Malta – Sarande, Albania
After arriving back in Malta on Sunday afternoon Christine packed then we all went to the Royal Malta Yacht Club for a farewell drink. The bar staff kindly organised a taxi for Christine to the airport and we said goodbye. The rest of us looked for a cheap place to eat next door and then returned to the yacht.
Monday and Tuesday were full of chandlery visits, supermarket visits, refueling ( in cash!!) and final work on the yacht for the trip to Albania. I missed the immigration office in the marina on Tuesday afternoon and so had to go to the main immigration office in Valletta harbour but they were equally helpful and the yacht departure form signed and stamped. Decided I had to have a final drink with Alan at the RMYC as Hew was still wiring up the last of the switches for the instruments. Hew and Alan had given up on the engine instruments that would not register and decided to go with just the analogue ones (these were not all working either- grrr).
Realised late Tuesday night that we did not have enough cash to clear in on reaching Albania, as we thought we may have to pay on arrival, so early trip into the cash machine Wednesday morning then off on the voyage to Sarande in Albania(317nm – planned at 2 days and 10 hours). Good starting wind of 20-25kts for the first few hours of the trip. Malta Patrol vessel called us just out of the harbour asking for all the same details that we had passed to immigration the night before. They then proceeded to also ask the same questions of an English yacht – whose skipper I had meet in immigration the previous night. I guess we were just the first two out in the morning. Later in the morning the winds dropped to the normal Mediterranean light winds and motor sailing. Alan had concerns over whether he would get seasick on his first long voyage away from land so spent the day at the helm. Finally succumbed to sleep at 2200. I spent the day making sure the instruments were going correctly and Hew relaxing and reading. 3 hours out of Malta we passed a large bunkering area for tankers and cargo ships – didn’t count them but all anchored / stationery on Hurd reef.
Wednesday night was uneventful with passing cargo ships and tankers – especially SE of the Messina Straits. One private yacht (large launch) passed us at twice the speed and headed in the same direction. Night chat on the radio more normal than during the Sicily – Sardinia leg last year but still quite a bit of the superfluous chat/ songs and whistles. The new doppler radar proved its worth showing up those fishing vessels not on AIS (or not with their AIS on).
With the split screens running chart on one side and radar on the other – was very helpful. Though there were few out compared to the fishing rocks/reefs around Sicily.
Thursday dawned fine with light winds 8kts so still motor sailing. Very few boats around due to our position SE of the bottom of Italy. Although we expected more traffic in the Ionian sea between Italy and Corfu it was not nearly as busy at night as the seas between Sardinia and Sicily. Much quieter on the radio and those transmissions we did hear were mostly polite.
Thursday night was just another night at sea waiting for the sun to rise as we negotiated our way outside Greece maritime boundary and round into Albania and the channel into Sarande. Very easy entry into Sarande as we were acknowledge by the harbour master and he had someone waiting on the dock to meet us and was obviously expecting us. We were parked close in between hydofoils and ferries. We arrived at 0530 and all peaceful and quiet. He told us our agent Jelja would be down in 30 mins but it was closer to an hour. Alan crashed and Hew and I awaited the agent. Alan crashed and Hew and I awaited the agent. We had water and electricity for the yacht and toilets in the immigration/ferry terminal.
When Jelja arrived she took all the passports and showed us a map of the town with any places we wanted noted. Also organised for us to up lift fuel the next day. Said we could stay on the dock for as long as we wished. Hew and I then crashed for a long sleep.
After we all awoke and tied the yacht we wandered into town. Very nice town and friendly helpful people. Lovely waterfront with wide walkway and tall crown lifted trees.
Stopped for lunch and a drink at a beachside bar. Hew and Alan decided beer was not great.
We saw several interesting signs and makes you wonder e.g. Dulux- Daylux, another was a motorbike that I did not get a photo of called a Kavvasaki
The next morning we went shopping at the supermarket for a top up and the market for fresh fruit – but the market did tend to be more expensive than the shops. Beautiful cherries and honey. Hew took the produce back to the boat and I went hunting for new beach towels and managed to get 8 for 4000leke. When I got back to the yacht I found that
Hew had left the strawberries behind at the market so I returned to the market and they were waiting for me and gave me the strawberries and two nectarines. Very nice people – Hew didn’t think it was worth the trouble but I thought so to see what the people were really like. Then we left the port and anchored off the town so we could go swimming off the boat and relax.
In the afternoon we motored around to the fuel dock which was the old military port. Very narrow but very deep. The process was very slow as they have to be checked in by the agent – all the outlets of the of the truck are lockwired and they have to show them to you before filling up they also have to show you the gauges zeroed and in some cases the trucks are weighed. Also hindering the process was our fuel tanks were taking ages to balance so I got on the paddle board and went under the yacht and cleared the pipes – dug a hole through the corroded outlets.
After refueling we had a couple of hours daylight so decided to go and anchor up the coast but by the time we got to the bay we were targeting it was almost dark. The bay was very steep and deep so we went around the corner into a bay that holds the navy base but the wind came up to 20-25kts and after a couple of goes where the anchor would not hold we decided to go on and continue to Croatia.
