Montenegro

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Wed 24 Jun 2015 14:57
Position 42:26N 18:41E

It has been a while since my last post and much has happened.

We left Ibiza and sailed for two days and nights to Cagliari in Sardinia. The trip was the longest to date that Vlad and I had sailed Rubicon by ourselves. At one point the waves were getting pretty large and unwieldy but Vlad did a great job getting us sorted out, and as the wind wasn't that bad (maybe up to 24 knots) things settled down. We did find three squid on deck after that night however, so there must have been a few waves breaking onto the deck! Also suddenly found ourselves near fishing nets, so promptly avoided them ASAP!

You might be wondering how we keep watch, just the two of us, overnight. I like the 10pm-2 am slot, and Vlad takes the 2 am-6 am slot. I get up at 6 and watch for 3 more hours, or until Vlad gets up and then I have a big nap. It seemed to work. Hand off back and forth during the day until we are rested enough for another night.

We stayed at a marina...Marina del Sole that was described in the cruising guide as a friendly family business, with the ability to accommodate boats up to 20 m in length. When we got there, we found the marina to be sort of friendly, but totally run down. There were significant gaps in the docks and rotting timbers. The part of the marina where we docked, had a few active cruising vessels, but the rest of the place was full of either deserted boats, or small( and I mean maybe 17 feet ) boats with live boards on there with the thickest growth on the bottoms and engine propellers that I have ever seen. There were bathroom facilities that were basically unusable, and a "bar" and "office" combo that was run by an old crotchety Italian speaking man. The "bar" had the same rotting timbers theme and was composed of a temporary white tent structure, the kind that you might see for a party in the garden/wedding etc, but really run down. There were old sleeping
bags in the corner where older dogs slept. There were four dogs. They were generally pretty passive, but one of them took a disliking to me, and started barking at me aggressively. Weird place. We really didn't know what to think, being the first marina we entered in Italy. Maybe this is just the Italian way? A sailboat with a few Brits showed up next to us, and quickly informed us that this the was worst marina they had ever seen in Italy. Phew. I was getting worried:)

We explored the town. Very friendly. Great seafood. Had octopus salad, various fish appetizers, mussels and clams, and they even had schnitzel and Pavel in heaven. We found excellent gelato and Vlad and the kids were very happy! Great supermarket, and provisioned up with fresh milk, bread, mozzarella, ice cream, pretzels, and cold cuts. Went to an underwater archeology museum which was excellent.

As far as I was concerned, we were going to stop a few times in Italy on the way to the Adriatic, as I had never been to Italy before, and the food and wine is so great etc. There is a marina on the south east coast of Sardinia, Villasimius, that we wanted to go to. It has beaches and diesel. However, when Vlad returned from the Customs office in Cagliari, he said "I have good news and bad news". The good news is that we are checked in , the bad news is that we have to leave from a main port, and so we are just going to go strait to Croatia tomorrow. I was daunted to say the least, given that it would take 4 nights to get there, we had never before sailed non stop for that long, it was an unfamiliar area to us, and my dreams of relaxing Italian style were pretty much dashed. As my mother in law would say, what to do? We were committed so to speak.

So we set off, and sailed overnight to the coast of Sicily. Sailed past that over the next 24 hours, and made it past the Aeolian Islands and into the Straits of Messina. I am reading a children's version of the Odyssey to the kids, and this is the place where Odysseus has to pass by Charybdis( the whirlpool) and Scylla, the 6 headed monster. What was really interesting is that the ocean state works up right at that location in real life, with whirlpool action. You could see that with the wrong state of tide/wind/sea state this would be very treacherous. There is a quick shallowing of the water and strong 4 knot tides there. Apparently it was even worse conditions before an earthquake in the 1800's.....so perhaps Homer had a point!

In the straits of Messina there were very cool sword fishing boats where the captain sits on a tower, maybe 100 feet high and steers from there, and an extension of about 100 feet in front of the boat is where they spear the fish from. Will try to send a photo.

Travelled along the boot of Italy. Uneventful. I saw a turtle in the water and occasional dolphins.

Once we started to cross the Adriatic, and were heading to Montenegro, there was a massive thunderstorm. Lightening! Wind. No visibility. A boat in vicinity with no AIS. AIS is the automatic city that shows you where other boats are and if they are going to crash into you.Anyway, it all worked out. And we made it to Montenegro, exhausted, but very impressed.

Montenegro is beautiful. It is like Vancouver with palm trees. Staying at a fancy marina, Porto Montenegro. Now going to cruise again in this beautiful fjord and head on to Croatia in the next week.