Anchored off Tivat 42:25N 18:41E
Rubicon
Fri 26 Jun 2015 13:57
Kotor is a beautiful Medieval village, quite well preserved, with the typical narrow streets and cobblestoned roads. In some places the stones were multicoloured and worn down and shiny from 1000 years of foot traffic. The entrance to the old village has a sign above it that reads "What belongs to others we don't want, what is ours we will never surrender". Of course, we learned practically nothing about the former Yugoslavia in school, and this region was apparently highly strategic and was taken over by various "Empires" over the past 1000 + years. ( ever heard of the Serbian Empire?). The Turks were here. It was part of the Venetian state in the 1400-1500s. Napoleon took it over for a time. The French and British even fought a naval battle in this area.
The old town is very touristy, in a good way, with cafes, ice cream and little shops everywhere. Cruise ships come here, and "the World" cruise ship was docked here this morning. We walked around, and had lunch and an ice cream. Then headed back and got some fruit and veggies from the Farmers Market. The family has been warned that dinner is a veggie tray and fruit salad! Thankfully, Pavel is trying new foods! The cherries are fresh off of the trees, are sweet and juicy...Yummy! I still have some ice cream in the freezer, so should go down without too many complaints.
We made our way back to Tivat and we anchored off of the harbour front of the town. Trivat, the town, seems to be full of vacationing Montenegrins, swimming in the water marked off with red and white boys, all along the shore. Every beach has ice cream stalls and sometimes there is freshly made popcorn. The beaches tend to be pebbles rather than sand, which is actually great for me, being on a boat. Less of a mess to deal with on board, i.e. no sand everywhere. All along the shore are cafes and restaurants. When we got here Vlad had to quickly make his way to town. The fuel dock at Porto Montenegro will sell duty free tax free fuel to yachts, but you need to leave the country immediately after filling up. Turns out you have to make an appointment to fuel up. We were planning to leave Saturday, but they can't accommodate us. It might be because some of the "big boys" might be fueling up and heading out. We saw "Hyperion", a massive sailboat the other day
while we were docked at Porto Montenegro, and at the fuel dock today was "Maltese Falcon". Another massive yacht. Couldn't help but take a photo:) The people who own these things are either computer dot com billionaires or they run a successful fund of some kind or other. Hmmmm.
So now it is mid afternoon, and we are relaxing. I am blogging, the kids are playing and Vlad is vegging! It is the moments like this that I was looking forward to and dreaming about before we set off. We haven't had too many of them to date. It has been very a busy and challenging 3 months. First with getting training on Rubicon in the Solent in April, with the cold albeit unseasonably sunny weather, brutal tides, and Vlad's Yachmaster exam. Then sailing the boat first to Gibraltar with John Eustace over 6 days, and experiencing pretty significant waves off of the coast of Portugal. Then fixing a window in Gib. Then taking the boat into the unfamiliar Med, with the stern to Med mooring, worries about the weather, and sailing the boat all the way to the Adriatic by ourselves. The thing is, we actually did it. I am still a bit amazed by this. So hoping for smooth carefree sailing and anchoring and docking for the next 2.5 months, until have to head back
to Gibraltar and then the Canary Islands to prepare for the next stage of the adventure.