ENVOY’S ROUGH TRIP TO MONTENEGRO

Envoy is currently in moored to the town quay in historic Kotor, Montenegro.
Before we left Corfu’s Gouvia marina we had some heavy rain bringing with it more brown dust, which quickly turns to mud. This stuff is like ochre and really marks the topsides so has to be washed off as quickly as possible. The dust is borne by southerly winds from the African desert, and stays in the atmosphere until it’s brought down by rain.
From Gouvia it was going to be a 180 mile trip to our Montenegrin port of entry - Bar. An option would have been to clear-in to Albania and cruise up Albania’s coast, but we needed to get to Montenegro quickly to meet Kevin and Diane just three days later. Maybe we’ll visit Albania on the way back south in September.
We decided to break the trip by stopping overnight at Erikoussa, Greece’s northernmost island 32 miles from Gouvia. On arriving, there was a strong onshore southerly breeze and a breaking one metre chop, but the wind was forecast to turn to the north so we decided to stay - in any case there was nowhere else to go except back to Corfu. While the wind remained southerly with Envoy’s bow to the seas the anchorage was OK, but as the wind dropped Envoy turned beam-on and rolled from side to side in the waves.

Looking ashore Erikoussa from Envoy at anchor – with the waves it was not the perfect anchorage!

The wind duly came up from the north but pushed a northerly swell into the anchorage making it worse - we should have used our flopper-stoppers to make Envoy more comfortable in the roll.
Leaving Erikoussa early next morning we headed directly into a 25 knot north-westerly wind with breaking 2-3 metre waves, and for the first time this year took waves over Envoy’s bow, two metres above sea level, sweeping across the foredeck and breaking against our Portuguese bridge. The Med seas seem to be more ferocious for any given wind speed than we’re used to in Auckland, and with the wind and sea directly on our bow we couldn’t make more than four knots. The Adriatic Sea runs from NW to SE, so with a NW wind we were at the end of nearly 500 miles of fetch, accounting for the unpleasant conditions. Unable to maintain a direct course we turned about 25 degrees to starboard taking the waves on our port bow, and then managed to maintain 5-6 knots with more comfort. The rough conditions lasted until early evening, but fortunately moderated for the overnight part of our journey, and we picked up a north-heading current, increasing our speed to over six knots and making up for some lost time. Two thirds of our 27 hour trip was pretty rough, and we were thankful Envoy performed superbly, not missing a beat.
We cleared into Montenegro at the commercial port of Bar using the marina as there’s nowhere to anchor.

Bar Marina, Montenegro - before the storm set-in

Envoy alongside jetty at Bar Marina

A local cruising permit is called a “Vignette” and costs Euro 225 (about NZ$346) per month. You are also supposed to buy a separate Vignette for your RHIB costing Euro 100 (about NZ$154), but you can only buy these if your RHIB has its own Certificate of Registration. Hardly any boats other than super yachts would have separate Registration of their tender, so strictly speaking we’re not able to use our RHIB in Montenegro.
After Kevin and Diane arrived 23 May we had to stay in the marina four nights due to gale force winds with rough seas, heavy rain and electrical storms.

Buying provisions at the Bar market – few spoke English but this girl did and was very helpful.
Everything was very cheap

We spent one day exploring Stari Bar – the Old Bar fortress, built 4 km inland from present-day Bar for protection against pirates.

Stari Bar fortifications

Stari Bar street scene

We explored Stari Bar in heavy rain - Diane, Kevin and Laurie

This 14 year-old waiter spoke good English and we had a traditional platter of cheeses, olives, ham and pickles for lunch

Another day we explored the narrow cobbled lanes of the Venetian walled town of Budra.

Kevin and Laurie examine old anchor outside Budra’s fortress

Laurie, Diane and Kevin on ramparts Budra's ramparts overlooking the sea

The Budra fortress offered protection against raids from pirates

Finally the gale and seas dropped, the weather improved and we cruised up to a protected anchorage called Bigova.
Formerly part of Yugoslavia, Montenegro is a mountainous country (Montenegro means Black Mountain) smaller than Wales with a population of about 700,000. It has some stunning places, both on the coast and inland, and many fascinating historical sites dating back to the Iron-Age, but so far the local people don’t seem to be as happy, friendly or helpful as the Greek people we’ve become used to. We hope to be proved wrong on this as time progresses.

TECHNICAL - Nothing to report (at last!)

ENVOY LOG (to 26 May) - 63 days aboard so far this year, 391 miles cruised for 76 engine hours.