We decided it was time to try out a new restaurant near the marina in Albania. We walked a short distance down the road to Naos Bar-Restaurant-Pizzeri. Naos is right on the beach, so the view is nice. The food is also good. We ended up eating there twice, once on our own, and one with a lovely couple we met in the marina, Jeremy and Joyce.

And now let’s talk about my hair. This is mandatory from time to time. My hair, at this point, is not in good shape (any more than my skin) due to the salt-filled air, sun (which I try to stay out of, but can’t), and strong breezes. I am not sure it was even growing longer at this point based on the status of the ends. Split to smithereens! I decided it was time to take action.

Michael has a hair clipping set that includes a pair of really good scissors. On August 23, I was wearing braids. I cut off the bottom of the left braid, then the right braid. Okay, the right braid was shorter now, so I cut some more off of the left braid. Better. When I took my hair out of the braids, I asked Michael to fix any ends that appeared to be quite out of place with the rest. He did. It looks good enough for me:

Now that we’ve talked about the bottom of my hair, let’s talk about the bottom of Seahike. After a month in the marina, she had a lot of growth on her bottom. We hired a diver to clean off the growth. He worked hard! Took him about 1.75 hours and we could hear him scraping. We gave him a nice tip.

Here are the before and after pictures of Seahike’s bottom:

We stayed one more day than our month-long contract while waiting for a weather window. Michael went to the office to pay for the extra day. After the two people working there chatted with each other for some time, they told Michael that we didn’t have to pay for the extra day. Then they jokingly each said it was their idea and they had to convince the other. But how nice of them to give us a free day!

So, on Friday, August 24, we had lunch with Jeremy and Joyce at Naos, then headed for Vlorë to check out of Albania. We said goodbye to the marina.

We anchored the same place we did when we checked into Albania and took the dinghy to shore. Speaking of the dinghy, actually the motor, you will recall that the shift handle is somewhere in the Ionian Sea near Corfu. You might also recall that we were unable to find a new shift handle so after visiting several hardware stores and chandleries we bought a door handle. You know, for an indoor door. We use the part of the handle that goes inside the door to go inside the motor.

So this was our first chance to use our make-shift handle. I always drive when we’re in the dinghy because we need Michael’s weight up front. I couldn’t get the handle in the little hole, so Michael had to do it. It worked just fine. He shifts, removes the handle (which has a string on it that is attached to the dinghy, I might add), I drive. When it is time to shift again, Michael steps up to the plate. It is a tad clunky, but it works!

It was a Friday night, and there were a lot of people out and about in Vlorë. This is the picture of the shore from Seahike:

And the other side of us was calm:

It was roughly 150 nm from Vlorë to Dubrovnik, where we would check in to Croatia. We left Vlorë at 7:00 a.m., expecting to arrive in Dubrovnik the next afternoon. It wasn’t too long before Michael decided we should arrive earlier to avoid winds that were now predicted to pick up quite a bit the next day. So we ran both engines to go 7+ knots. As a result, we arrived before the sun came up the next day. This picture of this bridge, which is very close to where we checked in, was taken at 4:08 a.m.

We docked and Michael went ashore to check us in. We’d read that Dubrovnik was a very good place to check in and out of Croatia due to their efficient and friendly nature, and that was true!

We waited until about 8:00 a.m. before contacting the marina – which was just across the water about five minutes away. We med moored and kicked back a bit before heading into Old Town to walk the Dubrovnik Walls.

We decided to take the bus to Pile Gate, one of the gates you can use to access Old Town. The walk to the bus station was about 2 km. It was already quite hot. We got to the bus station and waited for our bus. Nothing. Maybe it was late? We waited for the next bus. Nothing. Finally (only about 20 minutes had passed), I got smart and asked someone for help. Turned out that the bus stop for our bus was on the adjacent street. No prob. Our bus arrived a couple of minutes later. We got on, took off, then asked the people sitting next to us if we were on the right bus. I mean, the number was right, so we figured we were. Well, right bus, wrong direction. So we got off at the next stop and walked about 50 meters to the bus stop on the other side of the road. Bingo!

We were at Pile Gate in no time. We weren’t sure where to go up to walk the walls, so this time we were smart and asked someone right away. We were already at the right place. We just had to walk up a long flight of stairs.

The Dubrovnik walls run uninterrupted for 1940 meters (6365 feet) in length, encircling most of the City, and reach a maximum height of about 25 meters (83 feet). Okay, those are facts. But the really cool thing about them are the views you see from every possible angle! I took a LOT of pictures. I won’t bore you with all of them, but I am still going to share a lot.

Before I do, I should note that in doing my homework for this visit, I’d read that throughout most of the seasons of Game of Thrones, Dubrovnik had been the setting for Kings Landing. And that’s not all! Apparently other scenes were filmed in Dubrovnik. In fact, you can take a Game of Thrones tour to see all of the filming locations in Dubrovnik.

I have never watched one minute of Game of Thrones.

So, I didn’t care about that, but I wanted to include that in this post in case anyone reading this is a Game of Thrones fan. In fact, before we get to the walls, here are just a few of the pictures of store windows in Dubrovnik Old Town, proclaiming that they sell Game of Thrones paraphernalia. It almost made me wish I was into the Game of Thrones.

And now, let’s get to those walls! Let me just say that it is difficult to take a bad picture from the walls. Everything is interesting. You will discover that I like two main types of pictures: looking out at the sea, looking in at rooftops. Here we go!

I think I owe Game of Thrones fans this picture of Kings Landing:

If you walk the Dubrovnik Walls or go to Dubrovnik Old Town, don’t make the mistake we did: wear your swimsuit!! There are numerous marked off places where you can sit in a lounge chair then jump into the sea. Had we known, we would have dressed appropriately.

We were quite hot by this time and ready for lunch. Time to take the steps down to Old Town. We ate at Mea Culpa. As per usual, we supported a local brewery. We are so selfless. 😉

Old Town has wide streets and narrow streets. Apparently some scenes from Star Wars VIII were filmed on one of these wide streets. I cannot tell you which scene. Nothing looked familiar to me and I am a BIG Star Wars fan!!

And now it was time to hit the pool! Yep, the marina has a pool! And you can have an adult beverage while in or near the pool.

It might not surprise you that I ordered an adult beverage after swimming some laps. Then I sat on one of the stools in the corner and read my book while I sipped on my rum and Coke Zero. I was about halfway through my beverage when some kids playing in the pool threw someone that knocked over my drink. The bartender who served me just happened to be talking to someone a few meters away from me. I looked at him and he told me that he would replace it. That was kind of him. So I got 1.5 drinks for the price of one.

Back to Seahike for the night. I like the blue lights on the walkways in the marina.

We will share day two in Dubrovnik and our visit to Mljet in the next post.