Generous Greece, Costly Croatia and Magnificent Montenegro.....

It’s been a few weeks since we last updated the blog and the main reasons for our lack of activity have been that we have been very engaged in our travels, meeting up with friends and hosting visitors; as a result we now have a lot of news and have had to edit hard to prevent it becoming tedious.

When we last posted we were feeling a bit disillusioned with attitudes in southern Italy whilst recognising its beauty in terms of interesting places to visit…. but when we arrived in Greece it was hard to know why we had lingered in Italy at all!

Restaurants in many little bays are very welcoming with their own dinghy docks for  boats on anchor

Early morning walk round the bay in Port Kioni

Greece was a revelation.  The Ionian islands are beautiful and even more delightful for their plentiful and free crystal-clear anchorages and generous rates to moor on the town quay.  How does 50 cents a metre including water and electricity sound to you?  It’s a no brainer.  We even moored up in one harbour and plugged into electricity and water for free!  Maybe Greece does need to catch on a tad to offset its debt!

Our biggest concern was that we would find the food a bit dull because last time we were here, which was about 20 years ago, we did find the food very mediocre.  So, we were delighted to discover things have improved substantially.

We spent some time in Corfu, Paxos and Ithaca. Meeting up with our friends Simon and Liz in Kefalonia and Ithica,  Graham and Anne Marie in Preveza, hosting our daughter Miranda in Corfu; meeting up and spending time with Maggie and Richard from Hejira in Paxos and again in Corfu. 

Liz and Simon in Fiskardo

Dinner in Mljet with Lesley and Ian

Dinner with Richard and Maggie in Lake

Greg and Miranda in Corfu 

All in all the start of June was very sociable, with beautiful weather and great sailing.  The watermaker was fixed and it was looking like a month to claw back on some of our previous repair bills. Greg bought himself a fishing rod and was trying to supplement our budget by catching supper when we were on anchor - he was singing a happy little song.  

Sunset over Gouvia Marina

Greg's first fish - but a bit too small for supper.......

We then went north to a place called Obrevic in Croatia, north of Dubrovnik to meet our friends Lesley and Ian who were joining us to cruise around for a week. 

We cut an amazing swathe up the middle of the Adriatic on an overnight sail whilst electrifying storms raged on either side of us. Strangely we had clear sky above us all the way whilst Italy to our west and Albania to our East were covered in thunderheads and received the wrath of God! So, we were extremely pleased to arrive safely in Dubrovnik.  

Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik was lovely

but Dubrovnik is a victim of its own success - too many tourists.....

Lots of people have warned us of the hiked costs in Croatia but having been there several times before we couldn’t quite believe it could be as bad as all that.

It was.  

It was worse!  

Charges have been increased by 400% in the past 12 months.  The average marina charge we paid was equivalent of 175 Euro.  Anchoring is half of the mooring charge in many areas.  There is a sojourn tax to even enter and sail in Croatia; for 14 days ours was equivalent of 240 Euros.  Reserving a place in a marina incurs an additional 20% charge.  If you don’t reserve a place they are full, but if you book and pay the extra 20% amazingly they aren’t!  

Some restaurants have their own free pontoons if you eat with them.  Apparently, the law will change to prevent that option shortly, which is such a pity as we had an amazing dock and dine experience on Mljet, berthed at Konoba Ankora.

The view from the castle in Hvar

Jan chilling out in Carpe Diem, Hvar

A quiet anchorage in Brna, Croatia

The reason for this massive hike is apparently because charter companies such as Sunsail have abandoned Turkey and moved to Croatia and they are worried that there are too many charter boats there now.  That may be the case, but the charter business will probably survive, whereas liveaboards and people keeping their own yachts in Croatia are now voting with their feet.  The restaurants may find that problematic particularly in the shoulder season when many of us continue to sail and visit these lovely places. 

Luckily, we were sailing with very generous friends who paid more than their share of the charges and helped us through the pain and we really enjoyed the beauty of many of the places we visited, from Hvar and its chi-chi shops and restaurants to cycling round the lakes in the national park on Mljet. 

Moored at Konoba Ankora in Mjlet National Park

Exploring the National Park with Lesley and Ian

Croatia remains beautiful.  We had a fabulous time but sadly checked out after only 8 days to the lack of surprise of the port authority, who seemed very resigned and unhappy when we said we were going to Montenegro   

To our delight, Montenegro is a magnificent country and offers such a welcoming and much more affordable experience.  The scenery is breath-taking, people are friendly, towns are interesting, and the waters are so clear.  Checking in was pretty painless and similar to checking into Greece or Croatia. 

We arrived in darkness in strong winds at Porto Montenegro and woke to stunningly huge mountains and equally stunningly huge yachts moored alongside us! Porto Montenegro is a superyacht port and has all the facilities.

Every super yacht should have one!

We are having problems with our generator so having been stood up by an engineer in both Croatia and again in Porto Montenegro (probably more gainfully employed on a superyacht) we moved round to Kotor.  What a beautiful trip that was and how fabulous the city.  

Bay of Kotor Montenegro

It was destroyed in an earthquake in 1979 and has been rebuilt.  Kevin McCloud must have been advising on maintaining the integrity of the original buildings as it is clear what is new and what was salvaged. Nevertheless, the result is amazing and really worth a visit.

From our mooring we could see the precipitous wall to the mountain fortress and so we decided to climb it, pretending to be part of the cast of Game of Thrones.

The start of the climb

Halfway up......

The view from the top!

We can highly recommend Montenegro and we may well revisit. Now we have just arrived back in Greece in preparation for some pre-booked flights back for Phil and Jules's wedding.

Sardinia and Sicily

As you will have seen from our last blog, we are reeling from repair bills, so we made a decision to avoid the millionaires playground of northern Sardinia and try to make our way east as fast as possible where we believe it is easier to anchor and costs are more affordable.  

We were excited about arriving in a new country, trying different foods and getting to know it better, and Carloforte proved to be a pleasant, interesting introduction to Italy just as the weather was getting noticeably warmer. I took a few days to adjust to ordering beer in Italian instead of Spanish but no-one seemed to misunderstand me!

We have realised that although technically we are in the high season when it comes to marina rate cards, it is still very quiet both at sea and in the tourist areas, so the buzz that you often get in the peak times is missing.  That's great if you are looking to get away from it all.... but when we are sailing, we seek that solitude on anchor and then prefer to find places with more energy when stopping in marinas. So, we are realising that our view of places is affected by the timing.  What we might think is a sleepy, dull place in May might well be either great fun or a nightmare in August!

Carloforte is famous for tuna.  We decided to try the local tuna specialities but were surprised that it all seemed to be canned, smoked or stewed.....Jan's favourite, tuna tartare, apparently is not 'typical' and therefore not available! You can buy tuna galore in posh tins (like the sardines on the Atlantic coast) at exotic prices to take home to your friends.  We didn't buy any.....

After a couple of days we moved round to Cagliari, which is one of the biggest cities in Sardinia. It's an old city and has lots of beautiful historic buildings including a Roman amphitheatre. The marina is a bit out of town so our bikes were once again invaluable. We enjoyed browsing in the market and spent a very enjoyable evening at a wine tasting event where you paid for a glass in a pouch then wondered around different stands choosing wines. This proved to be a good introduction to different Sicilian wines.....if only we could find them again!

The Roman Ampitheatre

One of the city gates

Cagliari also has some good marine services so we took advantage of these to have a diver go down and do some maintenance on the boat and clean the hull for us. 

From Cagliari we did the overnight crossing to Sicily. We were fortunate because  we had favourable winds so sailed almost all the way. Although it can be quite stressful to sail at night the fact that we are saving huge amounts of fuel always cheers us up! We are definitely getting better at the long two or three day sails now; planning food prep in advance in case we are healed over and organising a watch system that works with just the two of us.

Our arrival in Trapani was a huge disappointment, it is a very scruffy dirty city. I don't know whether the waste collection and street cleaners are on strike at the moment but there were skips piled high with rubbish and it looked like the streets hadn't been swept for months. 

Are they on strike or is it always like this?

Added to this the marina was expensive and there was no drinking water available so we left there after a brief one night stay and went round to Castellamare which was a much nicer town and where we anchored for two nights. Other people have told us they loved Trapani so we may just have visited on a bad day.

Castellamare from the sea

Our next stop was Palermo which is a big, busy city with a beautiful cathedral and more than its fair share of ancient buildings so again we spent several happy days exploring on our bikes...although the Italian car drivers are very impatient, inconsiderate to cyclists and the use of horns is deafening. The open air food markets were amazing and very inexpensive, with lots of exotic produce which we have been trying.

Palermo Cathedral

One of the city gates

Some amazing things in the Cathedral - including a saint's arm!

Our next stop, Cefalu was well worth visiting. Its another pretty town with a very nice hill-top castle, so we spent a couple of nights on anchor there.

Cefalu Cathedral

Cefalu Castle

The view from the top....

There are  spectacular views over to the Aeolian Islands from the castle and once we realised how close the Aeolian Islands were, we decided that they were worth a detour from our original plan.  

The nearest island was Vulcano which as the name implies is an active volcano! As we anchored we noticed that the seawater in the bay near the beach was bubbling as if it was alive. When we went to investigate in our dinghy we discovered that this was caused by the release of gas from underwater fissures - there was a constant rotten egg smell which was quite oppressive depending on wind direction.

You can climb the path to the top of the crater on Vulcano where we discovered that if a little bit of gas was being released underwater at sea level..... a huge amount of gas was being released at the top of the mountain. There were warnings at the bottom about not going near or breathing the gas.  As you can see we were very obedient.....

Inspired by our experiences of Vulcano we were excited as we sailed across to Stromboli which is a much more active and bigger volcano. On the way across there was very little wind and as a result the sea was like glass for the first part of our passage, so we were delighted to be entertained by a small pod of dolphins.  Don't think we have ever has such an amazingly clear view of them before...we could see every mark on their skins.  

The peak of Stromboli seems to be frequently shrouded in cloud and ash as its several craters periodically display pressure reducing mini-eruptions. We upped anchor at night and went round to the north west face of the island for an hour to watch the eruptions from the boat and they were spectacular, taking place approximately every 15 minutes. You could hear the explosion, see the shooting lava and then see the lava flowing over the brim and down the cone at the top. Sadly the iPhone 6 camera, good as it is, was not up to that level of night photography but we are including a photo found on the internet which shows exactly what we saw, so that those of you interested in visiting will know it was definitely worth doing.

Whilst we were there we looked into opportunities to climb to the peak of the volcano and watch the activity from the eastern edge of the crater.  The information was clear that only people in peak fitness should attempt it, so I did it but Jan wisely declined. The 950 metre climb up was very tough and sadly the visibility at the top was disappointingly poor on that night due to the cloud and the ash.  

Coming down is also very hard on your knees as it involved wading through steeply sloping ash fields.   It was a very interesting climb and adventure, but very weather dependent.

We have really enjoyed the Aeolian islands. We have found it easy to anchor for free and  dock the dinghy ashore on Vulcano,  Stromboli and Paneria, but it is May and not August; in the height of summer it may well be a scramble.  The towns are small with tiny streets and tiny vehicles to match, nestling at the foot of a natural landscape that is absolutely awesome.  Well worth a visit. 

  

We are in Italy!

Well,.....Sardinia to be precise, and it feels like we have escaped from Hotel California! We are in a little town called Carloforte on a small island off the south coast of Sardinia. We arrived here yesterday after a fairly gruelling 190 mile overnight passage from Menorca and so far our impressions have been very favourable. The marina fees are quite reasonable, they gave us an adaptor for the electricity and the keys for the showers without being asked and without requiring a huge deposit, and the WiFi actually works!! We were in Spain for 9 months and whilst we loved it there, it is really nice to be finally moving on.

Our Italian courtesy flag at last.....

Our last post was from Valencia and since then lots has happened, mostly bad....we have almost been bankrupted - but the internet connection at the various places we have stayed has been so poor that we haven't been able to post anything so here is a catch-up. Apologies in advance because its a bit of a long one.

Whilst we were in Valencia for Las Fallas we decided to get our engine serviced and to get some repairs done after the damage in Fuengirola. We chose a supposedly reputable firm called Valencia Varadero to do the work but sadly they were nowhere near as good as we had hoped. I won't bore you with the details of the struggles we had, but suffice to say that the bill was almost double what we had expected and we are still arguing with them about it.

From Valencia we went to Ibiza, staying on anchorage in Eivissa to avoid their horrendous marina charges. I love Ibiza - it has a really cool vibe, it's just a shame its so expensive to moor there.

Eivissa

Chilling in Eivissa

Good music, good views, cold beer, happy days!!!....

From Ibiza we went to Majorca and we had hoped to anchor there, but gale force winds were forecast so we had to go on to moorings in Port Andratx for a few days. Port Andratx is a very pretty and very exclusive town - I guess we should have guessed from the exotic cars parked in the marina, but even in the off-season the marina fees there are shocking - literally triple those of Valencia. Anyway the storm hit and we were very glad we weren't on anchor because it was quite scary even in the marina.

Glad we weren't anchored!

Damage after the storm....

Port Andratx

Automotive exotica in Port Andratx

We departed to go to an anchorage as soon as we could leave and found a beautiful spot, but our bad luck continued. Obviously when we are on anchor we need to use the dinghy to get to the shore. Well we were going to get some groceries and Jan slipped.......I promise that I didn't laugh (too much!).

A lovely anchorage

No comment!

The water is still cold here....

One of the reasons for stopping in Majorca was to try and get our watermaker fixed and we had been recommended Marlin Marine, a firm in Port Adriano. The watermaker is an on-going saga, once it is working it will greatly increase the time we can spend on anchor but we have been trying with huge expense and without success to get it working since we left the UK. Well as we entered Port Adriano the alarm bells starting ringing - all the boats there were huge superyachts!! Included amongst them was Sybaris, a Perini Navi which at 70m long is apparently the world's 6th largest private yacht and was on sale for €88,000,000!

Superyachts in Port Adriano

To get an idea of its size, look at the bloke on its deck near the mast!!

Sybaris - this is what €88m looks like! 

Marlin Marine sent their engineer on-board who quickly diagnosed and replaced a broken fuse, so now the watermaker functioned,.....but still would not produce fresh water. Several hours and €385 later he decided that we needed two new membranes for our unit. I investigated the cost from the manufacturers and discovered that they cost €300 each. Independently Marlin Marine quoted the cost if they were to source the membranes for us as €2,500 with an additional cost for fitting them! We decided to get the membranes ourselves and get them fitted elsewhere.

By now we had decided that Majorca was a bit too rich for us and we needed to move on, but as we were sailing, heading for an anchorage in preparation for our departure to Menorca the mainsail halyard broke and the sail started to fall down. Those of you who know sailing boats will understand that safely removing the mainsail from a 50 foot boat in 18 knots of wind is not an easy undertaking - we needed to find shelter from the wind. 

The mainsail looks a bit unhappy....

Unfortunately some World Championship dinghy racing was taking place in Palma Bay and the route we chose initially took us right across their race course. As you can imagine we were quickly chased down and instructed to find an alternative route. 

Only a few racers out there

We finally managed to find some shelter and removed the sail then had to return to Palma to get the halyard replaced....this is when the song Hotel California started playing in my mind. To add to our trials, in Palma when we were mooring the Marinero managed to get a mooring line caught around our propellor - brilliant! 

Fortunately we managed to find some good riggers to replace our halyard and the marina sent us a diver to get the prop freed, on our way once again. 

Our 1st saviour - the diver

Our 2nd saviour - the rigger

From Majorca we went to Menorca, originally intending to moor in Ciutadella, but when we reached the port the because of the recent strong winds the entry looked so hazardous that we decided to travel on and find somewhere else.  Fortunately we found a nice secure anchorage overnight and then moved on to Mahon on the other side of the island. 

Its not looking too welcoming

From Mahon we departed for Sardinia - which is where we are now. Fingers crossed that there are no more disasters for a little while. 

Pizza instead of paella