There And Back Again
September in Kotor Bay arrived with a vengeance. No sooner had we settled in after our road trip; replenished the fridge and “pantry” drawer, unpacked and taken the laundry off the lines, when Maja came by and informed us that we should prepare for Bora winds heading our way. Along the Adriatic coast in the Balkans, the Bora is a cold and typically very dry and often gusty katabatic wind (falling wind) from the north-east. The name comes from the ancient Greek word ’boreas’, which means ’northern’. Up until this point we had experienced high winds and thunderstorms in the bay, but always from the south and east. As we were moored directly beneath a steep mountain to the north we weren’t sure how this would play out.
Like everyone else in the tiny marina we went about tying down everything out on deck, adding spring lines (extra lines to dock) and checking for any chafe points, taking down our awning and securing our shades, adding fenders alongside, and raising our passerella. The wind came as expected - a dry wind without any rain. It barreled down the mountainside just in front of us and we jounced around on Meraki as she was barraged with gusts well above 40 knots. All twelve boats in the marina held secure (though our passerella fell in the water - twice) while everyone onboard hunkered down save for the occasional checks to confirm that all was okay topside and with everyone else.
The Bora blew for two days and two nights. The gusts were hammering us less frequently but the steady wind kept on. From the back deck the seawater looked like the inside of a blender with breaking white caps funneling up the channel. It was the first time in over two months of hanging out in Kotor Bay that we did not see a single boat go by.
Luckily things settled down by the morning we had intended to leave the marina. We said a final goodbye to Maja (at which point she gifted us a bottle of homemade lemoncello made from the tree that grows behind her house) and we set out to leave Kotor Bay. We were eager to spend a leisurely 10 day cruise along the outer coast of Montenegro as we slowly made our way south to the town of Bar. There was a light breeze from the north but nothing of any concern.
Too close for comfort
We traveled just a couple of hours and dropped anchor in a spot where we had stayed when we arrived in Montenegro back in June. It turned out to be a super uncomfortable night with swell rolling in from the south. We decided to move the next day one mile across the bay to a protected harbor where we could pick up a restaurant mooring buoy. Again, we had a crappy night. The buoys were ridiculously close to each other and we could clearly hear the conversations and parties happening around us (we couldn’t understand the many languages spoken but we certainly heard them). Additionally, Meraki is quite heavy which means we respond to the wind and waves more slowly than most lighter sailing yachts. As we floated around on our mooring we were less than a boat length away from our neighbors a few times, which also made us quite uneasy.
The next day we decided to move again. But not before a crack of dawn exploration of some caves we’d noticed on our way in. We hopped into Raki at 6:30am and motored about 5nm around the point. The sun was just rising above the mountains as we approached the entrance. The tour boats hadn’t started for the day and we had the cave to ourselves. Like to Blue Cave in Croatia, the light inside this was equally as stunning. It’s almost a glacial blue at the first hint of dawn moving to aquamarine as the sun gets a bit higher in the sky.
We returned to Meraki about 3 hours later, made breakfast, and then slipped the mooring and cruised an entire mile, where we took a slip in a fairly new marina in the very same bay. The weather was not cooperating and we were hard pressed to find an anchorage that would protect us from northerly winds and southerly swell. We stayed in the marina for three days. Still super eager to get out onto anchor, at our first opportunity, we headed back to our original anchorage. It wasn’t terrible - we did enjoy lunch and an afternoon of swimming and relaxing, but there was no way we could stay there overnight with the swell rolling in. We finally capitulated, our efforts thwarted, and turned our nose northward, retracing our wake, and returned to Kotor Bay, dropping the hook on the backside of an island a few miles inside the entrance. There was nothing to do but wait out the wind and seas. We stayed for two nights. We were now 8 days into our 10 day cruise and were pretty much back where we had started!
Needless to say we were both frustrated and quite short-tempered. We got snippy with each other which eventually erupted into a full blown argument, I burst into tears and Tom stopped talking. Historically in our relationship when a fight gets to a certain point I will walk away to clear my head and cool down. And then later, with a little perspective, I can return to the conversation more receptive and resolve the issue without the emotional charge. Only this time there was no way to ‘walk away’. So, with no other option available to me, I dove into the water and started swimming away from Meraki. Here’s where it gets interesting. It is damn near impossible to swim while sobbing. I gulped mouthfuls of seawater, waves crashed over my head, I coughed, wept, swam some more, got water up my nose, swallowing more saltwater. I ultimately had to stop swimming. I stayed where I was - treading water until the tears finally subsided and I could breath more easily. I slowly swam home, climbed aboard and lay down on the foredeck utterly spent. By this time Tom, too, had had enough time to gain some clarity and we cleared the air, talking it out. I learned another valuable lesson from this experience - should I ever need to abandon ship in an emergency, best practice would be to withhold the tears until I’m safely out of the water!
Our final swim stop
We did eventually leave Kotor Bay for the final time and we managed to have a pleasant night in a quiet anchorage on our way south. We decided to make the most of our last day before checking into Marina Bar so we dropped the hook for a few hours along a giant stretch of a sparsely populated stony beach. We took down the paddle board (which we've named Beast) and went ashore for a beach walk. Unbeknownst to us we had landed on a nude beach! We took a walk (mostly scramblng on the rocks), paddled back, swam, ate a late lunch and napped until, not wanting to arrive at the marina after dark, it was time to get moving.
It was my final swim in Montenegrin waters and oh such good one!
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