We have been in Albania for a week. We will start a 12-day road trip this Friday, but this post is about our trip “north,” and our entry into Albania. (Spoiler alert: we love it!)
After saying goodbye to Jennifer, Michael and I checked out of the hotel and walked to the port police office to check out of Patras. They were closed. So, we walked to the boat, thinking we would motor back and get to the port police via water. Michael hung around on Seahike just near the shore (we weren’t allowed to anchor or tie briefly to the quay) while I took the dinghy ashore. Still closed. We were a bit apprehensive because we’d heard that you could be fined for leaving a place without checking out with the port police. But we needed to be on our way, so we decided to cross our fingers and risk it.
Because we’d gotten a late start due to the whole port police being closed thing, we knew we couldn’t get as far as we had hoped that day. We had about 80 nm to go. Not to worry. We decided to head for a small bay – Goat Bay – on the NE side of Meganisi, about 84 nm away. We dropped the anchor and took two lines ashore. There were only four boats in the bay. It was a lovely, quiet night.
Here are some pictures of our journey from Patras to Goat Beach, Meganisi and of the anchorage.
We left the anchorage at 5:30 a.m. the next morning. I wore a headlamp when taking the dinghy to shore to untie the lines because it was almost pitch black.
You might recognize the beach below. This is on the north side of the Lefkas Canal. Yep, we went through it for the third and final time. I took this picture to send to Jennifer. I told her that we were passing “our beach” one last time.
What do you know! We had enough wind to unfurl the genoa! Oh happy day!
Our plan was to anchor overnight near Corfu then check out of Greece the next day. It was still super hot and Michael, in particular, was eager to get to the marina in Albania and see if he could get the AC to work, at least on the starboard side. Hence, no time to visit Corfu.
Our plan for the second day, July 23rd, was to take the dinghy through a small, shallow river to a grocery store, then check out of Greece.
Turns out that the river itself wasn’t treacherous, but the water you have to pass through to get to and from it is. It gets very shallow. We actually hit a rock with the shaft of the motor on the way to the river. We raised the motor and rowed for a bit then put the motor back in the water. The rest of the river trip was fine. It is actually a cute little stretch of water.
Michael had read that we should moor the dinghy shortly before we got to a bridge. So we did. The “dock” was a bit rugged. 🙂
Aaaaand, the grocery store was closed. Sunday. Apparently all of the grocery stores are closed on Sunday. Who knew? So we went across the street to a gas station for Coke Zero and water. Those were the things we needed the most.
Scenes along the river on the return trip:
As we approached Seahike (to put some stuff in the fridge before going ashore to check out of Greece), Michael went to shift into neutral but couldn’t because the handle used to shift into forward, neutral, and reverse was missing. It clearly fell off on our way to Seahike. Michael tried to figure out how to shift it by hand, but couldn’t.
Without a working motor, I rowed the dinghy ashore. Luckily, it wasn’t a long distance. Here is a picture of Seahike from the shore to give you an idea:
It was yet another very hot day. We walked about 20 minutes to the Port Authority, then waited in line for about 30-45 minutes or so. When we got to the Passport Control Office, we were told that we should have gone to the port police (Coast Guard) first. I know that is the proper order, but I didn’t realize that we were in the wrong building.
Michael was melting by this time (his meds make him quite intolerable to the heat), so I walked the seven minutes to the Coast Guard building to get the necessary paperwork (after buying a huge bottle of water for Michael, a Coke Zero for me, and three cute cookies for later).
The time had come. If we were going to get into trouble/fined for not checking out of Patras, this would be it. The nice gentleman didn’t say a word. Whew!
Back to the Port Authority. Michael had been a very good boy and had not eaten any of the cookies as I had requested. 🙂
It took another 30 minutes or so to visit passport control and customs, then we were on our way. We walked back to the dinghy and rowed to Seahike. We each took a quick shower to cool down. Now we needed to decide how to manage the rest of the trip to Orikum Marina.
We’d found an agent a day or two before [why plan too far ahead? ;)] so we knew we needed to go to VlorĂ« to check into Albania before heading to Orikum Marina. It was about 80 nm to VlorĂ«. It was getting late in the day by the time we were back on Seahike, so we decided to sail through the night and arrive in VlorĂ« in the middle of the night.
Michael offered to take the helm at about 9:00 p.m. and wake me when it was time to anchor. He woke me up at about 1:00 a.m. (there had been a time change – it would have been 2:00 a.m. in Greece). We dropped the hook and both went to sleep.
Here are some of the pictures I took from the helm during my watch (that ended at 9:00 p.m.).
Our agent, Orion (with the accent on the first “O”, not the way we in America say the name of the constellation) was extremely efficient. He’d already received our paperwork so he just needed to take some additional steps once we arrived. I had a cup of coffee at the little outdoor seating area then walked to the ATM to get some Albanian lek. If you are wondering about the value of the ALL, here is a quote from July 5, 2023 from the BalkanInsight:
“The lek has posted strong gains over the last few years. In 2016, it took 140 leks to purchase one euro while on Wednesday it took just over 104 lek – the strongest level ever. The appreciation of the lek has gained speed over the last few months, up from 117 leks per euro in January.”
Anywho. . . . I withdrew 20,000 ALL. Ten thousand was going directly to Orion to cover his fee. This was the first of many withdrawals I would be making. You see, Albania is primarily a cash economy. Very few establishments accept credit cards, even the car rental place! So far, only the grocery stores (markets) have agreed to accept our credit card. But I digress.
We stopped for a quick bite at a local restaurant, whose menu consisted largely of meat products. I was in the mood for a salad, but . . .
And on we went to the marina, which is – by the way – the only marina in Albania! Yep, you read that right. Not a lot of boaters here! It is a lovely, small marina, and kind of in the boondocks. Well, the town of Orikum is about a mile’s walk away, but that’s about it.
Scenes from the marina and our first week in Albania coming up in the next blog.