Typical street in Durres with black German cars!

I was joined by Jon and friend Jacqui in Montenegro. Jacqui was on a whirlwind overseas trip and being a dinghy sailor, she was keen to include some coastal sailing in her travels. After a quick look around Kotor we departed Montenegro and did an overnight sail to the port of Durres in Albania. Albania has only opened its doors to tourism in recent years. The majority of yachts sailing the Adriatic still give Albania a 'wide berth'. Part of the reason for this is that the Albanian coast was mined to deter invaders and the mine fields are still there. Charts of the coastline warn vessels to stay clear. So it was with caution that we approached the coast and entered into the port of Durres. We were welcomed into this commercial port by our agent who I had contacted beforehand. There were no facilities for yachts to tie up so we berthed alongside a big rubber buffer on the dock.
The formalities of entering Albania were handled smoothly by the agent with no surprises. We were quickly cleared to leave the docks and explore the town. We found to our surprise that Durres was more developed than we had expected. We discovered the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre in remarkably good condition complete with underground chambers with perfectly preserved paintings. The following day we took a one hour bus ride into Tirana the capital. Once again we were pleasantly surprised at just how modern the city was. We couldn't help noticing the number of expensive German cars on the road (most of them black!). According to Lonely Planet, many of these cars are stolen from Germany. Apparently advertising in Germany promoting Albania as a tourist destination says "Come to Albania, your car is already here".
While in Albania I received an email from Simon asking if I was interested in joining a small crew as engineer on the Open 60 yacht Hugo Boss to deliver it from LA to Panama. I accepted and allowed five days to get back into Greece, put the boat on the hard and fly out to LA.
So with the pressure of this deadline, we departed Albania and sailed back to Corfu where Jon and Jacqui departed and then I sailed overnight to Preveza in Greece. After a couple of hectic days packing up the boat and preparing her for winter storage, I boarded a flight to Rome and then another to LA.