Envoy is currently in ACI Marina Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Cruisers generally talk about Montenegro being expensive to visit but this is not really so. The Vignette (cruising permit) costs 125 Euro (about NZ$208) for one week – so that is expensive, but it only increases to 225 Euro (about NZ$375) for a month and 405 Euro (about NZ$675) for three months, although it’s hard to see why you’d want to stay more than a month in Montenegro as the total coastline is only 45 miles long (plus the Gulf of Kotor) and there’s only about a dozen locations for the cruiser to visit.
Apart from the Vignette everything is super-cheap. For example:
- The excellent local lager beer is called Niksicko and costs about 1.20 Euro (about NZ$2.00) for a large glass. The New Zealand wine industry was started by “Dalmatians” from this general area, and their wine is excellent to taste and a fraction of the price in New Zealand – we were buying 500ml bottles for around 4.50 Euro (about NZ$7.50).
- For breakfast at a very good taverna we could have Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon for 6 Euro (about NZ$10.00) or a Full English Breakfast of two eggs, bacon, mushrooms, sausages, beans, tomatoes and French fries for 4 Euro (about NZ$6.70).
- Shopping in the fresh food markets we find the prices very reasonable. We bought a selection of potatoes, asparagus, carrots, beans, lettuce, avocadoes, kiwifruit, strawberries, bananas, mint, parsley for 21 Euro (about NZ$35) and Diane says this would have cost about $50 in New Zealand. A whole salami cost 4 Euro (about NZ$6.70) and a litre of olive oil 7 Euro (about NZ$11.70).
- I got a haircut for 4 Euro (about NZ$6.70). Admittedly I don’t have much hair to cut, but in New Zealand get charged $10 to $15.
This market was only a few metres from Envoy's berth
.JPG)
And included a beautiful flower market
.JPG)
The main gate of Kotor's walled city is adjacent to the market
.JPG)
Our purchases from the market on Envoy's dinette table
.JPG)
We met some British cruisers who’d had a bad experience at a village called Risan in the Gulf of Kotor. They were moored alongside the town jetty overnight and awoke in the early hours of the morning to a loud bang. Some idiot had cast their mooring lines from the jetty leaving their boat to drift across the bay until it hit an anchored vessel. Little damage was done but it could have been a very serious situation. A few days later we visited Risan finding it has little to offer.
One morning we awoke to find this traditional sailing vessel alongside
.JPG)
We spent 16 days in Montenegro and it rained all but one of them, ranging from light showers to torrential rain with thunder, but overall we had a great time and particularly enjoyed anchoring in Bogova and mooring to the town quay in Kotor.
Another excellent reason to visit here is you can buy duty-free fuel on the day you leave (provided that you have a ship’s rubber stamp), and we bought our estimated year’s requirement of about 1,600 litres for 0.73 Euro (about NZ$1.22) per litre whereas the usual price is 1.22 Euro (about NZ$2.03) per litre. A large Italian motor yacht was fuelling next to us, buying an incredible 70,000 litres for a cost of 51,100 Euro (about NZ$85,800) – a good argument against large planing vessels.
This Italian motor yacht loaded 70,000 litres of diesel
The last time we bought fuel was 800 litres last August at NZ$2.76 per litre, and fuel we purchased during 2012 in Greece averaged 1.61 Euro per litre. That is NZ$2.68 per litre or 6.12 Euro per US gal or approx US$8.13 per US gal. Turkish prices are very similar.
It’s difficult to be specific about Envoy’s fuel economy as the diesel we buy is used in the Lugger, our NL 8kw genset (which probably uses about 3 litres/hour) and our Yanmar wing engine once a week or so. We estimate the Lugger averages about six litres per hour.
The most reliable info is that on the North Atlantic Rally the Nordhavn 46s reportedly cruised at an average of 6.3 knots and averaged 1.3 litres per nm, which is about 2.92 nm per gal. Patrick of Nordhavn 46, Frog Kiss, reports using two US gal per hour at 1,650 rpm for 6.2 knots – that is 3.1 nm per gal if my math is correct.
Anyway one thing’s for sure – with a Nordhavn 46 your annual fuel bill is not a major consideration in the scheme of things.
TECHNICAL – nothing to report
Cruisers generally talk about Montenegro being expensive to visit but this is not really so. The Vignette (cruising permit) costs 125 Euro (about NZ$208) for one week – so that is expensive, but it only increases to 225 Euro (about NZ$375) for a month and 405 Euro (about NZ$675) for three months, although it’s hard to see why you’d want to stay more than a month in Montenegro as the total coastline is only 45 miles long (plus the Gulf of Kotor) and there’s only about a dozen locations for the cruiser to visit.
Apart from the Vignette everything is super-cheap. For example:
- The excellent local lager beer is called Niksicko and costs about 1.20 Euro (about NZ$2.00) for a large glass. The New Zealand wine industry was started by “Dalmatians” from this general area, and their wine is excellent to taste and a fraction of the price in New Zealand – we were buying 500ml bottles for around 4.50 Euro (about NZ$7.50).
- For breakfast at a very good taverna we could have Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon for 6 Euro (about NZ$10.00) or a Full English Breakfast of two eggs, bacon, mushrooms, sausages, beans, tomatoes and French fries for 4 Euro (about NZ$6.70).
- Shopping in the fresh food markets we find the prices very reasonable. We bought a selection of potatoes, asparagus, carrots, beans, lettuce, avocadoes, kiwifruit, strawberries, bananas, mint, parsley for 21 Euro (about NZ$35) and Diane says this would have cost about $50 in New Zealand. A whole salami cost 4 Euro (about NZ$6.70) and a litre of olive oil 7 Euro (about NZ$11.70).
- I got a haircut for 4 Euro (about NZ$6.70). Admittedly I don’t have much hair to cut, but in New Zealand get charged $10 to $15.
This market was only a few metres from Envoy's berth
.JPG)
And included a beautiful flower market
.JPG)
The main gate of Kotor's walled city is adjacent to the market
.JPG)
Our purchases from the market on Envoy's dinette table
.JPG)
We met some British cruisers who’d had a bad experience at a village called Risan in the Gulf of Kotor. They were moored alongside the town jetty overnight and awoke in the early hours of the morning to a loud bang. Some idiot had cast their mooring lines from the jetty leaving their boat to drift across the bay until it hit an anchored vessel. Little damage was done but it could have been a very serious situation. A few days later we visited Risan finding it has little to offer.
One morning we awoke to find this traditional sailing vessel alongside
.JPG)
We spent 16 days in Montenegro and it rained all but one of them, ranging from light showers to torrential rain with thunder, but overall we had a great time and particularly enjoyed anchoring in Bogova and mooring to the town quay in Kotor.
Another excellent reason to visit here is you can buy duty-free fuel on the day you leave (provided that you have a ship’s rubber stamp), and we bought our estimated year’s requirement of about 1,600 litres for 0.73 Euro (about NZ$1.22) per litre whereas the usual price is 1.22 Euro (about NZ$2.03) per litre. A large Italian motor yacht was fuelling next to us, buying an incredible 70,000 litres for a cost of 51,100 Euro (about NZ$85,800) – a good argument against large planing vessels.
This Italian motor yacht loaded 70,000 litres of diesel
The last time we bought fuel was 800 litres last August at NZ$2.76 per litre, and fuel we purchased during 2012 in Greece averaged 1.61 Euro per litre. That is NZ$2.68 per litre or 6.12 Euro per US gal or approx US$8.13 per US gal. Turkish prices are very similar.
It’s difficult to be specific about Envoy’s fuel economy as the diesel we buy is used in the Lugger, our NL 8kw genset (which probably uses about 3 litres/hour) and our Yanmar wing engine once a week or so. We estimate the Lugger averages about six litres per hour.
The most reliable info is that on the North Atlantic Rally the Nordhavn 46s reportedly cruised at an average of 6.3 knots and averaged 1.3 litres per nm, which is about 2.92 nm per gal. Patrick of Nordhavn 46, Frog Kiss, reports using two US gal per hour at 1,650 rpm for 6.2 knots – that is 3.1 nm per gal if my math is correct.
Anyway one thing’s for sure – with a Nordhavn 46 your annual fuel bill is not a major consideration in the scheme of things.
TECHNICAL – nothing to report
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