12. 23rd Sept – 3rd Oct 2008 South to the Sun

2nd October 2008

Like the swallows we are flying south and are en-route to Corfu. But before we left Croatia completely we had a very important date.

After leaving Budva in Montenegro (before Madonna’s concert as we had to get back to Dubrovnik for a much more important person) we sailed straight back to Cavtat – the friendly and pretty town 2 miles from Dubrovnik airport and 10miles from Dubrovnik. Fay was arriving at 11.30 on Friday morning and we wanted the boat spick and span for her visit. We heard later that there were 86,000 people at Madonnas concert and we were very surprised as we had sailed round to the concert beach in Budva before leaving Montenegro to look at the stage and “arena” – there looked to be space for only about 1000 on the beach so the majority only saw her on screen. Perhaps we had a lucky escape!

We were at the airport in good time waiting for Fay. She looked great – healthy and radiant - and we were all so pleased to see each other. After lunch on Deep Blue we went by bus into Dubrovnik – our third visit and Fays second. It is an amazing place. Such a complete Medieval walled city, being virtually rebuilt after first a devastating earthquake in 1979 and then being bombed to pieces by the Serbians, out of sheer spite as it serves no modern strategic value, in the 1992-1995 (homeland) war. We walked the wall that afternoon. It takes about 1.5 hours to circumnavigate the city on the city wall – complete and majestic. Below us all the perfect rooves and wonderful narrow streets paved in polished white stone. The churches high towers reached up to us and the aqua-marine sea was way below. Later we went for a drink on the cliffs – through a small gate in the city wall, a bar perched on the rocks on which Dubrovnik is built.
The next day we sailed to one of the small islands a short distance North of Dubrovnik. Fay told us about her races in Cannes Regatta on a (relatively) small classic yacht. She really enjoyed the racing and has the bit between her teeth to go racing again. We heard all about her life on board Windrose. She loves it and now intends to stay as crew for the Caribbean season, leaving France on the 4th November for the 17 day crossing.

The sun shone for Fay and we swam in the sea until we were exhausted (the first swim for us for a couple of weeks), walked to the beach and generally enjoyed each others company.
We were anchored in a lovely bay with a couple of other yachts. The one closest to us had a young family on board. While swimming early the next morning I realised that their yacht was moving but there was no sign of life on the boat. We had to pump up our tender and get the outboard on – all the time thinking about the two small children on the boat and watching as the yacht drifted further out towards the rocks and other islands. Andy drove to the small yacht in the tender and had to wake them. The father had to unlock himself out of the boat before Andy said “do you know where you are?” Rather unaware of their potential danger the young father said only “oh! Oh no. Oh shit! Thanks!” We watched them try re-anchoring three times, each time dragging their anchor, before going up to them again and asking how much anchor chain they were putting out. “Enough, about 8 metres in 7 metres of water” came the reply from the young wife! We advised her that perhaps they should put out the more normal three times the depth and she said they would discuss it! We did notice that the next time they anchored that the boat stayed put for the first time but we think they were completely oblivious to the danger they had put their family and the boat as they never thanked us properly even though we bumped into them later. In fact they appeared to think we were interfering and were mildly irritated with us rather than thankful!

We said a very sad good bye to Fay very early Monday morning as it may well be a year before we see each other again and later the same morning left for Italy. Before leaving we bumped into our friends Eddy and Fi for the fourth time - the lovely English couple with the beautiful Oyster yacht. Whilst waiting for the laundrette to open at 8 that morning I wandered around the boatyard looking at the yachts already out for the winter noting all the countries they had sailed from. France, Australia, England ... hang on, that is Eddy and Fi’s Oyster, looking fully winterised. I noted that I must email them to tell them the boat looked great. Shortly after Andy and I were walking to find gaz and heard our names called out and there was Fi in the cafe near our boat! They hadn’t left yet after all. It was so nice to catch them before we left and they gave us loads of timely Greek advice.

We finally and sadly left Croatia around midday on Monday having refuelled, filled our water tanks, washed the laundry, got gaz and provisioned. We had a 150 mile sail to Italy and at an average of 5 miles an hour we had a few hours at sea ahead of us. Unfortunately the wind was against us and we decided to motor sail. We took watches and the journey was uneventful until the last hour. Our port at the heal of Italy was in sight, the sun was just setting so we would arrive in the light, when we ran out of diesel. This could have been disastrous if Andy was not so good with the engine and I wasn’t able to set the sails and carry on tacking towards the port while Andy worked to refill the tank from the emergency Jerry can and bleed the engine. As it was after 40 minutes, just as we got to the entrance of the port, Andy got the engine started.
The harbour was very visitor unfriendly but as the fuel station was closed we tied up on the refuelling pontoon to be front in the queue on Thursday (36 hours later!) and had a lovely day making friends and shopping in Ortranto waiting!

Now, after another 45 miles we are in Greece on a small island 30miles west of Corfu. It is hot here and the sea is WARM. In fact we are back to a no clothes situation again!