After a calm day, when the sun set the southerly showed up and gave us a good push North, and we were frequently doing 10 knots. There was a pretty confused sea with waves from the stern slapping the underside of the hull, as well as a short chop from the East. We ended up napping in the salon on the off watch because it was too noisy to sleep in our cabin. Wind directly from the stern is not a great point of sail unless we are running a kite (spinnaker), and with the confused sea the autopilot was already working pretty hard. Coupled with the squalls, thunder storms and dodging fishing boats, we ended up motoring most of the way.
The thunderstorms began around 1 am and continued until we arrived at the outer entrance to the Bay of Kotor at 8 am. I much preferred seeing them on radar as red blobs, rather than the heavy, menacing black clouds that surrounded us when dawn arrived. Daylight also brought our first good look at the terrain. It was beautiful country, not dissimilar to fjords found in parts of New Zealand. The mountains around the bay sloped to dark green water, and there were treed slopes with bald, rocky crag’s behind them. On our port side we passed by a peninsular which was still part of Croatia, then the town of Herceg Novi, and a narrower section leading into the Bay of Kotor proper. Little towns were visible at intervals but it didn’t appear to be densely populated. We were on the lookout for a giant red and white crane identifying the Porto Montenegro Marina in Tivat.
Once we entered the bay, conditions calmed significantly and there was only a light drizzle when we tied to the customs dock. The Porto Montenegro Marina where we would be staying, sent one of their staff “Ivan” over to assist the clearing in process. All the officials were located in the same building, and Ivan helped move things along and let Todd know what the protocol was. This was much appreciated! After an hour and change, the paperwork was completed in triplicate and we were given the OK to head for our winter slip on C dock at the marina next door.
We would need to return to the customs building the following morning in order to pay our tourist tax, as that office was closed on Sunday when we arrived. Time for a clean up, victory beer and breakfast…then a 3 hour snooze!
