11 May 2023 - Portonovi

On this day last year, when we were in Sicily, after five weeks of cold weather, summer suddenly broke out. It was such a dramatic change that the date stuck in my mind. Here in Montenegro, we have had heavy rain almost on a par with the rain we had in New Zealand. (The west coat of South Island is wetter than the Brazilian Rain Forest). Armed with stories from fellow sailors, who told us that they had wintered here, and couldn’t believe how much it rained, we had to look up the stats. Montenegro is the second wettest country in Europe, after the Faroe Islands. I guess this is what happens where it’s mountainous. We are, for sure, surrounded by high mountains.

Montenegro has a population of 600,000 and has applied to join the EU. It has already received EU money to help the country prepare for membership, likely to happen in 2025.

There were no pavement cafes open today. All was quite, until, around midday, there was a slight easing of the downpours, when lots of people, including us, dashed to the supermarket.

The heavy clouds, covering the tops of the surrounding mountains, descended to sea level, so at one point we couldn’t even see the other side of the marina, let alone the bay. Intermittently they have lifted up to half the height of the terrain, at most. It is not what we imagined of the central Adriatic in mid May, but apparently there is more to come tonight.

Cruise ships passing and low cloud. This was when the weather had improved....



Miles today           0

Miles in 2023     436

Tricia (& Steve)

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