The man who emigrated in reverse: Gig Harbor boatbuilder now plies trade in Croatia

Many Croatian fishermen and their families have immigrated to Gig Harbor over the years.

Mike Vlahovich went the other direction.

A lifetime commercial fisherman and wooden boat builder, Vlahovich folded up his Gig Harbor-based nonprofit four years ago and emigrated to the tiny town of Sumartin on the island of Braç, just off the coast of Croatia, where his father was born.

There, in town with cobblestoned streets and a harbor much like he left behind, he continues to work at his craft, repairing wooden boats and teaching the skill to others. Now 70, he is the vice president and program manager of a non-profit called Maritima Educare, which aims to educate young adults about the restoration and repair of boats.

“It definitely is a maritime community,” Vlahovich said in a phone interview from Braç. “The town was built and continues to be situated around the water. At the shipyard where I am located, that is the second largest industry in town. In terms of steady jobs, it is the fishing boats and shipyard.”

A lifetime with boats

A Tacoma native, Vlahovich began commercial fishing at the age of 15. By the time he was 20, he was working to repair wooden boats in Gig Harbor. That made him curious about his Croatian roots.

“When I was 20 years old I came to Croatia, which was then Yugoslavia, still under the communist rule,” Vlahovich said. “I came to Sumartin, where my father was born, and I visited the island of Susak. I came here to discover my roots.

Vlahovich’s grandparents immigrated to Gig Harbor from Susak, not far from Braç. Both are among literally dozens of islands dotting the Adriatic Sea along the coast of the Croatian province of Dalmatia.

“What I discovered here was some very simple but also significant things. It’s like ‘Why was I a commercial fisherman? Why was I intrigued with building wood boats? Why did I enjoy the food I enjoyed?’

Coming to Croatia to live that for a while, things made sense to me.”

While visiting, Vlahovich got a job as a delivery boy with a local baker.

“I delivered the bread with a donkey,” Vlahovich said. “I would lead the donkey up these cobblestone paths with two big baskets of fresh bread. I thought after that I would not only visit here often but maybe someday, I would live here. Many years went by, and I never came back. My life got busy, but things happened four years ago.”

That’s when Vlahovich made a leap of faith at the age of 66 and emigrated to the land of his grandfather.

A tie based on sweat

Vlahovich was born in Tacoma but spent a great deal of time in Gig Harbor.

“My connection to Gig Harbor is based on blood, sweat and tears,” Vlahovich said. “The sweat tie for me, is huge. I started repairing and resorting fishing boats belonging to Gig Harbor fisherman in 1970, and I did that for several years. Even though I maybe didn’t call my bedroom in Gig Harbor, most of my life was spent there.”

Vlahovich and others interested in maritime history started the Coastal Heritage Alliance, and he helped start the Foss Waterway Seaport in Tacoma. He helped restore the purse seiner Commencement, now on the Foss, and the Shenandoah, now a major exhibit at the Harbor History Museum. Both vessels were built at Gig Harbor’s Skansie shipyard, begun by another family of immigrants from Braç.

In 2001, Vlahovich moved to Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, to do similar work, and began splitting his time between coasts. At the age of 66, he earned a master of arts degree in Culture and Sustainability from Baltimore’s Goucher College.

“That gave me more interest in initiative to reflect on my life and what was important to me,” Vlahovich said. “That reflection led me to my heritage, my Croatian roots.”

When he told his board of directors he wanted to return to Croatia, they said, ‘Well you are the organization, so if you leave we don’t think it will continue,’” he recalled.

“We had to liquidate everything,” said Vlahovich. “We gave $25,000 to the Harbor History Museum, $25,000 to the Gig Harbor Boatshop. We still had $50,000 left plus a lot of physical assets, so we said, ‘Why don’t we take this and found a new non-profit in Croatia.’ I brought the assets here and four years ago we started the process of Maritime Education.”

In partnership with the shipyard in Sumartin, Vlahovich runs a program that teaches young people from all over Europe the craft of building and restoring wooden boats.

“We have groups of people 19 to 29 who come from several European countries, some from Croatia, but also Spain, Italy, a lot of different places, and it’s a cultural experience,” he said. “They are considered volunteers and come and assist in in the restoration while getting educated at the same time.”

“We also have school programs, where we bring in middle -chool age children. That’s what I do. I am doing exactly what I did for most of my life in America.”

He said he and his local partners are in the process of writing grants to create a small maritime museum in Sumartin.

“We want to tell their story of these former Sumartin residents that left and immigrated to America and were successful, like the Skansies,” Vlahovich said.

“This is a legacy project for me, I am 70 years old,” he said. “I don’t want travel and start another new thing. This is the last new thing I start. “

This story was originally published November 11, 2020 at 5:30 AM.