Thursday, November 1, 2018

Winter Berth 2018

Hi all Sue here

Well we are back in our winter berth in Roccella Ionica. Our summer season is over for another year. Time to change the boat over to winter mode, bikinis away and heaters out!! The last few weeks weather has been very unpredictable but I think it has been the same all over Europe.

Continuing from our last blog, we met Joe and Heather in Pula where they spent a very hot 4 days with us. Chris had to rig up our tent to go across the front of the boat to give them some shade. Joe brought his drone camera out with him and got some really good shots of Nimrod from above. Four days wasn’t long but they crammed a lot in!! we visited Pula Amphitheatre on day one, it is the only remaining Roman Arena to have four side towers with all three Roman architectural orders entirely preserved. The rest of their holiday was spent trying to cool off in the sea whilst trying out the Tribord snorkelling masks.

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We now had 2 weeks to get back down to Split for my daughter and grandaughters arrival at the end of August. There were some running repairs to do along the way. First was the dinghy engine that died when we were within sight of the supermarket at Rogoznica. It was a very long row back to the anchorage and ours is a very big and heavy dinghy!! Never fear the Captain soon had it sorted, well actually bodged up enough to hold out until my daughter arrived with spare parts. Such a clever little chappy. Then we had a tear in our main sail after a feisty sail a few days later, so out comes the old singer sewing machine. I did get pictures this time and I assisted with the sail repair!!

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We had some really good sails and many beautiful sunrise and sunset pictures taken along the way but I am sure you are all fed up with seeing them!! The Spinnaker came out to play a lot and I think I have made friends with it now. Well just one little sunset.

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Having my grandaughter onboard there is never any quiet times, she does everything at 100 miles an hour and never ever stops chatting, can’t imagine who she takes after!!. We decided to base ourselves at Vinisce for their stay and it was perfect. Every morning we loaded the Kayak up with all our beach stuff, then Vikki used to get on first, followed by Courtney. I used to then pass them the surf board and paddles and then got on myself and Dobbin the inflateable unicorn used to be tied on the back. It was a skilled operation to get us all on!! We used to then head for the beach with many people smiling and waving at us, I wonder why?? It was all done in reverse at lunchtime to head back to Nimrod for lunch and a little vino and then the process was all repeated in the afternoon!! But we had a great time. Even managed to fit in a little Yoga with my new Yogi buddy.

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After they went back on the 1st September we had a week until my sister and Richard returned. We had agreed that we would make our way down the coast a bit towards Dubrovnik and they would get a ferry from Split to wherever we got to. We ended up meeting up with them in Korcula and had a full on 10 days planned to end up in Montenegro. First stop were the Walls of Ston, we did this last year but it is such a beautiful place and didnt want Caroline and Richard to miss it. Well worth the climb up and over all those steps. Then it was onto Dubrovnik for some more steps!! Dubrovnik is much busier and expensive compared to Ston but it’s another must do if you get the chance. Of couse being a Game of Thrones fan I had to walk the steps of Shame!!

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On our way to Cavtat to check out of Croatia we called in at The Abandoned Hotels of Kupari. There are 5 Hotels here built in the 1960s and once frequented by Yugoslavia’s military elite and where President Tito used to holiday. Very sad place with a lot of History, rumour has it that a developer has bought it but nothing has changed since we visited it last year.

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Beautiful, beautiful Montenegro has got to be one of my favourite places and I think Caroline and Richard and Gaynor and Alec who visited us later will both agree. Every day was something different we did several hikes up to an abandoned fort, a Dam and the Castle and Church above Kotor. Then we hired a car and went up into the mountains to Lovcen National Park where Njegos Mauseleum is situated. It is 1657m up and you climb 461 steps to the entry where two granite giantesses guard the tomb of Montenegros greatest hero. Inside under a golden mosaic canopy, a 28 ton Petar II Petrovic Njegos rests in the wings of an eagle, carved from a single block of black granite. The actual tomb is below.

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We then drove to Lake Skradar where we had a boat trip booked, tourists for a day. It was a lovely trip to go on and we saw so many beautiful birds but my photos don’t do any of them justice really.

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After Caroline and Richard went home and whilst we were waiting for Gaynor and Alec to arrive, a week later, we met up with two couples who are going the same way as us next year. So we had a great time with them, intoducing them to Nimrods parties!! Well it would have been very rude not to!! We did a couple of hikes with Gaynor and Alec and they also went on a days bus tour to see some of what we had done when we had a car. Very lucky with the weather, the sun shone every day bar one and the water was not too cold. Which was just as well as Alec took a litte dunk getting into the Kayak one day. Of course we didn’t laugh much!!!

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So it’s good bye Montenegro from us for a few years at least.

Now it was time to start our journey back to Rocella Ionica to our winter berth. These summers just seem to fly by, especially this one as we have been so busy with visitors which has been lovely.

On our crossing to Crotone we caught two 6 kilo Tuna and then on our passage to Roccella we caught another three, all around 6 kilos. We could have caught more but as we were sailing in a very confused sea and our freezer was filling up nicely we decided to call it a day!!

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When we reached Roccella we gave some Tuna to the Marineros and provided Tuna for everyone at our first Sunday BBQ in the Marina. Our freezer is still full of Tuna!! Think we will be donating some more to the Sunday BBQs. So that’s us for this year. We have great plans for next year but they are still in the making and lots of work to be done on Nimrod to get her ready.

Ciao for now everyone, the blog will resume next Spring xx