Croatia, Montenegro and Corfu
Leaving Hvar was not the end of Croatia for us - there were still lots of places we wanted to see and our approach has always been to cruise slowly and always go with the wind. Sometimes that means delays but one thing we have learned from this boat, she’s way happier sailing than motoring.
We had a few nights anchored in and around Korcula which we really enjoyed. The medieval village has all the elements of a Croatian Old Town, ancient church, cobbled streets, old forts - but it’s also full of cool cafes and restaurants, not to mention chic boutiques. Once again we saw that tourism is alive and well here with large groups of people pouring off cruise ships and other vessels to visit the town. I was super happy to find a place for a haircut for both Gavin and I in Korcula as we were starting to look a bit feral.
Departing Korcula for the island of Mljet started well but turned into a bit of a battle. What began as a 15 knot westerly developed into a southerly of 20+ knots right on the nose and involved four tacks to get there. The boat was pounding in the confused short sea and we were the only ones out there. I recall feeling a bit seedy and unhappy with the circumstance, perhaps I voiced my displeasure to Gavin? I eventually did what you always must do in these times, suck it up, there’s no turning back. The good news is that we got more reefing practice in and when we arrived in Pomena, Lokva on Mljet (I think Mljet is pronounced Me-yet) we were so grateful. The bad news was that we’d left the port forward hatch slightly open and soaked the bed, argh! While the wind was still howling ‘out there’ we found a fairly quiet anchor spot in a wee bay called Uvala Lokva where about 10 other boats were already stern-to anchored. I always get a bit freaked out doing this type of anchoring - and intimidated - as everyone else in the bay openly watches the new boat undertake their anchor, it’s like a kind of sport. We ignored the stares, pressed on and anchored out in the middle of the bay, reversing to land. Gavin then dove into the water once we were close enough, holding the rope to tie to a rock. As for me, I stayed at the helm holding her in reverse, keeping the bow into the wind, until of course he’d secured it on the rock whereby I raced over to the rope on starboard, got it tight on the cleat, and pulled it until it was taut. Our first go at this seemed to work, but we soon realised we weren’t holding, didn’t have enough chain out. So we had two more go’s, the last one I accidentally threw the whole bundle of rope into the water (when Gav yelled from shore he needed more) not realising it wasn’t tied on. I nearly killed poor Gavin as he tried to swim back to the boat with 60 metres of rope. I imagine all the crew on the super yachts and other boaties watching us, hearing us as well, (there was some strong language used), laughed about it, we definitely put on a good show. Eventually we got it and were so happy to be secure that we spent a few nights there, not daring to move again.
Mljet has a beautiful national park that you can walk or bike in. There are a couple of lakes in the interior, actually salt water lakes, and many people were making the most of playing in the park in one form or another. Heaven knows we appreciated the chance to stretch our legs and we had a good long walk there.
It was in Luka Polace on Mljet that we met a nice Aussie couple Antony and Alyson on Cat’s Pajamas. I tried the ol’ classic Kiwi question on them of ‘do you know so and so’ just because they had a similar new Fountain Pajot Catamaran to friends of ours in NZ and of course they knew them, had been buddy sailing with them earlier in the season. This type of questioning always works either Kiwi to Kiwi or Kiwi to Aussie, or so I find, everyone knows everyone in our small neck of the woods. Later on we met a lovely Kiwi trio, an Auckland couple, Delia and Steve and their mate Brian on Silversea, so yes, it is a very small world.
On Prozursca Luka on Mljet we tied up to a mooring which is always a pleasure especially when it’s blowing. Yes, they charge for it, something like 300 Kuna, but you know you’re safe for the night and they also take your rubbish away. In the morning we walked up the hill and took some cool pics of our position and the boat, absolutely stunning.
It was time to head towards Dubrovnik and start planning our exit from Croatia. On the way we stopped in Slano for a night, a Croatian mainland town with loads of restaurants, shops and tourists. The next day we went south towards Dubrovnik and enjoyed one of the great sails of the trip. The wind was blowing southerly up the channel, around 15 knots. We did 12 seamless tacks over a couple of hours, sailing around 8/9 knots in a flat sea and felt some serious boat love! We really appreciated the self-tacking headsail and dagger boards which made the journey all the easier. Before heading into the marina at Dubrovnik (we reserved a couple of nights there to get some work done and charge up the batteries) we had one night at anchor just outside the city on the island of Kolocep. There we ran into the Kiwis we met on Mljet and enjoyed some aperitifs on board with them.
Our berth in the Marina Dubrovnik was starboard side onto the wall next to the fuel dock. There was a lovely church just across from us that rang its bells regularly. The location of this marina is a bit out of town and requires a cab or bus to get in to the old town. The latter form of transportation we tried once, but due to the congestion on board the bus, full to the brim with people, some masked, some not, I convinced Gavin that a taxi was better, safer, even if it cost more.
We last visited Dubrovnik some 15 years ago and once again it grabbed our hearts and left us in awe. We walked the Walls of Dubrovnik on a sunny day and observed that while there were definitely tourists in town, there weren't as many as we’d previously experienced in pre-Covid times. Later we walked the streets of Dubrovnik, enjoyed a gelato and shamelessly people watched.
Cavtat is the Port of Entry and Exit of Croatia and it’s a short clip south of Dubrovnik. (Cavtat is pronounced Savtat). It was time to go to Montenegro and we needed to go through the necessary protocols to clear out. A couple of incidents here left us feeling a bit ‘over’ Croatia. While too-ing and fro-ing in our dinghy chatting with a solo Israeli sailor about the forecast 20 knots winds coming in that night, a police boat pulled up to us. They had a ‘punishment’ for us for driving our dinghy over the 4 knot speed limit. Bear in mind, there were no signs or buoys advising this ‘4-knot speed limit’ and parasailing activity and jet ski’s were hooning around in our bay, not to mention ferries and private motor boats towing kids on floatation devices. We were going about 10 knots, not so fast, and he picked us. Of course the punishment was a cash only offer, and we didn’t have Kuna as we were heading out of the country the next day. That didn’t worry them, they would wait while we went to an ATM machine in town. We were appalled at the dishonesty and petty thievery of it all and I couldn’t hold my disgust, I gave him heaps. I think I said something to the effect of ‘how do you sleep at night? LOL! As the process of paying them was going on speeding boats were zooming past and I asked him, ‘what about those guys, will they get a punishment too?’ He promised they’d get them next but they never did. They saw a foreign boat, pinged us and left our bay once they got their 760 Kuna in cash, about 100 Euro.
We should have moved then, one bay over to the clear out spot as the bay we were in wasn’t good in the strong northerly wind forecast, but we were feeling low mentally over our 2nd Croatian ‘punishment’, certain our anchor was held tight, had heaps of chain out and elected to stay put. At 2am we found we were dragging along with four other boats in the bay, two cats and two monohulls. Interestingly the lone Israeli man had the only vessel in the bay that remained at station. So in this ‘group re-anchor frenzy’, the other boats followed us, I guess thinking we had the secret to anchor in 25 knots in the pitch black night. We had four attempts to get it down, kept hitting weed, then decided to move bays. We got to the police check out station one bay over at 4am and remained awake until we checked out at 8am. We were beaten but not broken, and definitely ready to leave behind beautiful Croatia.
The first thing we noticed when we checked in to Montenegro at Portonovi Marina was that everyone smiled at us, the police and the marina staff. While they’re quite stern in Croatia in matters concerning check in/check out, these people were positively joyful. The marina people could not do enough for us, they were exceptional and are justifiably proud of their fairly new marina. We had a stern-to marina berth in front of a swank coffee/cocktail bar, and once again watched throngs of people promenading, drinking and peering into Waiata’s cockpit. It didn’t bother us and I was, quite frankly, relieved to be tied up in a marina after the dragging incident. Another bonus was that the marina village had a wonderful gourmet grocery store and some good frock shops, yes!
The exciting news was that we were picking up our first long-term guest, first crew member and good friend David in Tivat, Montenegro to spend 10 days with us. David is an old university mate of Gavin’s who lives in Geneva. His nickname is Team and we were certainly thrilled to welcome him onto our team, both for the refreshing new company to explore Montenegro and Corfu with - and also to help with the overnight passage to Greece.
After a fun night in the Portonovi Marina where the three of us enjoyed a delicious meal out, we headed to stunning Kotor Bay. Kotor is a medieval town rich in history with ancient buildings that are works of art themselves and magnificent tall mountains surrounding it. When we were there the atmosphere was smokey from the fires going on in Greece and Turkey, however it did clear in the afternoons. We walked the Kotor City Walls early in the morning thinking we’d be the first, but in fact others had preceded us. Still, I think we did it at the best time of day; it’s a very sacred experience, breathtaking in beauty, and a jolly good workout. Some of the 4.5km long walls were built by the Byzantines, but most of the structure dates back to the 17th and 18th century and time of the Venetians.
In Kotor Bay we met a lovely Canadian couple Brett and Mary Pat on Malaiki and had drinks with them on board, we were to see them again in Corfu as it happens.
We had a couple of nights in various bays around Montenegro, dined out on some seriously good food at restaurants, ate well on Waiata and danced the night away. This is one of the things I will cherish about our time with David on board, we all clicked well and musically he surprised us by loving many of the artists/songs that we did, some we hadn’t listened to in ages, and he reintroduced us; Joe Jackson, Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan, The Killers, The Stones, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, INXS and more. We had rousing sessions of Top that Tune and all-out dancing that I will never forget.
Checking out of Bar in Montenegro was a hoot. Boats are required to pull up to the police dock for this process and as the wind was gusting, pushing us off the dock, it proved difficult. We could see a couple of the police guys having a smoke and not coming to our aid which was frustrating. The next thing I knew, David leapt from the boat, like a gazelle in flight, over a metre from the dock, rope in hand and tied us off. It was something to behold and he certainly earned his crew stripes.
Finally we were sailing off to Corfu and we had a brilliant day for it, plus a near-full moon. Initially we motored as there wasn’t much wind. Very near us was a Leopard Catamaran heading the same way and they were passing us as their motors were clearly stronger than our electric ones. But once the westerly wind picked up, we were off, honking along at 11/12 knots for several hours. They became a thin white line in the background, we smoked em! Most of this passage was excellent, apart from 4am when a random, 35 gusting 45 knot wind came upon us, we believe it was Katabatic down draft, as it just pounded us from above. Gavin was on watch, (we were going 14 knots), and David was due to relieve him but we were all up for this action, quickly putting three reefs in. It was noisy, powerful and scary and I was so relieved to have another bloke on board! The crazy thing was in a matter of 45 minutes we were motoring, the wind just died.
They’re not so strict in Greece about showing up to check in the second you arrive so we got some sleep. We’d engaged a private firm to handle our check in here as there are issues relating to our boat remaining in Greece over winter that they manage. So once we’d rested up we took our dinghy into Gouvia Marina, met up with the agent and the check in was a piece of cake. I cooked a leek and mushroom risotto for dinner and we pulled out a bottle (or two) of Barolo from the cellar to celebrate our successful passage and arrival.
The three of us explored Corfu Old Town which is heaving with tourists, particularly at night. We also drank some Ouzo, and had a gorgeous meal out at a taverna called Barbas. One day we had lunch at The White House, the former home of the Durrell family who moved from Britain to Corfu in the 1930’s and where the classic book My Family and other Animals was written, by Gerald Durrell. I actually bought the book at the restaurant and am enjoying reading it as we sail around Corfu. I highly recommend to cruisers or anyone visiting Corfu to go to this restaurant - it was ‘off the charts’ excellent in terms of food, drink and ambience.
I apologise for the length of this missive. As I write this it is three weeks to the day that we fly home to New Zealand. There will be one more blog to come and I think it’s going to be called, The End, for Now.
