Sunday causes marina power-out after boisterous wind

We had ten days between the departure of our last visitors (Sam and Tilly) and the arrival of our next guests – and then exactly a week after their departure, we were scheduled to leave Montenegro for Australia – so there was a whole lot of work to pack into a relatively small amount of time.

When we leave Sunday for the winter we clean her from top to bottom, turn out all the lockers and have a big chuck out, go through all the food cupboards to check use-by dates and get rid of perishables – and that’s just the start. Jonathan also “pickles” the water maker (that is, decommissions it and loads it with a special cleaning solution that sits in the system until the water maker is recommissioned). Then he services both Sunday’s engines and also the portable generator that we use to drive the water maker. Our in-house generator also needs an oil change and there are two fridges and a freezer to clear out, defrost and clean, the toilets to drain and flush through with clean, fresh, water – and the list goes on.

Some of these jobs could be done before our next guests arrived but of course others had to wait for our last week aboard. In between all these jobs we spent time exploring more of our new surroundings and were delighted to discover a walkway along the coast from the marina to the historic town of Herceg Novi.

During the ten-day period between guests we had some extremely windy weather and things became quite boisterous even though we were in the marina. One night a gust of wind pushed Sunday too close to the dock and our dinghy caught the power unit on the dock and knocked it over!

We only realised that we had lost power in the morning when the electric kettle didn’t work. Despite it being early in the morning the marina staff were already working on the power unit and before long we were drinking our first cuppa of the day.

We were most impressed that the marina had acted so swiftly and that they also sent the dock attendants to help adjust our lines to ensure the same thing didn’t happen again.

Another thing that has impressed us about Lazure Marina was the excellent dock party night they threw one evening for all us with boats at the marina.

The band they had organised to play were unexpectedly good and they even provided snacks as well! It was a fun night and a good opportunity to meet fellow cruisers who had chosen to winter over at the marina.

After a busy ten days it was so good to see our daughter Hannah and son-in-law Pieter when they arrived from the Netherlands.

We had fun showing them around the local area on the day they arrived.

The following day we went for a lovely sail to Uvala Sutvara – the bay in which we had found the wonderful restaurant called Ćatovića Mlini. On the way we sailed close by the two most famous islands in the Bay of Kotor – Our Lady of the Rocks and Sveti Đorđe (St George) islands.

There is a curious legend attached to Our Lady of the Rocks Island. Apparently, after an icon of the Madonna and Child was found on a rock, on 22 July 1452, local seamen made an oath to commemorate this event by placing a rock after each successful voyage. It is said that the rocks built up over the centuries to make the islet of today.

The custom of throwing rocks into the sea is still followed. Every year, at sunset on 22 July, an event called fašinada takes place. Local residents arrive by their boat and throw rocks into the sea, thereby widening the surface of the island,

Unlike Our Lady of the Rocks islet, St George Islet is a natural island. It isn’t open to the public so it doesn’t have to cope with the thousands of tourists that flock to Our Lady of the Rocks every day. A 12th Century Benedictine Monastery stands on the tiny island surrounded by an ancient graveyard which was once the burial ground for the local nobility.

Once anchored, and after a bracing swim, we took Hannah and Pieter up the shallow inlet with the low bridge to the gorgeous restaurant set in the fabulous grounds of an old mill.

We had a leisurely and delicious meal in the beautiful surroundings before a slow sail back to the marina – ready for our next visitors, our niece and family arriving from England early the next morning.