Pictures of Kotor

The town of Kotor and the surrounding area is stunning and unspoilt. There were only three large yachts at the town quay, including Avella (33m) who were moored next to us, plus a handful of smaller yachts. The people were all very friendly and the majority spoke English. The town is full of short narrow streets leading to small squares.

The prices are incredibly low and we could hardly believe how cheap things were, especially food and drink. Kotor is quite a popular place for tourists so its amazing that the prices have still been kept low.
We left the town of Kotor at 1.30pm and motored out of the 'fjord' towards the Adriatic. The trip to Siracusa, Sicily will take us about 42 hours, so we should arrive first thing Tuesday morning

Kate and the Captain watching the ferries crossing ahead of us!

Arrived in Kotor, Montenegro

After an overnight passage we arrived in Kotor, Montenegro at 9am this morning. It is stunning! We have this afternoon and tomorrow morning off so after lunch we will be going off to explore Kotor.

The plan is to leave Kotor at 2pm on Sunday and head to Siracusa, Sicily where we are due to pick up guests on Wednesday.

Summer Season Underway

We left San Remo on Saturday 16th June and headed for Brindisi, Italy, where we were due to refuel before going onto Kotor in Montenegro. Solea is not stabilised and not long after leaving we started to roll and when the wind and sea state started to pick up it started to get a little uncomfortable. Thankfully once we were past Cap Corse the conditions started to improve. As we were doing well for time we anchored off Panarea on Monday afternoon for a couple of hours.

We enjoyed a lovely crew lunch outside followed by a quick swim and some sunbathing. The water was a bit chilly and there were quite a few jelly fish so we didn't stay in for too long!It was a nice way to break up the trip and at 4pm we set off again, going through the Messina Straits at sunset. We arrived in Brindisi at 9am on Wednesday morning.

Our plans of a quick stop were soon changed when we heard that a prospective buyer wanted to come and look at the boat so we had to quickly get the boat looking good for a viewing on Thursday afternoon!

The port of Brindisi is very commercial and seemed to take a long time to get anything done. It was quite amusing when we went to refuel as we had a fire engine, the police, an oil sludge truck, a garbage lorry, fuel tanker and the yacht agency all on the dock! A bit different to the normal fire extingusher next to the fuel pump!

We left Brindisi (where nothing is easy!) on Friday afternoon and motored overnight to Kotor, Montenegro. A place none of us have been to before so all looking forward to it.

Solea in San Remo

We spent our first week onboard Solea securely tied to the dock in San Remo, whilst we got our heads around the boat! It was great to have this time to go through everything. I am lucky as the old Mate is onboard until the end of June but unfortunately for Colin, the previous engineer has already left so he doesn't get a handover. He is figuring it all our for himself, once again!The boat is very different to what we are used to and everything is of commercial size so its going to take some getting used to!

I celebrated my 29th birthday whilst in San Remo and was suprised by the crew with balloons and banners in the crew mess as well as some lovely presents and an awesome chocolate birthday cake. We went out for dinner in the evening to celebrate.

As we were pretty busy we only managed to get a quick look around San Remo. We did get to meet up with some of the crews on the other boats and on our last night we enjoyed sundowners on the rocks behind the boat.

New Job, New Adventure!

We arrived in Palma last Monday and just as we have started to get settled into our rented apartment we have to pack up and fly off again! But it's good news as we have got a new full time job together on an interesting boat!

We will be joining Motor Vessel Solea (below) in the San Remo, Italy next Friday. She is a 36m converted research vessel and is both charter and private. We have always wondered about working on a boat like this so it is fantastic to now have the opportunity and it will make a change from sailing yachts for a while. We will be joining as Mate and Engineer and will be cruising around Croatia, Malta, Sicily and Southern Italy for the Summer.

You can see more pictures and read about the boat's history on www.mvsolea.com. We fly to Nice in the early hours of Friday 8th June to start our new adventure!