Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink

Although we had been lucky with the weather, it had turned a little windy for the last full day of my brother and his family’s stay on Sunday.

We had planned a day in charming Herceg Novi and despite the blustery conditions we were able to manage this although Jonathan had to ferry each of us individually in the dinghy to land to avoid us getting soaked. He valiantly opted to stay with the boat in case conditions became worse.

After a lovely walk by the seashore along the promenade that follows what was once the route of the old steam railway, we walked back to the town centre via the road.

Eventually we found ourselves in the middle of Herceg Novi, which was founded as a fortress in 1382. The fortress – Forte Mare – still stands and is a popular tourist destination.

There are many, many, steps in Herceg Novi and we certainly climbed quite a few of them! We walked up to Kanli Kula, a fortress built by the Turks in 1539 which sits on top of the hill.

This fortress has now been converted into an open air amphitheatre but is also open to the public to look round.

In the 16th Century the fortress became a prison and was called “Bloody Tower”. You can see multiple poignant carvings on the walls of the prison cell – depicting ships and other scenes from their past lives.

Later we wandered to the main square where we had a peak inside the Church and then had a lovely lunch.

Afterwards we went back to the boat and pulled anchor once again and headed to the lovely (and much calmer) anchorage at Sankt Marcus Island.

The following day we travelled back to Zelenika, the bay next to our winter home in Lazure Marina, where Jonathan ferried everyone ashore.

We had time for a very quick coffee before the driver arrived (half an hour early!) to pick up Pat and family to go to Dubrovnik airport.

It’s always sad when family and friends leave the boat and of course when our guests had departed the boat seemed very quiet and empty but we were very soon going to have another set of guests so we had to get cracking on getting ready for them.

Also, we had a number of potential buyers wanting a video tour of Sunday so we needed to wash the linen and remake the beds so that the accommodation looked ship shape.

Thank goodness for our fantastic and trusty washing machine and brilliant water maker! Six loads later (six duvet covers, four sheets, ten pillowcases, four each of towels and swimming towels, plus hand towels, tea towels, cleaning cloths and a week’s worth of clothes!) and we were done. Fortunately the weather was warm and windy so everything dried in record time.

We went back to the anchorage at Sankt Marcus Island and were pleasantly surprised to see Catabella in the bay with her new owners Ed and Clare aboard. We stopped by to have a chat and later had an enjoyable evening aboard Sunday.

It was quite strange waving goodbye to Catabella after three years of travelling together almost constantly and it also felt very weird waving farewell to Ed and Clare and see them hauling the anchor instead of John and Sue.

We passed the next few days catching up on some of the jobs we’d been meaning to do since we came back after the winter – a lot of “detailed” cleaning (the red dust that blows off the Sahara gets in every nook and cranny – even in places you would think was impossible!); cleaning the oven and BBQ, redoing the stainless around the deck, reorganising all our clothes and putting the winter things away etc etc.

After a few days we experienced a potentially disastrous situation when our water pump started to play up. It doesn’t matter how much water you have stored in your water tanks but if you can’t pump it from the storage tanks to the taps then you’re in trouble!

Jonathan had a fiddle around with the offending item and decided it was “beyond his remit” to fix it which was rather worrying as we had no idea who to call in to try and solve our problem.

Quite by chance when he was out at the shops in Tivat he happened to see a shop front which was signed “Aegean Technic Marin”. It was closed when he walked past but he took down two telephone numbers – one of which was a Turkish mobile number!

He tried a few times to call the local number but didn’t get through so he decided to call the Turkish number and was surprised to hear that the phone’s Turkish owner Sefa, was not only in Montenegro but close by to where we were anchored in the Bay of Kotor!

Sefa was very friendly and said that he could be at our boat within the hour to fit the new water pump (thankfully we had carried around one for ages – “just in case”!)

True to his word, Sefa and his colleague Tugay, arrived at nearby Prevlaka Island (the Island of Flowers) where Jonathan picked them up in the dinghy.

I hadn’t actually put two two together that both these guys were Turkish but I suddenly realised I could understand one or two words of their conversation and asked them if my guess was correct.

They were both very polite and worked quickly and efficiently to replace the water pump. It turned out that we also needed another new part (the accumulator for those interested!) and they tossed a coin to choose who would go and pick up one from the store and who would tidy up after the pump installation.

Before long the new pump was working perfectly and we no longer had to worry about there being “water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink”.