| This blog takes us out for dinner, there’s a change, conversing with folk, a favourite pastime, and travelling down to Bar, and to end it a complete turnaround of plans and then a turn back. We arrived back from our own personal tour inland, travel agents we certainly won’t succeed at, and after a bit of a rest we set off to enjoy our meal at our waterside table we had reserved the previous day. Yes well, that’s what we thought. The excuse was that it was windy the night before, (NOT) and they reserved us one inside (NOT). Keeping calm, we found they had one a few rows back, perfectly nice. We duly ordered our nice little fish, and asked for the Sauvignon wine that we had had the day before. We were advised that there was a strike or some such silly thing, and there was to be no Sauvignon, even though we had just seen a shelf full of it at the supermarket. No worries, later we ordered the Chardonnay, ‘oh no’ we are now informed ‘there is no Chardonnay, just Sauvignon’ ‘Great that will do fine’ Clearly they were going to make more out of us if we ordered imported wine. Well all this just added to our entertainment, and it was a lovely evening, and cunning as they were, they were delightful, AND they were the ones providing me with internet, Holmes and Larry on the zb, and lots of contact home to friends and family. Before returning to the boat we did the mandatory amble down the pier past the super yachts. The skipper of one of them was standing alongside his charge, two baskets with the shoes of all the passengers, two of whom remained to return to the boat, so, being an American he was able and willing to chat. He had a funny tale about all the shoes; people continually came up and peered into the baskets, even tried them on and asked if he had a different size, thinking he was a travelling salesman. This was the second ship his boss owned, the first one was 50 metres, this one built for his mother, Dorothy Lane, named thus, was a paltry 35 metres. It takes 10,000 litres to fill, diesel here is about $1.80 NZ per litre, and they go through about 700 litres an hour. I had imagined all these huge vessels to be inhabited by their owners, but actually a lot of them are chartered out to famous, and/or, clearly, rich people to offset their costs. This particular boat doesn’t take film and music stars, they are rude and disrespectful to person and property. Mariah Carey won’t be spoken to unless she speaks first, and they mustn’t look directly at her when addressing her. Some famous rapper, whose name obviously escapes me, burnt holes in the upholstery with his cigarettes. They shipped it over from the States for a meagre $150,000 US. Up in the morning, our lovely Italians were on their way, and after visiting the market for some more beautiful fresh veges, fruit and fish, we also were off. We motor sailed down to Bar, we didn’t have the greatest hope in this place but we weren’t prepared for the start we had here. Nobody was around to help us, we navigated ourselves into a satisfactory looking berth, and just when we thought we were winning I hooked the aft line leading to the bow just to discover it came to an abrupt end, no bowline attached. We moved onto the next one, where there was some success, but not completely happy with this, Joe went off on shank’s pony and third time lucky we came to our final resting spot. We went off for a walk had a much needed drink, and things were not at this stage on the improve. Some Italians previously met at Kotor who are setting off through Albania, turned up beside us, and a few other civilised looking people also, so things a bit brighter. Then the unthinkable, we woke in the morning, the one boat of Italians were replaced by another boat of Italians who have just come up through Albania. They declare its safety; the harbourmaster backed this up, and guess where we are going. This means another night in Bar, but now I quite like it actually………….. Well as to change of plans, yes they keep changing. We left Bar in the morning early, usual story finding someone who can stamp our passport etc. The previous day we found the Kapitanija, who was a treat, we felt so sorry for him, he rolled up to the office in a little old car about to fall to bits, obviously no WOF here. He was excited we were from NZ, and said he would come back with us, did we have a job for him, said their wages were so small, and the proof if we needed any, was in his car. But in the morning finding the police was a different story, they are the most arrogant and unfriendly we have encountered here, but finally the job done we set out on our next big venture, to Albania. Joe was still edgy about landing in Albania, so the plan was to sail continuously to Greece, about 30 hours. Things started swimmingly, motoring of course, but it was looking like a 10 am arrival. We had little success in finding a weather report from anyone in Bar, one on the vhf mentioned Southerlies 6 to 10 knots, not ideal, but we can handle that. Didn’t hear the bit about a front. After the first tack back out from Albania, the sea was becoming quite menacing, such a short and tall chop, the boat slam dunking and climbing back up, so we had to lay off a bit more, the wind rose and the dark arrived. This was going to be a very long night, winds coming up to 30 knots combined with the sea is a lonely and anxious feeling out there between Albania and Italy, nobody speaks English and I would expect Coastguard would not be up to our NZ standard. The way they snarl at us in port sometimes I get the feeling they would be happy to see us go down with the ship. Somehow at night things seem more dire, if one of our small crew came unstuck I regret that would have been the end of that, we were vigilant about our harness and life jacket. At about 11pm I suggested to Joe that to get to the corner of Albania after another 20 miles in the direction to Brindisi, Italy, and then 30 miles back down, would all add up to 50 miles, and then another 50 miles on to Corfu. It was all getting a bit too much at this snail’s pace and unsure prediction of conditions ahead, and the meeting of the directors punched in a new destination, only 50 miles in the present direction. Daylight seemed to never arrive and still 20 miles from Brindisi we were bombarded by fishing boats and cruise liners, one little boat we sailed right by an it didn’t have lights or anything. We were really pleased at how Wrighteau managed the difficult conditions, the waves come from any direction, sometimes from two at the same time, we get lifted up like a little cork, roll over, and ever so thankful for that bug hunk of lead and bulb and deep draft, we gently roll back. She was a little champion. It was a cruel fate, still with nearly 20 miles to go the wind rolled around to be on our nose yet again from the west. I was terrified, because the forecast from Italy I got in the night forecasted turning to West Force 4, up to 27 knots. I thought it might come a bit later, but it didn’t raise in strength so no need for alarm. It was a relief to get into Brindisi, the walking dead, and then the ultimate end to a workout like that was the country check in thing. Greece has a bit of a reputation with this, so I guess Italy was preparing us for it. We wandered round in circles bumped from one sleazy office to another, none of which would be signposted of course, and finally found the, well what was it exactly, something like a harbourmaster. They all literally just looked at us, talked around us, laughed a few times, and we stood like little school kids waiting and waiting. Finally someone got into some kind of action, nobody speaking much English, or anything at all actually, well after half an hour we were through with them, the next challenge was the Polizia, this took for ever, after knocking on the 8th door we found a gruff policeman who didn’t seem at all keen on our coming into their country, we were just one big fat nuisance. Oh well an hour and a half of all that carry on we could set about finding a marina berth, and catch up on a bit of kip. What a huge relief. Kotor was a lovely walled city, but our final impressions of Montenegro were not all that great really. The people are quite unfriendly, and it is all a bit dirty and backward with not so much to offer in our opinion. They have a long way to go before they can say they welcome visitors. One Scotsman we met in Kotor had a theory, it goes back to Tito days, Croatia was his favourite place, and why wouldn’t it be, but he put most of the money into Croatia, and the other states missed out, it was a plausible theory to me.
Photos have been updated on www.webshots.com/user/Wrighteau |
