I: Spain to Montenegro
2024.02.28 - AYB - Reading time ~4 Minutes
As quite usual with various border agreements, my country has an agreement with EU that it citizens may stay for 90 days at the EU territory without having to obtain a visa. Since I’m a little bit stupid I didn’t make a move to have a prolonged visa and therefore I have to leave EU to avoid getting forcefully departed and banned for re-entry.
So here I go to Montenegro which isn’t an EU country yet. Yes, I’m departing from Spain because my time is already running out and I’m still not 100% sure that I’m goint there. Maybe I’ll change my mind and will go to Marocco which is much closer but not the best country to stay. At any case my plan is fly through as fast as possible.
I prepared the boat the best way I could, got the friend onboard to help me and there’s no reason left to stay any more.
These are the special goggles to prevent sea-sickness by making the horizon observable at any time
We went out between two storms trying to sneak inbetween while the wind is changing. What I completely failed with is the waves patterns. Since I am a complete newb with sailing I totally missed the fact in the Mediterranean 3 meters waves with the 8 seconds intervals are quite nasty to experience. So we got all nine yards of troubles with them.
My friend had very nasty sickness all the passage. Unfortunately, this wave pattern was exactly the one making him to throw up. I didn’t feel good too, but threw only once.
Also, we had hard times with the autopilot which was showing the traffic conditions in NY, weather on Venus, BBC news — whatever but the course of the boat. It was regularly failing to operate, so big part of the passage to Mayorka we steered manually. That was very hard passage.
The dog got it piece of stress too. A big piece. Poor creature.
At the end of this leg we anchored at the bay nearby Andraitx and had a very pleasant calm night.
Unfortunately, few things had broke and the forecast was so unpleasant that we had to move next morning to the city marina. There were 45+ knots of wind expected for the next two days and I was not sure we would widthstand that force with my current anchor and chain. Also, the anchorage we’ve been at is surrounded by solid rocks so all waves coming in are reflected multiple times inside making the bay a very effective washing machine. So we had our birth in the marina and prepared to the storm.
Quite fast I realised that my preparations were not enough. Andraitx marina is located at the neighbouring bay and having very similar configuration — solid rocks and a funnel for the wind. So I’ve lost three mooring lines while we were hiding from the storm. They were just teared apart by the force of wind. Also got a broken chok at the starbord side.
The wind just torn apart the bolts were holding the chock!
That was a real bummer. Very strong and gusty wind along with the reflected waves all over the place. You may see failing mooring lines to the boat. At the moment it was quite a “calm” wind. Gusts were way more brutal.
So we had to stay in marina for three days before the next leg, just waiting for the proper weather that will not kill us. But we found a good pub there and spent some time playing Jenga, ended up it in a draw with the “no more moves left”.
Also there was a puppy in the pub belonging to the owner’s wife, which was cute as hell. Ursa tried her best to find the way not to harm the puppy and sometimes it looked like a brutal dwarf is trying to attack the mountain troll.
Lethal brutality at its best!