SV ICE BEAR

The run to Corfu was about 4 hours when we we called some marinas to find a spot for the night and were told there was nothing available and we should have booked in advance
hmm I guess the guy in the dingy looking for moorage in Paxos started in Corfu. We arrived on friday night the first slip avail was sunday night so we booked it and two more at the Gouvia marina. no big deal friday night we anchored near a really big fortress it was a nice place we were even able to swim. Not far from us was the super yacht Luna wow she is huge more then worth a google. On Saturday morning the shore party discovered a little harbour with several boats in it despite several signs strongly suggesting that tying there was not allowed. it was perfectly positioned for exploring the city of Corfu and what harm could one night there do? Saturday was a day for exploring. we bought tickets for the red double decker hop on hop off bus plugged in the ear buds and let someone else do the driving. We drove through the town past the open air market through some residential zones down the Kanoni penninsula to Kanoni oddly enough named after the two french artillery pieces placed there in 1798.
We hopped off the bus and walked down a bunch of stairs to the monastery of Vlacherna. It was tiny and quite cute dating back to the 1600. The only problem with going down stairs to see something is you need to go back up gwaa. Once at the top we stopped for lunch I'm not sure how it happened but the restaurant someone picked had the most amazing view of the runway at the Corfu airport. Once back on the bus we ended up at the old fortress where we had anchored the first night omg noooo more stairs did I mention it was hot? Once much water was drank we all agreed the view was amazing and worth the hike. On the way back to the boat we wandered through the maze of streets populated by lots of shops, restaurants and ice cream mmmm. When we returned from dinner and some shopping I went down to the galley to put my leftover dinner in the fridge i had left my shoes which while unusual was very lucky because i stepped on something very hard and crunchy seems during the two hours we had left the boat for food something had happened to cause two dished to fall from the drying rack and smash all over the floor. As we had no boat tied beside us we figured it was one huge wave it would be several days before we found the new scratches on the port bow it must have been a big hit and add the sound of breaking dishes I suspect the other boat didn't even try to stick around. Sunday we moved to Gouvia marina we re fueled and then stern tied with lazy lines to the dock, and then filled the water tanks woohoo life was good. Until we went to the marina office to check in. It was 93 eu a night ouch the computer only showed us booking two nights and you needed a key to get drinkable water.
Ummmm oohoh what did we put in the tanks? The lady at the marina said it was sorta drinkable if you didn't mind a little salt. At least it wasn't poisonous or anything. At 93 eu a night we decided two night was more then enough time for us to do what we needed to do especially now that we knew about the not harbour and anchoring under the fortress. We used the water to do all of the clothes washing including sheets and towels hosed off the deck
when we went to explore for dinner we were pleasantly surprised to find a very touristy street with lots of different types of restaurants and stores we realized that there were several resorts in the area as well. We had some very nice Thai food.
We had been concerned about the marinas distance from the town of Corfu but it seems they were unfounded. On monday we rented a car and drove over the northern end of the Island we were heading for the byzantine castle Angelokastro we foolishly thought a coastal castle would be near the water. We kept driving up through olive groves and little towns. every once and a while the driver would say is your gps on glue I'm not driving up that goat trail find another way. Then we saw it high on a cliff someone said there must be a parking lot it wont be bad. They were sorta right we drove down into a parking lot where there was a cafe and a small stall full of local farm produce. We decided to have lunch before tackling the stairs to the castle. It was only a ten to fifteen
minute walk straight up the stairs much faster then it looked from the car. There has been some restoration mostly to ensure visitors wouldn't be squished by walls or fall over cliffs.
There were several cisterns, a underground room with some mosaics and at the very top a chapel that still had a small alter and some pictures on the wall. Once at the top you could see the reason it was built at this location, you could see for miles in almost every direction nothing was going to sneak up the coast. The drive was a great way to spend the day ( not just because the car had ac ) the castle was really kewl and it was a wonderful way to get a feel for the country side. The next day we started the checking out of the country procedure which required stamps from several offices unfortunately two of the offices were several kilometers apart. We were allowed to check out of Greece up to 24 hrs before we actually left. We had planned to check out and return to the old city for our last night luckily the last office to stamp our papers to leave were there so while the distances between the offices were annoying it wasn't a huge hardship. We left Corfu and Greece at 8:30 am and headed to the port of Bar in Montenegro. It was a 25 hr run to Bar down the Albanian coast. Almost the whole coast of Albania is marked as a mine field with shipping lanes marked on the charts to access the harbours. the Auto pilot was set to run a course up the Albanian coast just to the left
of the mine warnings. The trip was fairly uneventful with three of us the time spent on watch didn't feel like much we didn't see many ships although all night we did see lightning in the distance.
When we arrived in Bar the trusty guide book said to go to the right side of the port and check in which we did the captain gets to do the check in and the crew gets to wait on the boat. The check in process must have been well set up because the captain was back on the boat in about 30 minutes. We called the marina booked a slip and motored back around to the left of the harbour and tied for the night. In the process of motoring to our slip a guy from the neighbouring marina tried to direct us to his slip. Looks like some friendly competition in Bar.