Life in Tivat & Looking Back on Our Journey - Athens to Corinth

It has been one month since we stepped off the deck of VikingBlod and onto solid ground in Porto Montenegro where we now make our home. During that time, we have been warmly welcomed by the other "liveaboards" who have been here for various lengths of time. Americans, Aussies, Brits, and others make up our "family" away from home. Social activities happen regularly, including Darts and Drinks at a local pub, Curry Night at The Blue Room with food provided by Masala Art, a terrific Indian restaurant, and Ladies Lunch. We have also participated in one event hosted by the marina which was a ride on the Kotor Cable Car up to Lovcen with a gorgeous view of the town and bay of Kotor down below. It was a great day with new friends along for the ride, although it was much colder than we expected up top. Tomorrow we will attend another event which is a pasta cooking class that is being held at St. Nicolas Monastery in Prcanj, Kotor. Reports from those who attended last year are glowing, so we are greatly looking forward to this experience!

At the top!

Overlooking the Ionian Sea from the cable car

Doorway to the sky

Looking down on Kotor

The whole gang!

Kotor Bay

In the gondola

Toby enjoys curry night too

The highlight on our social calendar was American Thanksgiving on Awildian, a catamaran belonging to an American couple, Eric and Vandy, who have been living aboard for the past ten years. Their travels have taken them to Australia, New Zealand, many areas in the Med and beyond. The meal was amazing, including turkey, stuffing, gravy, potatoes, sweet potatoes, roasted veggies, and a wonderful selection of salads. To start off this terrific meal Elise made a super delicious cheese ball in the shape of a football no less! To top this all off was dessert - cherry pie, apple crumble, squares, ice cream, and pumpkin pie. The ice cream was topped with local pumpkin oil which tastes like chocolate! 

Some of the gang enjoying American Thanksgiving

On Vandy and Eric's catamaran

More of the gang enjoying the delicious meal

I was responsible for making the pumpkin pie which was conditional on finding a pumpkin to roast and puree since canned pumpkin is not to be found in any grocery store in Montenegro. Vandy and Eric, on a trip to the local produce market, called me excitedly to report that they had secured a pumpkin and would be carting it back to the marina in their grocery buggy. It was then up to me to chop it all up and roast it. I decided to microwave the chunks of pumpkin, skin and all, on a plate in several rotations of 5 minutes each before continuing to roast it in the oven until soft. Little did I know that this would burn out the old microwave, killing it off slowly. In the end, I was able to get the pumpkin all pureed, leaving me with more than enough to make two large pies, a generous amount of chicken pumpkin curry, two pumpkin loaves, and a very large pot of curried pumpkin soup. One pumpkin certainly went a long way! The pie was a hit, especially with the Brits who were very excited to try it since they had never before had pumpkin pie.

Last night Neil and I had a few people over to the boat to share in, yes you guessed it, the curried pumpkin soup. We enjoyed the company and conversation over glasses of wine before going off to the Christmas tree lighting event in the marina. Carolers sang beautifully. Elise and I did NOT volunteer to sing our own nautical version of The Twelve Days of Christmas (haha). Great fun!

L to R: Randall, Alison, Vandy, Eric, Elise, Geoff, Michelle, John, Me, Finnegan & Neil

Tree in Boka Place in Porto Montenegro

Enjoying the carolers with Geoff and Elise

Soon we will be packing up our suitcases and closing up the boat to begin our journey back to southern Ontario for the Christmas season. We are so looking forward to seeing family and friends! The local vet and the inspector have completed Finnegan's paperwork so he is ready for travel as well. Our plan is to fly from Podgorica, Montenegro to Vienna, Austria where we will stay for three nights. This will allow Finnegan a chance to recover before the second flight from Vienna to Toronto on December 7th. While in Vienna we hope to attend some of the Christmas markets we have heard so much about.

October 22nd - 25th:

At this point, I am going to go back to the end of October to catch you up on our travels with Ben from Athens to Corinth on October 22nd to 25th. Our first stop after leaving the marina in Athens was to an island just south called Aigina where we anchored in a bay which was more or less a stopping off point for the night. However, Ben did enjoy a swim. 

Sunset at Aigina

After this our plan was to head to a bay at Korfos located on the Peloponnese peninsula which had been recommended to us by several people. The town was very pretty and quite quiet now being the off season. Ben took us out for cocktails at a local bar where Finnegan made a new friend. 

The stare-down

Cats are everywhere!

The next day would be our long awaited trip through the Corinth Canal in Greece. We had booked in advance to travel through this very expensive channel. The canal itself is 6,343 metres long by 24.6 meters wide and connects the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea with the Gulf of Corinth in the Ionian Sea, separating the Peloponnese from the Greek mainland. It was quite an experience traveling between the high cliffs on either side.

Awaiting permission to enter the canal

Away we go!

The navigator & captain

High cliffs on either side

Ben on board

Once anchored in the abandoned bay in the city of Corinth, the wind had picked up again and we were in for a bit of a bouncy night. We did our best to get in another few rounds of Triominos so Ben could kick our butts once again before he had to leave us the next morning for his flight from Athens back to Toronto. He sadly left us to grab a taxi to the train station for his trip to the airport. What a great two week adventure we had with Ben on board!

Square in Corinth

We will miss you, Ben!