Well what an eventful last week or so. Seems wierd in hindsight, such a rollercoaster of conditions, feelings and experiences!
For a week previous we had seen a forecast of strong winds coming to croatia with a cold front - a cold wind they call the 'Bora'. My imagined paradise of Bora Bora (Tahiti) is forever tainted! The bora is a strong North-Easterly wind which can last for multiple days and accelerate further down the mountains on the adriatic coast. We tossed up whether to exit Croatia and run straight down to Montenegro before the wind was expected on 24th sept, as our cruising permit was due to expire on 29th. But we saw a weather window after the Bora as it came closer, so we decided to shelter in the best bay we could find called Slano, by about 24hrs before the predicted wind. We spent the hours before the Bora stripping everything off the deck of the boat that would create windage or that we could lose, and secure double lines on our sail outhauls and the genoa furler.
We were bunkered down as best as possible actually a number of hours before Bora hit, the only thing extra I wanted to do was tie down the wind generator but with 15knots of SW wind during the day it wasn't possible. Other challenges included fending off other boats trying to anchor to close to us, with one guy suggesting we 'wait and see' how the wind was before he moved - but luckily he changed his mind and moved and went inside the marina before it hit. I reckon his family would have been pretty happy about that call!
Around 1400hrs, almost exactly as the models had predicted, we saw dark clouds approaching from the north and the SW wind began to slow. It turned within about 3 minutes with a crazy instant change in temperature (guess about 25deg to 15 or less), and the Bora started unleashing her fury. 25 knots quickly gust to 45 knots regularly, and 35 even more regularly, and after 3 or so hours we were satisfied that our anchor was holding so switched off the engine and wind instruments. We reckon there were stronger gusts through the night, but with the boat heeling side to side as the wind got on either side of the bow and then the anchor hauling us back into position, we were happy not to be looking at the numbers and settled for listening to the whistling and maintaing a close watch on the anchor and our position to relative boats. Jaja and myself agreed we would maintain a watch through the night as we had another boat anchored about 30 metres behind us, and if our anchor dragged we wouldn't have much time to get the engine going and manouvre clear - especially as we'd watched an aussie-flagged catamaran drag anchor quickly earlier on and almost hitting another boat (there were 8 boats in the anchorage all up). I did watch 2000-2330, jaja did 2330-0400, and i took over from 0400 till 1100 until the wind had calmed a little. Its funny how hesitant we were / still are to be in 35-45+knot winds on the boat, but when you are in it, you kinda get used to it! Overall 3 out of the 8 boats in the anchorage had been dragging anchor through the night, with one charter boat struggling to hold and moving about 4 times (a few times motoring in between all the other boats and trying to anchor, with alot of subsequent yelling from the other yachts!).
With some lull in the wind during the day of the 25th, we checked everything and re-secured a few things that had been chafing or making noise or coming loose. Occasional strong gusts still came throught the day; but throughout, more and more boats picked up anchor and went to the marina or left the bay completely. By the afternoon we were the only boat out of 8 remaining in the anchorage. At that stage I was second-guessing the multiple sources of weather I had been using, as to me, it looked like it would be slightly better the next night than the previous, only gusting to 35-ish. Maybe one night was enough for them! We stayed and as we were the only one in the anchorage, it allowed us to sleep and maintain the anchor alarm on the night of the 25/26th, as if we did drag, it would be into the open bay. I set alarms for every 2hours though to go up and check on everything. That night, we may have had odd gusts in the 40's but most were in the 30's. It was definitely better!
By 0600 on 26th, the wind was still blowing but less so, with the air temp about 8 degrees but with wind chill supposedly felt like 4 degrees. A long way from the 25 degrees at lunchtime on 24th - and a major shock to the system! We have had to go digging in deep bilge compartments to get the winter clothes out.
After lunchtime on 26th the gusts had subsided - well, after one attempt of putting the dinghy in the water then bringing it back on deck as it almost flipped, and we waited a little longer. The forecast was better and late in the afternoon we went ashore to do some long-overdue laundry at the marina and drink a couple of quick beers in the small town. The night of 26/27th was much calmer and we planned that the weather should be ok the next morning to run down to Montenegro.
We had an early night then next morning at 0700 weighed anchor and headed towards Dubrovnik. Enroute we found an inflatable ring floating in the channel so diverted and picked it up. Saved a turtle from getting stuck and gained a beer-drinking-floating utensil. Everybody wins! By 0930 we had moored alongside the customs dock in Gruz, Dubrovnik. Checkout took about 30mins, although the attitude from the female Policija officer made it feel a little longer! I asked the Harbourmaster about how they fared in Dubrovnik with the Bora and he said they had to go out and rescue some yachts - apparently some people on charter yachts wanted to test their sailing skills out in 70knots for some fun! Doesn't seem like that surprised them though. Then we were on our way out to the Adriatic to head towards Montenegro (about 30nm).
To start we had wind dead against us but it eventually turned around near midday, so we could head on a nice beam-reach motorsail. We have had zero luck with fishing in Croatia in 4 weeks despite alot of attempts, but whether a coincidence or a reality of the health of Croatia's sea life, we picked up a small tuna while in the last few miles of Croatia's waters! The 'marlboro' (as Ribellu's previous owner called this lure colour combo) laser pro finally did it! After cleaning the tuna and deck we turned into Montenegro to check in at Zelenika. There was a cruise ship anchored in front of the customs dock and it was a challenge to find a decent place to come alongside, let alone the large black fenders and high concrete wall to deal with. We carefully manouvered alongside with wind and small waves on our beam, before being told to move by a security guard (he couldn't have told us before we tied-up?!); and later squeezed inside a spot on the other side between the police boat and the 4 cruise ship tenders ferrying passengers back and forth between the tour buses and ship (which we were trying to avoid).
Check in involved visiting the police in the wharfside office for passport check, then harbourmaster's office down the road in an old house so they could take copies of boat registration, boat insurance, passports and captain's licence - and to issue the 'vignette' (cruising permit) which we took for 1 month for 80euros. Then back to police for passport scanning and stamping. In the meantime, an american-flagged yacht had been drifting towards Ribellu on the dock, and I ran out of the harbourmaster's office to see what looked like a near-collision, then to figure out what was going on - seems he was getting impatient and wanted us to leave. We were moored in the only spot available, and just completing normal check-in procedures. The real problem was all the cruise ship tenders hogging almost the entire wharf! When I returned to the boat we started the engine almost immediately and tried to get out of there, but then this annoying yacht wouldn't go back and give us enough room to safely manouver out of there! Maybe he expected us to just vanish into thin air? After some raised-voice suggestions and a couple of waving arms, he eventually moved just enough so we could get out. Honestly, this kind of ridiculous behaviour has been the norm of sailing through Croatia and has been quite frustrating at times. With it being so busy with charter boats with people on one week holidays (especially those, but not limited to them), they are in a rush to go everywhere and do everything (and we are not!). Sometimes we see people fight for anchoring spots in wide open bays like they are in a shopping mall car park in Kuala Lumpur desperately searching for a parking spot at lunchtime on a Saturday!
After getting the heck out of there at about 1730, we motored to an anchorage south of a small island called Sveti Marko (not far from Tivat). Dolphins approached Ribellu for a while on the way, and they were huge! Hopefully that is a good sign of the quality of waters here as we had seen ZERO dolphins in one month and about 400nm of sailing through Croatia (of course, maybe we were just unlucky). That night, in a small bay with no other boats, we had a quarter of the tuna as sashimi with soy sauce (unfortunately no wasabi aboard yet!), and the rest pan fried with salt, pepper and lemon. A bloody great day overall!
