Hello Greece!

Today I write from Nisos Kerkyra, or the island of Corfu as us English speakers know it. Corfu town is a delightful place imbued with character that can only be acquired over a time – a long time - and with contributions from many invaders and occupiers including the Ottomans, Italians, Venetians, French, the British (who continue to have quite a presence here) and, of course, the Greeks themselves. This is Homer’s ‘beautiful and rich land’ and Odysseus’ last stop on his journey home to Ithaki.

There are beautiful museums, palaces, villas, forts, winding lanes, colourful back streets, flat topped apartment buildings covered in antennae with washing lines strung between them, the bluest sky and the vibrant sea. The best thing is wandering through the old and new parts of the town and looking at the people, observing everyday life, the multinational force of tourists and the architecture which illustrates the tale of the town’s colourful history.

Back to Montenegro
Many miles have been travelled since the last entry. We ended up spending over a week in the Gulf of Kotor, most of the time in and around Kotor town where we climbed to the top of the fortress which made it’s way up the steep mountain behind the town – if you click to enlarge the photo and look closely you will see the ruined walls going up the hillside. The views from almost every where in the gulf area were spectacular.

After a day or two of thunderstorms and changeable weather (including a couple of water spouts, one of which flicked our fenders back over the life lines and tossed us around for a bit), we dingyed around the bay to take a closer look at some of the many churches and old sea captain’s villas which dot the shore. There were also little villages with holiday apartments and the odd hotel. There are no beaches as such so people swim from and sunbathe on concrete and rock platforms on the water’s edge. It was a bit too cool for us to be doing this but those hardy Europeans will not miss out on a minute of sun shine.

We had the feeling that this place would be the next next thing for tourism in Europe. Although that being said, almost every day a huge cruise ship would slowly make its way into the dwarfed port and disgorge its contents into the town.

Cetinje
We took the local bus to the old capital, Cetinje, to have a bit of a look around inland. The country is incredibly mountainous and picturesque. Apparently transport and communications through out the country are quite difficult because the coast is cut off from inland by the mountain range. The road system is limited (which we experienced first hand with narrow windy mountain passes, precipitous drops from the roadside and commensurately astounding scenery). The main road has barely room for two vehicles to pass around corners and, of course, there’s the crazy driving - overtaking with scant regard for what might be coming the other way. Hair raising! Curiously, there were car yards hidden high in the mountains just out side of Cetinje. We cynically speculated as to the source of these vehicles (hmmm… the streets of western Europe?).

Centije, tucked high in the mountains, was quite a contrast to the sea side. It was the home of the last Montenegrin king, Nicola Petrovic. We visited his old residence which was partially restored to its former glory. No wonder the peasants revolted! The former parliament building houses the National Museum of Montenegro which has a wonderful collection from ancient times to World War II but with little interpretation in English and many lights not working. Nonetheless we were impressed. A few other grand buildings, now museums, and churches and a monastery were all impressive and, interestingly, many of the grand buildings were set amongst the very ordinary every day houses. It was quite higgledy piggledy in many respects. Wide tree lines streets, some free of cars with a few tourists wondering around, spacious parks and a mix of old, stately and not so stately and modern buildings.

We came across the local market where we tasted delicious local cheeses straight from the barrel and mistakenly purchased a huge quantity that kept us in cheese for weeks. One of the best things though was lunch. We happened across a very traditional looking restaurant full of locals, with no English menu and no English spoken, that did a set lunch; bean soup, steak and salad. It was so delicious. When we returned to the boat I immediately embarked on a lunch inspired bean soup – it was also delicious.

In Kotor we met Richard from “Marionette”; intrepid sailor, organic farmer and philosopher. We shared a few meals and told many stories (Richard had the best hair raising sea stories), discussed the sailing life, current affairs and many other topics. We first met Richard with Betty, the delightful 77 year old artist and photographer who had recently completed her MA (which was quite inspirational) and was still sailing (but she was heading off back to Dobrovnik the morning after the evening we met). One of the wonderful things about this sailing life is the people you meet. At these times I consider myself incredibly fortunate. Of course, when the weather is shithouse and we are being tossed around in the middle of the night I occasionally think otherwise.

Max emailed us after the last blog entry with a comment on his experience of Montenegro in a combi van with his family some years ago:
“ Ah, more adventures! Makes me recall our now - oh so long ago - drive down that coast. Dubrovnic (in the days of less crowds), and deserted towns (they had all vamoosed to Australia), and barren cliffs.

I particularly remember our shock when we got to Montenegro and couldn't even read the labels on the food products in the shops. And, as you experienced, the population looks more rugged. In fact they looked and dressed as if it was the 14th century. Rather haunting, actually."

Max, we fully concur on all fronts except on the dress front. I guess it could be described now as generic euro fashion.

Budva
We left the seclusion of the fiords for Budva, the beach resort town. It was great to be back on the open sea. While the weather was a bit warmer on the coast I was chomping at the bit to heading south to catch some warmer weather and to be away from thunderstorm territory.
Budva was a contrast of old and new. The old walled town was delightful, if a little contrived, and very well restored after massive earthquake damage in 1979. The new town was a mecca for eastern European tourists. The sand and pebble beaches were crowded with sun beds and beach umbrellas for hire, but not so many people now the season is near its end. Lining the beaches were restaurants, parks, temporary amusements, fun parks, pool halls, internet cafes and extensive souvenir shops full of kitsch land fill.

Things were winding down quickly. In the evening there was even a Macdonalds – the first we’d seen in months. By mid morning it was packed up as were many of the amusements.

We had hoped to stay a night in a smaller lest touristy town further down the coast but the anchorage and the winds were not favourable so we ended up in Bar, our last stop in Montenegro and where we would clear customs.

Bar
Bar was quite a functional town. Once you got back from the sea front, which was largely comprised of big ferry warfs, ship yards, customs buildings, and a few marinas, it was a shopping centre (with the biggest supermarkets that I had seen in months) surrounded by apartment buildings. It was enjoyable in a strange way as there were no tourists and it had a ‘real’ town with ‘real’ people quality to it. We had dinner on the recommendation of the security guy at the Samba Restaurant and it was really good, but on the way home as we were walking along the poorly lit wharf Ross fell down a pot hole and seriously cracked his shin, taking out a gouge of flesh. Now, there is not a lot of flesh on the old shin so you can imagine the pain. This time I managed to do the cleaning and dressing of the wound without feeling faint (yay!), but we decided to see how he went for the night before taking further action. After making it though the night with the help of pain killers we figured that there may be bruising of the bone but no fracture. For the next day Ross was out of action as he really needed to keep his leg up and heal. It was the longest he sat still for on the whole trip.

At the marina we had internet access so after extensive weather research we found that we had a great window of opportunity to make our journey from Montenegro to Greece. Depending on the state of Ross’ injured leg the next morning was the ideal time to depart. We rose before dawn and after his day of rest Ross declared himself fit to sail. We were through customs by 7am - Farewell Montenegro!

I will leave it to Ross to tell the tale of our longest voyage, but I should note that it was a bit scary at times and I have survived to tell the tale with an overnight sail under my belt. I have seen the mysteriousness of 'ships passing in the night' and was awstruck by the stars. The dawn was cold but the sun rise was pretty darned exciting. Would I do it again? – hmmmm…. I guess so.

Hello Greece! I love Erikoussa!
We decided to make Erikoussa Island our first stop in Greece. After the sun rose over Albania we could see Erikoussa’s striking cliffs and peaks in the distance. The Croatian islands often looked formidable from a distance but this island was verdant and inviting.
Although we hadn’t cleared into the country we followed the tips of other yachties who used this place to break the long journey northwards or to Italy. It was great to stop after the overnight haul and get some sleep. It was also unlikely that we would be back this way so we made the most of it by staying a couple of nights. There were only a few other boats which transited in and out.

An Australian yacht flotilla leader who we later met in Corfu described Erikoussa as like the Greek islands 20 years ago. It was very laid back and friendly, there was only one restaurant as part of a small hotel, a couple of cafes and the one village or hamlet which spanned out from the southern bay. The water was absolutely crystal clear but bloody freezing and the weather was gorgeous with the blue blue sky melting into the sea. The quality of light in Greece is different; brighter.

Ross was delighted to be able to see how well the anchor was dug in without having to dive on it.

Kerkyra
So back to Corfu with its narrow windy lanes with bougainvillaea and jasmine and grapevines gracefully draped; the friendly dogs, sublime views and bakeries full of Greek delights; motorbikes zigzagging around people up the narrow windy lanes and crazy driving on congested roads. We both sense a simplicity to life here. Things are not so complicated (unless they involve paperwork). It is very easy travelling (English being widely spoken helps). It is also the end of the tourist season so it seems that the island is being returned to the Greeks.
Over the last week the delights of civilization have been indulged. We have been to the cinema, I have done the museums and galleries and checked out the produce market, we took a bus to the other side of the island and spent a day at the beach (which strangely enough we have not done the whole time we have been away), we have savoured taramaslata, tzaziki, moussaka, pastitsio, galaktobouriko and other classic Greek dishes.

We had one night of bad weather (middle of the night all hands on deck adjusting mooring lines and wondering if we will be bashed against the breakwater) and winds from the south for the last few days, but tomorrow the wind should be back to the north and we will leave for Paxos – the next island down the Ionian Sea.

Good bye to Cofu and its museums and art galleries and forts and cafes. This has been a wonderful place to settle into Greece. I hope to return again one day.

And now from Captain Ross...


The Shipping News

At anchor, Gulf of Kotor, Montenegro, 11/9/07

On beer, weather, anchoring and anchor drag alarms
A thunder storm rolled through this morning. Pretty dramatic and with heavy rain. In fact, very heavy. I left the window open overnight in ‘my’ bathroom (we have his and hers) and found the toilet bowl filled with rain water.
Looking back at our logbook, since leaving Slovenia it shows that we have anchored out at night around 80% of the time. We have spent 82 nights at anchor in a wide variety of weathers and locations.

When the weather is reasonable or good, anchoring out in a quiet remote location is most enjoyable - sometimes sublime.

It’s interesting, when on land and you think about the weather you are normally thinking about whether it is sunny or cloudy, dry or rainy, cold or hot. But when living on a boat, most of those aspects of the weather assume a much lesser significance. Your overwhelming interest is in the wind; how strong it is and what direction it is coming from.

It could be cloudy, rainy and cold but with favourable winds for your sailing or anchoring you start to think of the weather as being ‘good’ or at least ‘not bad’. The converse is also true. Get sunny, warm, dry days with unfavourable winds and you think of the weather as being ‘not so good’. When the wind blows strongly at night here, as it occasionally does, it is good to deploy everything in your arsenal to ensure you get some sleep. Expectations in this regard has been lowered somewhat – you can forget about getting a ‘good’ night’s sleep when the wind is howling and you are swinging around on the end of an anchor chain with (invariably) rocky shores within close proximity.

So what’s in the ‘arsenal’? Not enough, I sometimes think.

Firstly, we try to find somewhere to anchor that is potentially sheltered from the expected wind direction. Expected wind directions don’t always materialise so this can be a bit hit and miss, although more often ‘hit’, so it is worth doing. This strategy doesn’t so much protect you from the wind – high strength winds will whip over an island (for example) and sometimes can be just as strong or even stronger on the leeward side of an island (particularly on mountainous islands – the katabatic effect). But if we can anchor on the leeward side we are generally protected from the waves that are whipped up by the wind. So, we may still be blown around at anchor but the bouncing around will be reduced.

Then, to the extent possible we make sure that the anchor has set well – that is, dug into the seabed properly. We have 50 metres of chain and let out as much as possible – five or more times the depth ideally. Sometimes you are restricted in the amount of chain you can deploy due to limitations in your boat’s available ‘swing’ area. Lots of chain out adds to the overall weight of the anchor and also creates a more horizontal - rather then vertical - pull on the anchor (the catenary effect). This effect of a horizontal pull digs the anchor in more when significant pressure is put onto it rather than pulling it upwards and potentially out. Also, the chain itself will absorb a lot of short duration pressure from gusts of wind by it being pulled up from the seabed and flattening its curve, before pressure is put onto the anchor proper.

To set the anchor we reverse back slowly as the chain is being let out then when we come to a stop we slowly increase revs in reverse to dig the anchor in and to make sure it is not dragging. Interestingly, because we have a Kiwiprop feathering propeller the maximum revs achievable in reverse is around 1500 even though the motor will rev to 3000 when the boat is moving forward. The reason is that the propeller blades have a very significant ‘bite’ in reverse – the opposite of conventional fixed propellers.

We generally alternate tasks; sometimes I drive the boat and Carolyn operates the anchor winch, or vice-versa.

Much shouting from one end of the boat to the other during setting and retrieving the anchor has been circumvented since we devised our own set of hand signals for forward, back, stop, neutral with more revs, etc.

Carolyn has added to these with a special hand signal using just her middle finger. This is normally only used when I am proffering helpful advice and instruction.

All going well we then attach a ‘snubber’ to the anchor chain. This is a 10 metre length of nylon rope with a chain hook on one end and the other end attached to a strong point on the front (o.k. bow!) of the boat. The pressure is then taken by the rope and the last 10 metres of chain hangs loose. A couple of reasons for this: unlike chain, nylon rope stretches and absorbs some of the load as the boat moves about on the anchor and also, the pressure is taken off the windlass (the electric winch that the anchor chain is attached to).

Some ‘old hands’ won’t use anchor chain snubbers – anything that potentially prevents you quickly retrieving your anchor in an emergency is verboten.

On balance, I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

There are a lot of things that are not black and white in sailing – other than ‘don’t run out of booze’ I suspect! Internet sailing chat rooms are full of people interminably debating the pros and cons of different strategies and equipment. Some of them spend that much time online I sometimes wonder if they ever actually do any sailing – maybe principally the virtual kind.
Notwithstanding that, we have at times garnered useful information from these chat rooms – for example I posted a query about suggestions for a good place to overwinter the boat in Greece and got some good leads, one of which is where we will be storing the boat in Preveza.
See http://www.ybw.com/ go to ‘forums’ and then to the ‘liveaboard’ forum if you are interested.

So, back to anchoring. We often then set an anchor drag alarm. We didn’t use to do this but after dragging anchor on two occasions (in extreme conditions) a month or so ago it changed our minds – in the interests of getting a better night’s sleep. The alarm is GPS based and will sound if your boat’s position moves outside of a range that you set.

We have two anchor drag alarms. The principal one is an integral part of the chart plotter, which is connected to the boat’s main GPS. Alas, there are a number of shortcomings with it. You push a button on the chart plotter at the moment you drop the anchor to set the alarm. However, we drop the anchor from the front of the boat and the antenna for the GPS is mounted at the very rear of the boat. So because of that, the chart plotter already thinks the anchor’s position is 13 metres away from where it actually is.

Because you need to leave the chart plotter and the GPS powered up to run the alarm you use a lot of battery power, even with the chart plotter screen faded to black. Of course you don’t need the alarm to be on all the time, mainly just when you sleep. The problem is, if you temporarily turn off the plotter to conserve power it loses its memory of where the anchor is – not the smartest of programming of the software from the Raymarine people!

Also, the alarm sounds in the cockpit and we sleep in the bow cabin - the wind blows the sound away from us. Carolyn did, and I almost, slept through it once (in the event, a false alarm).
Fortunately, we also have a ten (?) year old hand-held GPS. We can set the anchor alarm on this one at the bow when we drop the anchor so it starts off with a more accurate anchor location. We also keep it in the cabin with us so that we will hear it if it goes off. Lack of an external aerial is a bit of an issue. We place it underneath a deck window (ok, hatch) and it seems to get a reasonable enough strength signal. Two AA batteries will power it for around 10 hours so it is quite power hungry (although not compared with the chart plotter) but you can turn it off and on again and it will remember the anchor’s location – unlike the plotter.

All up, quite an old hand-held GPS that cost maybe one tenth of our whiz bang plotter/GPS combo does this particular job better. However, the plotter is principally for navigation and it is excellent for that – we are not about to dispense with it.

One final but important strategy in our anchoring ‘arsenal’ - when you have done all you can, sit back, crack open a beer or a wine and hope for the best. It works most of the time.

On local beverages
The Montenegrin brewery is called ‘Nik’. ‘Let’s get Nikked!’ we cry before imbibing of the product. There are a couple of Nik brands: ‘Gold’ – the export brand (funny, I can’t remember seeing it in the Acland Street bottle shop that stocks the range of 200 or so imported beers) and the cheaper, more widely consumed ‘Sicko’ (sic).

Notwithstanding the name, Nik Sicko is a good drop in relatively moderate quantities. Somewhat regretfully I can confirm that too much of it and it lives up to its unfortunate name.


Montenegro to Greece - an overnighter
It’s a trip of around 160 nautical miles (300 km) from Montenegro’s southernmost port of exit (Bar) to Greece’s northernmost port of entry in the Ionian Sea (Isle of Corfu).

Bar is Montenegro’s main commercial port and a small industrial city. Accordingly, we were not expecting much but surprisingly really quite liked the place. Tourism hasn’t yet arrived in Bar. I suspect it may never do so.

The town is close to Albania and has a significant Muslim population. We were out for a drink on our last night there and sat at an outside table at a large, busy and quite funky bar. We gave the waiter our drinks order and he then informed us – in a slightly derisive manner, he had obviously marked us down as non believers - that they don’t serve alcohol. Bugger me, it’s a dry bar in Bar! On taking a much closer look around I noticed that it was soft drinks that all the patrons were drinking. They all seemed to be enjoying themselves. Overall, it’s a dentist’s dream town.

We could happily have stayed another few days - we subsequently found a real bar - but the weather forecast was for northerlies which were what we wanted to push us down to Greece.
So, up at dawn the next morning and over to the customs wharf to clear out of the country. The half-asleep officials were friendly and efficient – as they had all been in Montenegro. Half an hour later some helpful wharfies who were waiting to dock a ship pushed and waved us off and we were on our way to Greece.

A further half hour later and our journey appeared to be over almost before it had begun. No wind at 7 a.m. so we had motored out of Bar and about two miles down the coast our motor almost stops. I had done a minor service on the motor the day before and my first thought was – oh beauty, I have stuffed that up. However, it would rev freely in neutral but almost stall in forward or reverse. Of course, a fouled propeller. We were around 300 metres off shore, too deep to anchor, and with virtually no wind (to sail us away from the shore) it wasn’t a particularly comfortable situation.

So, no choice but on with the snorkel and mask and over the side. A large section of fishing net was completely fouled around the prop. It took half an hour and many dives to cut it all free. The (sail drive) prop is down deep under this boat and once you get down there you only have maybe fifteen or twenty seconds of cutting time before you have to surface again for air. Of course although no longer a smoker, 25 or more years of smoking stands me in good stead for such activities – not! It was slow going but progress was being made. Fear (well-founded or not) of shipwreck is a great motivator and it is surprising what you can do when you have to.

With prop eventually cleared we set off again for Greece – feeling buggered but somewhat ecstatic bizarrely. In retrospect I don’t think that we were in danger – Carolyn was continually monitoring our position and there were fishing boats around that we could have hailed or radioed to tow us further offshore had we needed to. I can imagine that conversation – ‘hey guys, look really sorry about the net and hope it wasn’t one of yours and all that but how about a bit of a tow offshore?’

The northerly winds kicked in soon after and were with us in strengths of 5 to 25 knots for the remainder of the trip. We had charted a course via the Straits of Otranto (the entrance to the Adriatic between Italy and Albania) that kept us at least 12 nautical miles off the Albanian coast (their territorial waters) at all times.

Considerable commercial shipping activity kept us wide awake (alert not alarmed!) through the latter stages of the night as we sailed close to a shipping lane (as you have to to head for Corfu) with some large high speed ferries lit up like Xmas trees passing flying past us at close quarters. Are we on a collision course? Have they seen us in the dark? Should we turn our navigation lights on? (joke!)

9.30 a.m. saw us pulling in to anchor in the bay of the small Greek island of Erikoussa, 10 miles north of Corfu. Thanks to some strong winds at times we had covered 150 n miles in around 26 hours; 4 hours faster than we had allowed. And, we had eluded the infamous (mythical?) Albanian pirates. I think they are more interested in people smuggling into Italy than robbing yachts these days - and so to bed.

On awakening later in the day, what a lovely little island and introduction to Greece it turned out to be. The season is practically over here now and there were few visitors – just the way we like it. The manager of the only hotel on the island told us he was closing for the forthcoming winter in a week’s time.

Two day’s R&R (albeit illegal, we hadn’t officially entered the country yet) on Erikoussa and then we sailed on to Corfu to clear into Greece – better late than never! “Yes officer it took us three days to sail to here from Montenegro; we’re really not very good at it.” Actually, they didn’t even ask.