Inundation floods boat

We left Albania rather disheartened. I really wanted to like the place but honestly on almost every count, it’s at the bottom of the list of all the countries we have visited this year (Australia, Bali in Indonesia, Turkey, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, France, England and Greece).

We were now on the way back to Montenegro – a place we had visited briefly during the European winter in our camper van when we discovered the delightful Lazure Marina.

We had signed a seven-month contract to stay there from 1 October 2023 but first we had some exploring to do.

The coastline in Montenegro was much gentler than that of Albania with its the towering and rugged cliffs. Sure, there were high cliffs but certainly not so wild and they were interspersed with nice looking towns that had pleasant architecture instead of the uniform Soviet-style high rises. We were both so happy to see architecture that wasn’t the hideous high rise apartments which had been such a feature of the Albanian coastline.

After our rather bizarre exit from Albania, (from the port of Shenjgin) our check-in to Montenegro in Bar was extremely “normal”.

The only unusual thing was that there was absolutely no one about to take our lines as we approached the customs dock. We radioed ahead and the Harbour Master called up the Police to see if anyone was around to help out but the place was deserted!

Fortunately we had a gentle breeze holding us on the dock and we managed fine. Checking in was easy and without the thumping music and boat boarders that we had to endure exiting Albania!

On our way out of the harbour we saw the first signs of life in the port – a rusty old coaster moving slowly away with a small pilot boat alongside.

We sailed for about another half hour and reached a lovely little anchorage called Malevik Bay. It was such a relief after all the hectic and noisy anchorages in Albania!

Here was the scent of pines, the sound of people swimming and splashing in the water and the gentle putt-putt of small outboard engines moving seamlessly between the anchored boats. So wonderful!

We really relished being able to have a sundowner on the bow of the boat without jet skis roaring past or people in pedallos circumnavigating our boat countless times and asking us “where you from?”

We couldn’t stay more than one night however, as we were due to meet up again with our sailing buddies Sue and John on Catabella. They had been in England gaining some Schengen days while their son and family had a holiday aboard Catabella in Croatia.

So we set off for the Bay of Kotor the following day – meanwhile Catabella was travelling from the other direction. After a couple of seasons of seemingly always experiencing wind “on the nose” we once again found ourselves bashing into it.

“At least Sue and John will be enjoying a bit of down wind sailing” we said to each other. But no, somehow the weather gods conspired to have the wind blowing on Catabella’s nose while we were experiencing the same thing coming from the opposite direction!

It was a great moment when we picked up Catabella on AIS knowing we’d soon be together again!

As we motored between the two headlands (each with a fort) into the Bay of Kotor we felt a sense of “journey’s end”.

The entrance was extremely imposing with forts on each headland.

As there were some high winds predicted in the following days we headed for a sheltered spot in Solila Bay over the water from Tivat.

We tucked well into the bay and put plenty of anchor chain down and waited for Sue and John’s arrival – they were clearing customs and immigration when we arrived.

We had a great celebration and lots of catching up to do once they arrived in the anchorage!

The following day all was calm with blue skies and sunshine. The winds weren’t due for another day or two so we were lulled into a sense of false security.

We had a pleasant day – went for a walk with Sue and John, tried unsuccessfully to get a taxi to a nearby supermarket, towed Sue and John’s dinghy back to Catabella after their outboard failed to start and catching up with household tasks.

In the evening we were invited aboard for a barbecue on Entre Nous by Peter and Deborah who we had met first when we were wintering over in Didim, Turkey.

We had a great evening but when it came to going home the weather suddenly took a turn for the worse – just as we were about to get in our dinghies, the heavens opened and it absolutely pelted down with rain.

The downpour was so intense that we could hardly see the dinghies, let alone get in them, so we all piled back into the salon of Entre Nous and waited for the deluge to be over.

After about half an hour the rain eased off but it took us a while to get going because the dinghies were absolutely chock full of water!

Finally, we were ready to go, the rain had stopped, the dinghy emptied of water (more or less) and guess what? Our outboard wouldn’t start!

After several goes to start the darned thing, it was John and Sue’s turn to give us a tow.

We made it back in one piece but our relief was short lived as we discovered that our salon floor was like a paddling pool and everything: our sofa cushions, our window ledges and everything on them – framed photos, games, basket of hats etc etc were absolutely soaked.

We had unsuspectingly left our salon windows slightly open and the deluge had hammered down on the cabin roof and formed a waterfall that cascaded down the windows and poured onto our window ledges which in turn flowed onto our sofas soaking them and flooding the floor (and we later discovered later, into our under-seat storage.)

What a disaster! It took us ages to mop up the water on the floor with towels and cloths. It seemed that as fast as we soaked up the water, more appeared! At first we couldn’t work out where the water was coming from but then we realised the starboard window ledge was constantly being flooded and overflowing onto the floor – the reason being is that side sits a little lower in the water because the boat’s (very heavy) batteries are situated in the starboard aft cabin.

It took us several days to get straight again but in the meantime we had another severe weather event – but that’s another story!