Hanging toilet seats and Catabella on Sunday

Bad weather had been predicted – high winds and thunderstorms blowing straight into our anchorage – so we decided to move across the bay to a spot where we would be safer.

Not surprisingly, over in our new anchorage at Uvula Krtole it was more crowded than anywhere that we’d been on the Bay of Kotor – many of the cruising yachties had exactly the same idea!

The bad weather rolled in as expected but wasn’t as ugly as anticipated, although we weren’t able to leave the boat for a couple of days. Never mind, we both used the time catching up on jobs we’d been putting off for ages.

In Jonathan’s case this was sanding down and preparing a couple of toilet seats that had always looked a bit tatty and needed repainting.

It was good to get off the boat on the third day and go for a walk to stretch our legs after being confined for what seemed a long time.

We took the dinghy to The Island of Flowers (Prevlaka Island) and wandered over the causeway that links it to the mainland, ending up at a tiny beach which was a stone’s throw away from Tivat airport!

Although a little noisy it was a perfect place for families – with sand to play in and a gentle shelving stroll into calm water for paddling and learning to swim.

Once the storms had passed we took the short trip to the fuel dock at Portonovi Marina to fill up our tanks – an expensive business, 1.85 Euros a litre (almost three Australian dollars!). When you think we have two 350 litre tanks it’s a very different story to filling up the family car! However, there are no electricity bills to pay so I think we are still doing OK!

We pottered back to our favourite island – Sankt Markus – as Jonathan had his eye on an old ruin there as an ideal place to spray paint the toilet seats.

The building had been part of the once thriving Club Med resort – now the island is deserted except for a large herd of goats and their goat herder.

Our toilet seats hanging out to dry didn’t look out of place with the detritus scattered about the tumble down building!

After leaving the toilet seats to dry I decided to go with Jonathan to collect them. As we approached the dock we saw the man who looks after the goat herd.

He told us that we couldn’t walk into the interior as it was “too dangerous” due to there being loads of poisonous snakes lurking there. However he said we could have a stroll on the concrete path around the perimeter of the island.

He was fine about us using the old building as a workshop and perhaps feeling we might be disappointed about not being able to explore the island, gave us a handful of postcards taken during the Club Med’s heyday.

Using Google translate we had quite a long chat and he showed us where the kitchen and dining area had been – all reduced to rubble now.

Apparently the meals were cooked and served centrally – in a big area that was a bit like an enormous camp kitchen but the guests didn’t have to do any cooking.

Our new friend said that when he was around 20 (he is now 72) he worked in the kitchen washing up. He said it was hard work and he couldn’t mix with the guests but the pay was good!

We decided we needed a change of scenery and set off for the bay at Morinj in the inner part of the Bay of Kotor.

Morinj has a shop and a ramshackle stall that – we thankfully discovered – sold among other things, tonic water. Other than that, there are a couple of beach bars, a winding lane that leads to the Church perched on a hill, and some modernised traditional buildings with fabulous views.

On the way back from our walk, we decided to try out a restaurant we had caught sight of earlier. It didn’t look much from the outside but when we stepped through the doorway we saw lovely surroundings – a beautiful mill stream complete with ancient stone bridges and a gorgeous mumma duck swimming with her tiny fluffy offspring.

The food was good too – the waitress had excellent English and was extremely efficient and friendly. We found out later that she was just helping out as she is a teacher for children that live with a disability. Her skills as a waitress had been honed by working on a cruise ship for a few years.

We hauled the anchor once again to travel to the Tivat side of Sankt Markus as we were going to pick up our erstwhile sailing companions Sue and John, who had been visiting one of their sons and his family in Switzerland.

They had been off their boat Catabella for more than three weeks after their extremely quick sale and were on their way to adjusting to their new life.

As the selling process of Catabella had been so quick none of us had time to get to grips with our new found circumstances so we decided to have a week or so aboard Sunday together before we parted ways.