Back in Montenegro

Talaria at NAVAR boatyard

 Eight months and many, many emails later we FINALLY settled with the insurance company.  Was it fair and equitable?  Were were made whole minus our deductible?  The answer is a resounding: NO.  But rather than go through arbitration and months upon months of further delay we got the best deal we could obtain and settled.  We knew full well that there may be more that comes up that will not be covered now that we have settled and we may end up taking an even greater loss.  Anyway you approach it, its a losing game so we took the gamble.  Just days before we were due to fly back to Montenegro, London Marine Insurance finally deposited money to our checking account.  

Boxes of now worthless electronics

 The work that NAVAR boatyard was doing is complete but our work begins.  We took a chance and brought some boat parts back with us to repair the inverter and air conditioner.  Circuit boards mostly that we were praying would not be confiscated by customs.  We also brought back a new controller for our wind generator and a new battery monitor.  One whole day was spent just repairing the inverter but I am happy to report that it now works!!  Our goal is to complete our work in two more days and then have the boat surveyed while she is out of the water.  We are aiming to have Talaria back in the water by Thursday - March 9th.  

Replacing the wind generator controller

However, we have already run into problems.  Our starter battery is dead (a victim of the lightning strike) and our house bank of batteries are not taking a charge.  All of the batteries were just purchased in 2021.  We are hoping that the house bank will improve but its not looking good.  Of course, that will all be on us as we already settled with the insurance company.  Absolute crooks - a scam in every sense of the word.  

Beautiful Montenegro

 We still have been unable to check to make sure the electronics are working properly but hope to do a sea trial on Thursday to test it all (realistically it may be the following week).  At the moment the inside of Talaria is a mess!  We have to complete some projects before we can even begin to put things back together inside.  So we will see if the survey can be completed on Wednesday, probably not  They need to be able to walk around and look things over which is impossible at the moment.

Che Boat

On another note, we found it interesting that the little NAVAR boat parked in front of us celebrates Che Guevara.  Is there a connection between Montenegro and Cuba?

Che Boat

Or a personal connection to Cuba?  Don't know, nor does it matter - just found it interesting to see outside of Cuba.  In Cuba you can buy Che souvenirs on every corner.  Virtually everything has Che's image on it - T-shirts, coffee mugs, key chains etc...  But this is our first sighting in Montenegro😏.