On the road again... just can't wait to be on the road again (or in our case water, sorry Willie)

 

Kotor Bay- Montenegro

 The wind instrument was replaced but then, as forecast, the wind blew hard for several days.  Not wanting to battle a 30 plus knot head wind we opted to stay put until the wind was more in our favor.  In order to make up for the lost time we decided to skip Albania and just sail directly to Italy.  It was a good decision as our friend who decided to set sail for Tunisia regardless of the wind forecast reported back that for all his effort trying to tack with the headwind he made very little progress.  It was just a painful slog and both he and his crew member were sick. 

Leaving Kotor Bay - Montenegro

 On April 17th, we headed to the customs dock early to check out of Montenegro.  Which was futile as the customs folks don't come to work till nearly 0900 :(.  So much for that planned early departure 😉. Once we were all checked out we set off for Otranto, Italy, which would be an overnight sail.  It was a beautiful morning and the clouds were lying low on the land.  A bit crisp outside, but nice.

Sunset at sea

The passage was uneventful and all our instruments worked properly, thank goodness.  In the night the wind died off completely and we became a motor boat 😞 but still reached Otranto in 26 hours.  Our plan was to spend a couple nights in the marina at Otranto and visit the little town.  However, for most of the day before we departed, I tried in vain to reach the marina by phone and email.  We knew we would be tired and want to sleep the day away when we arrived so we did not want to mess with anchoring.  Sadly, I was never able to reach anyone so our new plan was to just go into the harbour and see if we could get a slip when we arrived and if not we would just anchor in the harbour.

 

Rainbow - Welcome to Italy

 The morning brought some brief rain showers.  But more importantly, Italy greeted us with a rainbow as we returned to her shores.  We found that to be a nice, little welcome after a long night at sea.  

Otranto, Italy - Harbour

Unfortunately, we were unable to get a berth so we dropped the anchor in the harbour.  Which was totally fine but.... the outboard for the dinghy decided to act up.  The outboard would only idle (it has not been run for months) so Michael ended up having to row over to customs for check in and row back.  Ordinarily, that would be fine also but we were dog tired... so not so fine.  

 

Otranto, Italy - Harbour

And now the Schengen countdown begins.  We intend to make the most out of our allotted ninety days in the EU!