Jeff and Sandra joined us in Kotor on the 4th September and after 24 hours there for them to explore, we set off for a return to Bigova. The weather has become much more ‘autumnal’ recently and we motored out of the Gulf of Kotor under grey clouds and, as usual, with the wind on the nose. It was a straightforward trip of about 3.5 hours before we were able to pick up a buoy in the bay at Bigova with the assistance from the ‘Grispolis’ restaurant dinghy. We had emailed ahead and Marc and Anne joined us for tea on board, bringing with them a local version of apple strudel – it went down well and we spent a couple of hours chatting about sailing and life.


‘Afternoon tea’ on board Splice (l-r) Anne, Sandra, Jeff, Chris and Marc

We ate at Grispolis that night and all had the catch of the day which we really enjoyed – a must visit place.
The next day we set off for Bar with the wind treating us to a F2 on the nose – motors on as usual. The marina in Bar is to the north of the main commercial harbour and has six pontoons, four run by the council and two independents. We had read that the second pontoon in was cheaper and they had someone there to wave us in and secure us side –too. We’re not sure what the price was on the other pontoons but at E95 a night in September this place was not somewhere to stay long. The town itself was modern and somewhat uninteresting; it was almost completely rebuilt after the war and is not particularly attractive to visit. We ate at a cafe style place on the road into town and the food was quite good, certainly very filling portions!

The main purpose of the visit was to check out of Montenegro which was easy the next morning with visits to the Harbourmasters office and the Police/Customs at the port. The officials were all polite and efficient. Having got the formalities done we relaxed until our 16.00 departure time.

The forecast was for 10-15 knots from the SE with a 1m swell, after a calm first couple of hours the wind built to 20+knots with a 2m swell. To make it worse the direction was more south than SE so it was much more on the nose and forcing us to motor-sail as Splice doesn’t do 30 degrees to windward if you want to get there this year! We spent a rather bumpy 12 hours or so overnight until we started to get some shelter from the Italian mainland for the last couple of hours and things calmed down somewhat. Not our most comfortable passage but the crew were more bothered than the boat and she plugged away without any problems despite the ‘banging and crashing’ as the waves hit. We arrived in Brindisi around 09.00 the next morning and headed for the customs quay. Chris had assumed that as we were coming from outside the EU they would want to check us in. The Police however just said ‘you are EU – not needed’ and waved him away? We’re still not sure that’s right but you can only do as you are told in these situations!

We spent the day recovering and then the next evening caught the bus into Brindisi town for a meal at an unusual restaurant that specialises in meat. You have to go inside and choose your cut from the selection of chunks of meat they have available. It was different but the quality of the meat was not as good as we’d expected when it came to actually eating it. Not worth a recommendation but we had a fun evening. Chris also had a surprise that evening. About 15 years ago in the Jura in France we bought an unusual beer glass. It is covered with little pink elephants and has ‘Delirium Tremens’ written across it (well, he thought it was amusing). We’ve never seen another one since but when we visited a bar in Brindisi, his beer was served in an identical glass.


Chris with his duplicate glass

Jeff and Sandra have now hired a car and after helping transport the shopping, have gone off for a day or two to explore the region. We are sitting in Brindisi Marina which will be Splice’s winter berth. We have multiple lines on the boat now as we sit out the storm that’s passing through. We’ve just seen 37knts on the anemometer- the waves and spray are flying but we seem OK so far. We will move across to the Danese shipyard (for the second time this year) tomorrow morning when it’s calmed down so we can have the damage to the cleat repaired.

Jeff and Sandra leave us on Wednesday and we then have a week to settle Splice down for the winter before our flight to the UK on 20th September.

Main Photo: Bar is not the most attractive town but the setting is impressive