those in Grab on the namesake river, also a tributary of the Cetina, and, naturally, the most famous and a popular destination are the Radmanove mlinice (Radman's Mills) near Omiš. As for the upper Cetina, in the best condition are the mills at Han, in the past owned by the Sinj family Tripalo and today by the Milardović family. I had an oportunity to visit them more than once, they're over hundred years old, and they work as if they started yesterday. Nowadays, maize and wheat may not be ground in quantity as a long time ago, but the smell, the taste and quality of the flour and the dishes – well it's something you'll have to taste yourselves. Go out of your way, it does make sense! Anyway, almost all of well-to-do families in the past used to have a mill or at least a millwheel, unfortunately, some of the mills are sunken, some of them haven't withstood the ravages of time, whereas the others have been kept alive only on paper or in legends.

And the water. Emerald green and pleasantly cool! Each blade of grass, each stone, old trunk and a fast-swimming trout here and there, you can see all of this from a dinghy. Mills, water mills, fish ponds, hidden backwaters, neat villages on her banks, oh my...how wonderful! Believe me, it's no easy to write this, in fact, I think that what I'm writing is pure nonsense, but who hasn't been there and seen it, has no right to comment on it at all! The least numerous in the whole regatta were actually competitors, only two or three crews, in some sort of two-man kayaks, obviously struck by the sudden explosion of adrenaline, they were out of our sight before long, and we were even faster to forget about them. We came here to have fun, enjoy good company – the true class Hedonist! Communication between crews even better, you're being overtaken non-stop, in the next backwater you're the one overtaking, then in the next one we are all stopping together for a rest, and so on all the way to the winning post. Oh yes, the winning post, what a pity. We had to reach even the winning post. The last kilometre to it, all of us seemed to slow down, looking for the bank, no one felt like reaching the winning post and in this way finish something which proved to be a real fairy tale. We had to go as far as Trilj – We could go all the way to Omiš! Hard to find a crew not saying aloud these two sentences!

The winning post deserves a few words as well. It's an ait, and you can reach it on a raft operated by a cable – hand-operated. Kerap! The dinghy crew, right on the raft, take the cable and pull to the other side of the river... And there, plenty of the uštipci of Sinj and beans for a pick-me-up, but this is completely another story.

My dear folks, when you get bored of packed beaches, salt, sea fish, fisherman's parties, klape all over the place, fishing nets, leut fishing boats, ferries, the crack of dawn, the deep blue sea, when you feel like you need a change, when you feel like listening to the river talking, fresh air, the unspoiled nature with its great diversity of life, when you feel like you need peace and tranquility – come and visit the Cetina! Who knows how much you've already drunk its water without being aware of it.

This is an invitation! Don't forget it for the next year!

Author: Mario Despotović – Fizi