June 13th, 2012

...now browsing by day

 

Wednesday June 13.Leaped to Montenegro

Wednesday, June 13th, 2012

I am in a bar in Bar, Montenegro where I arrived a few hours ago. It is a beautiful evening, 7.30 p.m. and still hot but a refreshing breeze from the Adriatic. I will try to watch the Holland-Germany Europa Cup soccer match at 20.45

I am checked in with the authorities and plan move to the nearby marina in the morning. I’ll stay at the customs dock for the night. But I am afraid that I did another Fiji like exit on Greece. I wrote that I was to get the riot act read to me for not knowing that I was supposed to check in with every port I stopped at in Greece. As it turned out the first port where I got my transit log, in Chios, did not have the port police stamp on it. I know I was there. When I showed up on Monday morning, instead of the riot act, I received a document from the port police and was told to go to Customs. I sat waiting for the custom agent to show up for over an hour and then he sent me back again to the office I had been sent from. Then a lot of phone calls were made, reports written up and I was given a bill for about $ 350.00 for a charge I have not been able to figure out. And I was supposed to go to the tax office to pay this and then come back.But there was a little problem, the tax office people were on strike and not sure when they’d be back to work. Then I had to do one more chore, go to the post office to send a package to Germany. It was a gift and I had wrapped it in the bubble pack that my running back stay had come in from Florida. In the post office I had to take a number: A) for anything but parcels B) parcels. After waiting an hour for my turn the clerk advised me that  I had to go back and pull another number because what I had was a “LETTER”…… I was livid. After I sat back in line waiting a nice Greek man told me to give him the package, when his turn had come, and that saved me much time. But I left Greece with a very bad taste in my mouth. These people are burying themselves in bureaucracy. civil service and graffiti.

I anchored the night in a nice Albanian bay and in the morning the wind came up from the south. There are not many good anchorages and marinas in Albania and I decided to ride out this southerly as far north as I could. Because the predominant winds is the Meltempi, from the N.W. and that is right on the nose. But I got a lot more wind than I deserve on a retirement holiday. I had expected that it would ease off during the night. But it was a wild ride under just the storm jib. The waves and the swell were huge. It was all of force 6. It is hard to show it in pictures. The below is an attempt.

And those were taken before it really got wild and I had no pleasure in trying to hang on and take pictures at the same time.  The moon came up, what is left of it, at 1.30 this morning. After sunrise the wind calmed but the swell and waves were still a real challenge.  I did not get much sleep.  But for most of the day I was able to sail with full main and my largest head sail. From Corfu till here, about 130 nautical miles I sailed most of the way.

Holland lost to Germany. 2 to 1. Good game. I really like what I have seen thus far from Montenegro. Clean, inexpensive. A draft beer is 1 Euro, in Greece it is from 2.50 to 4.00 euros in most restaurants. People, locals and vacationers come out to walk in the town. It seems to have all the things I liked about Romania and Bulgaria but a much higher standard of living. I might stay here a couple days. If any Gig Harbor/Tacoma people can help me with more information of the places that the early Croation settlers in Gig Harbor and Tacoma are from. I’d like to try and see if I can contact some of their remaining relatives here. I don’t think they’ll have ever seen a sail boat with Gig Harbor on it’s transom show up here. What I have written down is that the Jersiches come from Kotor in Monte Negro, The Skansies , the town of San Martin on the island of Brac. And my friend Maggie wrote me today that Markovich family came from Split and from Mljet . The Bujacich  and Sulich (Shulich) families came from Sundse ( or some such spelling). If any one can add to this, please, let me know.