Completely New Territory, Albania by Sea

We left Gouvia on Corfu at the leisurely time of 11:30 on the 29th June and had a wonderful sail northwards in a Force 3, with flat seas, to Sarande in Albania. We had wanted to stop along the way but we had to clear in first, for the boat and ourselves before we could step on Albanian soil, and that was in Sarande.

Much to our relief this was a much simpler process than leaving Greece, with the help from our lovely agent Jelia, so within an hour, we were in, and had a Vodafone sim card! With Seaclusion safely on anchor in the bay, we spent time wandering around the town, grabbing an early bite to eat and getting some provisions.

Sarande

Interesting, but not cutesy like Greece, but then it did use to be a communist country!

Our first dinner in Albania..they are big on seafood here, scrummy..

We returned to Seaclusion as the sun started to set, as the bars started to kick out their music… soon to become a theme of our trip to Albania. Here in Sarande, we soon determined that the music was coming from the sunset and evening tour galleons and pirate boats, trying to drum up trade.. it certainly worked! We were relieved when they left harbour and thankfully they were a tad more discreet on their return!

The next day we woke to new neighbours who had a Daisy Dog on board, she was almost identical, even her floppy ears and ridgeback markings.

With somewhat heavy hearts we then set off back the way we had come, south, to moor off the river that led to one of Albania´s few archaeology sites, Butrint National Park, which dates back to the 8th Century BC. According to classical mythology, the ancient city was founded by the exiles who left the city after the fall of Troy, and later, around 1807 Ali Pasha built a fortress at the mouth of the river to protect it from French attacks coming from Corfu. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Butrint National Park

Most of the park is made up of wetlands, home to many birds and sea-life, not designed for yachts with a 2 metre keel! We therefore dropped our pick on the periphery and dinghied in, panicking a bit when parts became so shallow we were kicking up weeds and dirty with our new prop…David wasn’t also best pleased to find out it was about 3 NM`s up the river, not when we had just had our engine fixed as he still doesn’t entirely trust it, perhaps it was the idea of having to row back after, who can blame him!

We did discover one lucky or should we say brave catamaran who had managed to find a path through and their dinghy ride was therefore substantially shorter!

Still it was good to see even though the parks best and most renown feature, being a baptistery with a wonderfully preserved mosaic floor, was covered completely with sand. On further reading, we established that it was covered to protect it from the elements and was only open once every 3 years, 2023 is not one of those years. Still there was a pic of it on the information plaque to show us what we were missing!

We did have a chuckle though as we left the park..

Thankfully we made it back to Seaclusion, this time passing the old fort and avoiding the weed!

We had a wonderfully calm and peaceful night aboard, on our lonesome… we could see dozens of mooring lights on Corfu, but not here!😀

The following morning, the winds turned southerly and where we were was not the right place to be, so we sailed all of 4 miles around the corner to take shelter and visit the Ksamil Islands, expecting this…

🤣🤣, maybe in April or May, but certainly not early July. We were anchored just to the right of the red boat above, but there was no peace, between all the speed boats whizzing between the mainland and these islands, the beach bars recreating the Clash of the Titans with their music all afternoon and well into the evening, and let us tell you, Albanian music is more akin to Skrillex than music, suffice to say by 10:30 we were hiding down below with our ear plugs in!

Our pics of the Ksamil Islands

Happy to leave, we returned to Sarande to pick up some water and then north, where we found a tiny anchorage, just room for one boat and that was us! We anchored with a safe 5 metres under us, and had dinner onboard obviously, watching the huge moon come up.

It unfortunately wasn´t quite the peaceful night we were expecting. About 2.30am we woke to my anchor alarm going off, and it is very loud, as the wind did a 180, spun us around, we found ourselves somewhat closer to shore than intended with 2 metres under us. We hadn´t dragged fortunately, so after spending half an hour or so making sure Seaclusion was safe, we headed back down to our pits for the rest of the night.

The next morning we continued northwards, with the idea of dropping our pick in a tiny corner of a bay called Porto Palermo, where Ali Pasha, or as David kept calling it, Ali Baba´s Castle was located.

But the sea and wind was still blowing in there, so after last night´s experience we were a little nervous about it, so continued onwards to place called Himare, which again was another newish touristy resort, not much to write home about. The Pics can do the talking!

Himare

We stayed there 2 nights, waiting for the winds to continue Northwards, venturing in one evening for mussels, (as everyone kept telling us that Albania´s were the best in Europe…) and have a nose around. Some weird places and a Porsche Trike no less!

Finally on the 5th July we set sail for our furthest point in Albania, Vlore & Orikum, where there was a tiny marina safe enough for us to leave Seaclusion for our road trip. After motoring for a couple of hours, we sailed most of the 48NM in a NW4, tacking our way up the coast, which with is mountains was stunning, but with signs of Albania´s past…

And finally we arrived at Orikum Marina with its somewhat daunting narrow channel with only 0.3m under our keel at times. We moored up safely, only to be told that they were expecting a Regatta of 40 Italian boats in the following morning and wanted to move us down a very narrow channel in the morning. As we wanted to leave early for our road trip we decided to get it done and dusted then, despite all we wanted was a beer! So half an hour later and 2 moorings behind us, we were settled with a beer in our hands!

Orikum Marina

An hour later we had our laundry and a hire car sorted, no rest for the wicked.. so watch out for our next adventure.. Albania by Road!

5th July 2023