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| Porto Montenegro - Tivat, Montenegro |
As I mentioned in the last post we were looking for a place to shelter as the forecast was for several days of strong bura winds. Our initial plan was to stay for a couple of days at the "airport" marina. We arrived at the "airport" marina by early afternoon and after at least 10 minutes (likely longer) of maneuvering finally got Talaria situated. It was windy and typically marinas will put you in a slip facing into the wind not with the wind coming behind you but that is not what happened. The person manning the marina (I might add its a new marina) was a young fellow who did not appear to have much experience. Finally, we got settled and went to the marina office to get checked in. In Croatia and Montenegro the practice is for the marina office to keep your documents until you are ready to leave. I suppose that is their method of preventing folks from leaving before settling their accounts. No problem - we brought everything with us to the marina office. From there is was just one thing after another and with every question the young fellow had to call someone for an answer. That occurred at least 6 times in just the span of about 15 minutes!! Geez! It all went downhill when we asked for a receipt and were told he couldn't issue a receipt. Apparently, the person who can issue receipts was not there. Huh? Then he took a tape measure out to physically measure the boat and told us his measurement was different from our documentation papers say so we need to pay more. Again - Huh? Finally, we said you know what we have changed our minds and will not stay after all - this just doesn't seem to be working out well.
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| Porto Montenegro |
At that he replied that we would have to pay for the night anyway. We said NO. So then he said we had to pay for half a day (we had only been there about an hour) since we used water and electricity - we had used neither. We said okay we will put it on a credit card so we will have a receipt and he said NO you must pay cash but I can't give you a receipt. What?? Finally, we made him sign a paper showing that we paid 30 euros and we left. My goodness, what a fiasco. So we moved on to our first back up plan and went to a nearby anchorage. Then I made reservations at Porto Montenegro (the high priced marina) for the next night to ride out the high winds that were forecast. At least we thought Porto Montenegro was honest and professional relative to the airport marina.
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| Million euro plus condos at Porto Montenegro |
We knew we would still be in port before the high winds and thunderstorms. Sure enough it was a perfectly still and quiet night at anchor. But at 0730 we heard thunder. Both of us jumped up because we had all the hatches open and upon hearing thunder we assumed rain would soon follow. We got everything closed up and put some water on the stove to make coffee. Our thought was that apparently the rain will come earlier than forecast so we will have some coffee and then just head into the marina. All of a sudden there was a very, very loud crack right beside the boat which we immediately identified as lightning. It was not a direct hit but very, very close. I had enough sense to immediately remove my hand from the metal tea kettle. Our propane monitor started to alarm and we saw that it shut off. We tried to turn it back on but it was no longer working. Then we noticed that our battery monitor was flashing an error code. We looked up the code and found it simply indicated that we had lost power. Supposedly, you can touch any key and the code will clear. We touched a key on the keypad, the code cleared and then the monitor shut off and would not come back on. Initially, we assumed we blew a fuse so we changed it but nope - monitor not working. Uh oh... Now we were thinking that we may have sustained some real damage. We went to check the windlass - which pulls up the anchor and thank goodness it worked. Then we went to start the engine but it would not start. Our engine has an electronic start, there is no key. Well now we were in trouble. Without an engine we would have no ability to leave the anchorage if it became unsafe or even to move to reset the anchor if it started dragging.
The Black Pearl - Russian Oligarch yacht
Thank goodness it was a Friday so were able to reach a nearby boatyard where there is a Yanmar mechanic. The mechanic came out by boat to our boat to check things out. After a few minutes he said - "do you have insurance?". Uh oh... That did not sound promising. He then told us that the lightning had destroyed the ECU (electronic control unit) on the engine. Milos said he would have to order parts and it would take a 7 to 10 days for parts to arrive. Next, he asked us what our plan was as the wind was coming and it would not be safe to stay there without an engine. He offered to call Porto Montenegro for us and arrange a tow. I had already called Porto Montenegro to alert them of our situation before he arrived so they were aware. When we reached Porto Montenegro again they said they would be out to get us as soon as they finished towing a Catamaran that had also been hit by lightning - same time, same place. By the time Porto Montenegro came out to get us the wind was kicking up a bit and it was raining. Fortunately, the small island where we were anchored is very close to Porto Montenegro so it was a short tow. Now we wait for the electricians to come out for a full inspection.
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