Albania to Corfu

Posted at 9:35 PM, Jun. 4, 2008

The port area where we were moored in Durres, Albania, is a controlled area i.e. security controlled and not accessible by the public. So when we came to depart we needed to have Llambi handle the paperwork and then the police/customs came down to the wharf as we then had to immediately leave. All rather pedantic as going down the coast it seems we were free to anchor in any of the bays.

              Sitting in the commercial port of Durres with the Dutchman

                 rafted up alongside.

After clearing Durres we started with a slowish sail, close hauled until the wind freshened and then backed with the result that we had a 20/30 mile run under genaker trucking along at around 8 knots in a 10-12 knot SW.  Early afternoon the usual happened and we were back to motoring until a 20 knot SE kicked in which left us slightly eased but with good boat speed which took us into Gjiri (bay) i Vlores at around 1930 hrs. The rhumbline track took us quite a few miles offshore but the coast was mostly low lying land with lakes and rivers showing on the chart – very little signs of inhabitation.

                                Guess where this handsome guy has been.

Llambie had told us that there was a marina in the bay and according to our chart the southern end of the bay (which is about 8 miles long) is a restricted anchorage for military reasons so after testing several theories as to where the marina might be (Llambi had done a drawing on a piece of torn off newspaper) we anchored off what looked to be a very nice sandy beach in front of several resort hotels. Fortunately the wind dropped off quickly and we settled in to a pretty reasonable anchorage for the night. We had seen another yacht motor up the other side of the bay just as we were anchoring so in the morning decided to ignore the chart warnings and see where they had gone too. Guess what – we found the marina in the very south eastern corner of the bay (as this is also a security area) but about half way up the entry channel I noticed that the depth metre was reading negative (definitely a bad sign) and on inspection over the stern we could see our keel indentation in the mud. We reckon that the marina entrance is dredged to 2.0 metres. We later heard it was owned by an Italian – it appeared to be a quayside deal only with bow anchors deployed along the inshore side only and quite a small setup. Surprisingly there were 4 yachts tied up so we were not the only ones sailing the Albanian coast.

So on the morning of Saturday 31st May we continued the journey south with another 55 mile day to what was the planned clearance port for Albania – Sarande.  Had a good sail for a few hours tight reaching and making good speed until we dropped anchor in the nook of a small bay called Spile and anchored about 70 metres off a lovely beach for a swim and a late lunch. The southern coast is quite mountainous compared with the northern coast and characterised by thousands of “pillar boxes” which were installed in the 1970’s – see the photograph below and you will see why we named them R2D2’s.

                                 Thousands of these along the coast!

We had tracked down off www.noonsite.com an entry from a New Zealand yacht earlier in May (the first entry on this part of the site for a couple of years) giving the name of an agent called Agim.(his number is +355 692 566 576) I txted  him early in the afternoon and told him we would be arriving in about 1800 hrs and he called me back to confirm. It transpired that he had only formed his business 4 months earlier. On arrival he was there to meet us, along with police and customs, and took the boat papers and our passports and that was the end of it. Lovely guy, with a Greek wife who we met along with his 16 year old daughter. He has a son studying engineering at Patras University in Greece. He drove us to a castle on a hill overlooking the bay and across to Corfu, Italy and across the valleys of southern Albania. A beautiful spot, and an opportunity to sample/drink some of the local red wine.  We had a late dinner at a restaurant near the harbour. Sarande looked a lot better in the evening – a morning walk around the town showed it to be pretty dirty, with a huge amount of construction going on and little effort to date in trying to beautify the waterfront. The population was about 12,000 5 years ago and is now 40,000. Probably over half the apartment blocks in the town are completed to just the floor and pillar stage and are seemingly not been completed. Our attempts to ascertain just what was going on did not produce any meaningful answers. John had his credit card eaten by an ATM and fortunately Agim was able to track down a bank official to come into the bank (and on a Sunday morning) to open up and retrieve the card.

Agim was most disappointed that we were not going to stay for a few days as he was keen for us to visit the ancient city site of Burrint further south in a national park.

                                Street stalls in Sarande, Albania

Sunday 1 June 2008 at around 1300 hours saw us depart the wharf with Agim, police and customs in attendance to see us cast off after paying a Euro 60 fee for everything – except diesel which we had delivered by mini tanker about an hour after we arrived). The bay at Sarande is very open to the south and the wharf that we tied alongside was on the western side of the bay and on a north/south axis – fortunately we had a westerly while there so it was relatively sheltered. The town is clearly being promoted as a holiday destination and there is a 3 times a week ferry service to Corfu only 10 miles away. They have a lot to do though to attract people to visit and it is good to see Agim and people like him so enthusiastic and willing to do their part in encouraging people to visit and stay.

The sail to Corfu was a fast one with Pam topping out at over 9 knots while on the handlebars. Running in onto the weather shore it quietened down and we motorsailed into the huge marina at Gouvia that is about 4 k’s north of town. On Tuesday morning, very early, John taxied into the ferry wharf for a trip up to Venice while Pam and I spent over 4 hours wrestling with officials in trying to complete the entry formalities into Greece – it is really quite archaic with three separate officials to visit (Customs, Police and the Port Authority) while various entry papers are completed in triplicate with carbon paper and not a computer in sight to finally be entered in a large leather bound book, with columns carefully drawn in red and the boat entry written in handwriting. As we are a non EU boat the process is far more cumbersome than for an EU boat. Every port we visit we have to report to the Port Authority on arrival and departure, present a detailed crew list and have it stamped. Wow!! 

We have now spent the last two days in trying to arrive (finally completed on day 2) and attending to a number of small maintenance issues. The last of these will hopefully be cleared by tomorrow morning (Wednesday 4 June) so we can depart southwards to Paxos once Easyjet finally deliver Richard, Sarah  and family to Corfu – at this stage 4 hours late and looking at a 0200 hours arrival.

That’s all for now -  a full boat for the next 2 weeks with grandchildren on board for the first time!

Cheers

Keith