Notes from the field
It’s been a long time since I’ve made a post on this blog. My excuse is that I’ve been sailing. I left home on June 12 and just got back on August 13. This summer I sailed from Croatia to Montenegro down the coast of Albania and cleared into Greece in Corfu. We sailed from Corfu through the Corinth canal into the Aegean Sea and I left my boat at the end of the summer in Turkey.
As my summer sailing seasons go this one was a rather challenging summer mechanically and weatherwise. I had to replace two water pumps both the fresh water pump and the salt water pump and also two large house batteries. It amazes me that Yanmar does not require its dealers to carry any inventory. Both these mechanical problems occurred when I was in Montenegro. Doing a web search I found to the Montenegrin dealer for Yanmar I rented a car and drove to the dealer expecting to be able to purchase off-the-shelf a simple water pump. No such luck the dealer was a dealer in name only and he could order parts for me. The parts would come from somewhere in Europe they would take about a week to be delivered and from my perspective I may as well have ordered the parts from the United States and they would’ve been delivered in a shorter period of time. I’m very disappointed in Yanmar and their parts availability in Europe. To overcome this problem I contacted the manager of the Sun Sail charter base in Dubrovnik. Most of the charter fleets use the Yanmar engine and if anybody knew where to get the parts this man would. He gave me the name of a mechanic at the ACI Marina in Dubrovnik and I explained to him that I needed a new or rebuilt fresh water pump. He said he could have it for me the next day. I rented a car and drove up to find that he thought I was talking about the salt water pump and he couldn’t help me this continued over and over again until he finally found me a rebuilt fresh water pump. He charged me $500 for a rebuilt fresh water pump, pumps that sells in the United States for about $149. You may understand why I’m not a fan of the Croatians. He had me over a barrel I had to pay what he asked (did I say that he was also very arrogant and rude as well). The next water pump went out as I was leaving the Marina at Bar Montenegro this was the salt water pump. Fortunately for me I was able to find a machinist in Bar who was able to rebuild it however this delay this another three days, he charged me 20 euros, I gave him 30. I like the Montenegrins!
Advice: Visit Montenegro and skip Croatia
Since we were delayed in Montenegro due to engine problems we made the best of our time by renting a car and driving into the inland part of Montenegro one day and on another day we drove up through Bosnia-Herzegovina. When we entered Bosnia-Herzegovina it was as if we had stepped back 100 years. On the map we were driving on a major road. But it was simply a very narrow road that was paved. The economy seems to be dominated by small agriculture operations I saw no real industry.
Leaving Bar we motored to Albania and visited three cities along the coast. At each city we had to use a commercial shipping agent for our entry formalities. This cost about €70 per city. Albania is not ready for prime time tourism, they say they want to have tourists s it’s visit them yet they are still operating under what seems to be big brother watching everything that you do state. It would not be on my list of countries to visit again.
Clearing into Greece is always a testament to the fact that Greek public employees don’t seem to learn from experience. Clearing into Greece with a sailboat from a non-EU country entails visiting three different offices. At one office two Greek customs officials argued for a half an hour on how to fill out a receipt for about 6 1/2 euros. You would think that I was not the only boat that they had ever dealt with and they might have the learning curve down by now, but no, this does not seem to be the case. It took me 2 hours to clear in.
I was interested in observing how the tourist sector of the Greek economy was dealing with the Greece debt situation and slowdown in the economy. As I traveled through Greece I noticed many empty commercial spaces, a lot of property for sale in both the form of land and houses and commercial space. But when I talk to shopkeepers they said it was better than last year.
I have several complaints the first one being why does every restaurant in Greece have the same menu? There is no variety in food. Every restaurant advertises traditional Greek food. By the end of one week I was tired of traditional Greek food I was craving Chinese, Thai, Italian, Mexican, anything but traditional Greek food. If I started a restaurant in Greece it would be a Thai restaurant. The next complaint I have is why does every restaurant in Greece have the same uncomfortable chairs. Doesn’t any restaurant owner have any imagination. It looks like there must be a requirement that every restaurant seat patrons in the most uncomfortable chairs possible. At least the coffee shops would have a variety of chairs I found that the best way to choose a coffee shop was by the comfortable chairs that they ofered since all the prices in all the drinks were exactly the same it is best just to choose a coffee shop by the availability of Wi-Fi signals and comfortable chairs.
The weather on the Ionian side of Greece was mostly light winds but I did have a couple days of strong winds when approaching the Corinth canal. And upon passing through the Corinth canal and into the Aegean the weather changed entirely too strong winds from the north northeast or North West most commonly called the Meltimis in Greece. Normally these weapons blow very strong for 3 to 5 days and then you have two or three days of little or no wind. This year did not follow that pattern in the more than a month but I spent in the Aegean the summer I only had three days of little to no wind. We were port bound several times, once in Poros, again in Serifos, Amogoros, Astapalia and Kithnos. There was a theory floating around that this is due to the El Niño effect we are experiencing this year.
We cleared into Turkey at Turgretres. The Turks have a relatively straightforward process of clearing in and this was done with the minimal amount of effort.
It is been three years since I’ve been back to Turkey and I was depressed by what Turkey is doing to its coastline. They seem to be following the model exhibited by Spain 20 years earlier. Where Spain lined its coast with big ugly concrete boxes from Gibraltar up to Barcelona which were designed to be sold to Sun’s seeking northern Europeans and now has collapsed. Turkey seems to be following the same example but instead of big ugly concrete boxes they are choosing to clone little white sugar cube type structures over and over and over again on grid patterned streets. In spite of the fact that very few of these ugly little sugar cubes seem to have been sold they keep building and ruining what was once a very beautiful coast. At least that is what I saw between Bodrum and Yalikavik. Even though the GDP and debt to equity ratios don’t indicate it at this point in time I would be highly skeptical of investing in Turkey or specifically Turkish real estate. They appear to be over building and this over building is due to what appears to be the start of the credit bubble. In Bodrum standing on one corner I could see five different banks and ATM machines. There is been an expansion of banks in Turkey and correspondingly it looks like an expansion of real estate development that is due to collapse at some point of time in the future.
I noticed this same phenomenon in Italy last year where it appears there seem to be more banks than churches in Italy now and we’ve seen what that’s done for the Italian economy.
Next year when I get back on the boat depending on the weather patterns always ago North or South into Turkey and Greece and see if this ugly real estate development pattern continues.
Finally I have written two books that are downloadable on Kindle
Greek Island Social Networks and the Maritime Shipping Dominance they Created: Onassis, Lemos and others
And
Bareboat Yacht Chartering in Turkey 2012
That’s all for now