Sailing under a full moon during the summer solstice

We had a wonderful “last hoorah” with our sailing buddies Sue and John when they stayed aboard “Sunday” for just under two weeks.

It had been quite a shock for all of us after their beloved floating home “Catabella” sold within a few days of going on the market so it was decided that they would stay with us before they flew away to Sri Lanka for their pre planned family trip to celebrate Sue’s 70th birthday.

During their time with us we did all the things we had enjoyed doing together over the past three years – anchoring in different bays, cooking meals for each other, eating out, savouring a wine or two, going for walks and playing board games.

Sue and I continued our rolling Scrabble contest and as usual, one of us had lucky letters and streaked ahead while the other struggled but by the end we ended up six games all. We always end up exactly even by the close of play!

We anchored up for a couple of nights outside the ancient city of Kotor and marvelled at the number and sheer size of the cruise ships there. I’m sure they help sustain the local economy but at what cost we wondered?

All too soon it was time for John and Sue to leave for Croatia where they were meeting their granddaughter and two of her friends for a week’s sail on a charter boat.

I said our goodbye to them on the morning of their departure aboard Sunday as I had an early dentist’s appointment. I had lost a filling on one of my front teeth (bottom row) and the dentist had very kindly squeezed me in at 9am.

The dentist took so much care, and honestly, you can’t pick which tooth has the filling. He spent 45 minutes working on it, carefully building it up layer by layer. The bill was an awful lot less than it would have cost in Australia (for example) – it came to 92 Euros (roughly $148 Australian) and that included X-Rays and local anaesthetic. Definitely good value!

I walked back to the bus station – which was on the way to our dinghy parking spot – hoping to be there in time to wave goodbye to Sue and John as the bus left. As it turned out they were sitting down still waiting for the bus! So I waited with them and then Jonathan arrived and he joined us and we waited some more. It eventually turned up more than half an hour after it was meant to have left!

Once the bus arrived we waved a sad farewell to Sue and John and drove the dinghy back to Sunday. We then quickly pulled up the anchor and motored to the anchorage in Zelenica (close to Lazure Marina where we had wintered over) and near to the customs dock where we would check out.

Meanwhile Sue and John were on the bus and actually went past as we were anchoring! The bus had taken all that time to get just a short way! It turned out that they arrived in Dubrovnik just a few minutes before their ferry was due to leave rather than having a couple of hours to spare.

For us, checking out of Montenegro couldn’t have been easier – first we went to the Harbour Master’s office which is housed in a beautiful 18th Century home on the seafront.

Next it was the port police where a very pleasant guy took our passports and suggested we wait in the shade while he processed us. Minutes later he called us round and gave us our stamped passports.

We left Montenegro early the next morning, estimating that it would take us about 36 hours to reach Corfu if we travelled non-stop.

There wasn’t a breath of wind as we motored out of the magnificently fortified entrance to the Bay of Kotor although there was quite an uncomfortable swell.

The weather forecast had predicted a nice breeze so we’d been looking forward to some gentle downwind sailing but it was not to be and we ended up motoring the whole way.

Fortuitously our departure coincided with the summer solstice and we also had a full moon which meant it hardly got dark at all that night! What a magical night for our trip!

Normally on passages we do four hour watches but as this was to be for one night only we decided to try three hour shifts.

I took the 9pm to midnight watch while Jonathan tried to sleep and then Jonathan did the next shift until 3am when I took over until 6am. Despite not being able to sail it was a beautiful sparkling night and the moon kept us company right through until dawn.

There were no dramas during the night although we came across quite a few drifting fishing boats that displayed minimal lights so there was plenty to keep us awake.

Although I was tired when Jonathan relieved me at 6am I just couldn’t sleep as the light was too bright.

Towards midday we saw our first Greek ferry carving its way through the water – we were nearly there and it was time to take the Montenegrin flag down and hoist the Greek flag and the yellow quarantine flag!

We arrived in Corfu at about 2pm and anchored in Ormos Garitsa in the shadow of the Old Fort – it was great to be in Greece once again!