ENVOY IN ALBANIA

After we complete the work on Envoy in Corfu's Gouvia marina our agents, A1 Yachting, clear us out of Greece and we head to Sarande in Albania just a short hop across the Corfu Channel. Our friend Chris is still with us. 
On the way a six metre powerboat overtakes us at high speed about five metres off our beam – unthinking, dangerous behavior from locals in high speed power boats can be a problem throughout the Med.

At Sarande the shelter isn't very good as it's fully exposed to the South while the prevailing NW winds send a swell around into the bay. We're directed to moor quayside, but the quay was in fact just a finger about 10 metres long leaving Envoy's stern exposed and close to a large car ferry. So we decide not to stay there but to anchor out in the bay close to a NZ yacht with a solo yachtsman aboard. With our flopper stoppers deployed the effect of the swell is considerably reduced and we're quite comfortable.

Sarande anchorage viewed from castle

Envoy alongside a very short quay - we had to move

Both nights in Albania we eat out finding the food delicious and inexpensive with good friendly service.

View of fishing boats from our harbour side restaurant table

This is our third visit to Albania so we've seen many of the local sights but decide to hire a car and driver for a tour up the coast. Our driver is a nice guy called Mundi,  half Albanian and half Greek.

First we drive up to the hilltop castle for a spectacular view down on Sarande. Mundi explains that Albania was Communist until 1992 and then had a short but violent civil war in 1998 with about 2,000 people killed. It seems to be stable and reasonably safe these days and we never feel ill at ease

The sparsely populated coastline is rugged and spectacular. We stop for lunch at an unusual cafe with fresh water springs flowing through it and the water is so cold it has a cooling effect on the cafe.

Diane sitting in cafe with fresh water springs

Our other main stop is at one of Ali Pasha's castles in Panorma Bay, an important historical stop over point for vessels traversing this coast. The castle's still in pretty good condition and it's easy to imagine what it was like a few hundred years back. Ali Pasha employed French engineers to design and build the castle and being a pretty ruthless guy he had them all executed upon the castle's completion to keep its secrets. I nearly joined them in fact - as I went to step inside one of the nearby buildings a large snake slithered across the doorway just in front of me so I gave up the idea of going inside.

Inside Ali Pasha's castle, once decorated with carpets and tapestries

We leave Albania for Italy, stopping for one night to anchor off the village of Ammou on the south side of an island called Nissos Othoni. This is a first for us and Ammou would rate as one of the nicest anchorages we've been into. Ashore there's some nice tavernas and some torpedoes displayed in a memorial to Greek sailors lost in a submarine called Protefs rammed by an Italian gunboat in 1940. This is a stunning bay and we'll certainly spend more time there on the way back to Corfu. Of course most anchorages are subject to weather and our waitress told us that in southerly gales huge waves wash right up the beach and over the road.

Torpedo and launcher from submarine Protefs

View of Ammou

Leaving Ammou soon after first light we cruise to Otranto on Italy's NE Adriatic coastline. This is new territory for us and it's a nine hour cruise in light winds and a sloppy northerly one metre swell – a good test for the Naiad stabilisers and they perform well. As we get within about 20 miles of Otranto a southerly current sets and we lose about a knot – not significant on a fast boat, but in our case about 15% of our speed. We had planned to anchor in Otranto harbour, but several yachts anchored there are pitching wildly so we decide to moor stern-to the quay alongside some other boats. We're directed to a rather narrow space with a 12m yacht on our starboard side and a 6m power boat to port. As we reverse in to our position the 6m power boat moves in the wind, blocking our entry. A marinara jumps into the boat to move it away, but at the same time we have a problem securing the lazy line quickly and Envoy starts to drift to leeward away from her position. We quickly throw a line from Envoy's beam to somebody aboard the yacht to starboard and order is restored. The marinaras here – Andrea and Fabricio are really nice helpful guys, but the shelter is quite poor with a lot of movement. There are no toilets or showers, power is only available from 1600 to 0900hrs and the cost is a rather high 100 Euros per night! At least the atmosphere and views are great.

This quayside area seemed only suitable for smallish boats but next day a huge Envoy look-alike vessel berths here proving that theory wrong. Otium is about 80ft long weighing about 100 tonnes. Her owner tells me they almost lost Otium several years ago during a sudden 60 knot gale in the Gulf of Taranto when they were unable to turn Otium due to windage on her beam and six metre seas.

Envoy moored in Otranto beside big brother

Most of the boats in Otranto are small motor boats

Otranto's formidable castle

During our stay we enjoy one of our favorite meals spaghetti al vongole (clams) with local rose vino

ENVOY AROUND CORFU

Leaving Parga on Greece's mainland coast we cruise further up to Mourtos – one of Di's favorite shopping areas and also one of mine as they have an excellent hardware store and more importantly a great bakery with delicious chocolate cakes.

Parga harbour viewed from castle

At many of these small boat harbors it's quite difficult to find a place to leave your tender as nowhere provides a designated area and you have to find a spot among the local small fishing boats. There is no real concern about theft, just finding a vacant spot.

The first night at Mourtos there's a lot of lightning in the distance and this is always a bit disconcerting because if a thunderstorm arrives it can often bring nasty squalls and wind shifts. Our only few bad nights aboard Envoy have been during thunderstorms, but fortunately this one stays well away.

Another night we return to Envoy from ashore to find a yacht anchored much too close to us – at times only four metres away. We put out fenders but don't actually touch during the night.

We cruise over to Petriti on the island of Corfu stopping on the way to anchor off the Levkimmi Canal and take the dinghy up about a mile to the sleepy village of Levkimmi for lunch. We'd done this before with Frank and Marie but not with Chris.

Chris and Laurie moor the RHIB at Levkimmi canal

Our Naiad hydraulic stabilisers aren't operational at this point, but it's been so calm that so far we've only deployed our other paravane system – the “Birds” once. During this time we tried deploying just one “Bird”, something we've never done before. Using one certainly reduces roll but induces a lean to the side it's deployed so we didn't like it – if we wanted to cruise along on a lean we'd have bought a sailing yacht!

We spend a couple of nights anchored off Petriti and have a great evening ashore at a restaurant overlooking Envoy's anchorage to celebrate our 48^th wedding anniversary.

By now we've run all of Envoy's equipment except for the watermaker (which we plan to use a bit later when Envoy's new owners join us for a couple of weeks) and everything is working well except for the Naiads and the B&G Network wind.

Our new air horn installed late last year wasn't working properly and we found that its air supply tubes had kinked and blocked the air supply. It was an easy matter to replace the tubes with new slightly shorter ones to prevent it kinking again and then it worked fine.

Leaving Petriti we cruise north stopping to anchor off Gouvia town, then Kalami, Ormos Ay Stefanos and Avalaki.

View from the Durell's White House in Kalami

During this time Chris and I spend some time trying to find the cause of a very small fresh water leak inside the main head's storage cabinet. It turned out to be a leaking anti-syphon valve for the toilet. I didn't even know this valve was there and it was a bit tricky to remove – but we did so and it's now cleaned up and working properly again ready to be re-installed.

Chris working on our leaking anti-syphon valve and close-up of the valve

There's a few super yachts around including this Australian-owned one with a helo on its foredeck

Chris and Laurie with busker in traditional costume

We spend four nights in Corfu's Gouvia marina to sort out a couple of technical issues left over from last year. While there we catch up with Bruce and Gavin from catamaran Midi and have a great night out at a Corfu restaurant, which is a bit different as you just write down what you want to eat and mostly they have it available.

Last year we left our BandG Network Wind instrument with a technician – Dimitris - to fix. Several months ago we'd sent him an eye watering 600 Euros for parts and he says it fixed and ready to install.

So up the mast he goes and fits the sensor. “Is it working?” he shouts down. “No” I reply – dammit!

So next day he arranges for two technicians from the B&G local agents to take a look. These guys seemed to have a methodical approach and were able to fix it within an hour, so all was well. I could have bought a new unit for less than 600 Euros, but the one we have is part of a network and also has a useful built-in battery voltage monitor which new ones don't have.

On Friday 21 June two technicians arrive from Athens to investigate why our Naiad hydraulic stabilisers are making loud banging noises when in use. Dimitris is an electrician and Konstantinos a mechanic – both very nice, competent and hard-working guys.

Laurie with Dimitris and Konstantinos

After checking the system over we start it in the marina and the loud knocking noises soon start.

A couple of years ago we had a modification done by the same company to lock the fins in the central position when de-energised. This was to avoid the need to manually lock the fins in their central position when anchored in rolly conditions so they don't bang from side to side. Dimitris has a theory that the valves fitted to achieve this central locking were the wrong ones and they are causing over-heating the hydraulic fluid leading to the knocking noises. So they remove the centring valve on the port side and the knocking noises disappear. In fact they seem to disappear on both sides. We do an hour long sea trial and they work perfectly. They also re-route the Naiad's oil cooler hoses as they were very close to the Lugger's lagged exhaust. This wasn't a danger but was affecting the cooling. Next day they remove the centring valve on the starboard side and we do a sea trial about 90 minutes long with the system working well. Since then we have cruised for several hours, including one nine hour cruise with quite a swell running and all is working well. The plan going forward is for these guys to obtain the correct valves from USA and fit them when we come back to Greece from Italy in September. So that was excellent news too as it's a great deal easier switching on the hydraulic stabilisers than deploying the “Birds”. I still can't fully understand why the system worked fine for several months after the centring valves were installed. Dimitris tried to explain to me it was something to do with the valve's internal springs but full meaning was lost in language and my lack of technical understanding.

Next Post – our visit to Albania.