MONTENEGRO - AEGEAN ADVENTURE

MBY regulars Thomas and Jutta Kittel continue their annual Mediterranean cruise – this time heading towards Albania and Greece from Montenegro

- Thomas Kittel

After last year’s epic cruise from Italy to Montenegro via the magical coastline and islands of Croatia, we are struggling to get fired up about this season’s plan to continue our trip eastwards to Albania, Greece and beyond. Are we still suffering from a post-Covid hangover or was last season so special that we’re worried this season won’t live up to it?

Despite these mixed feelings, we are finally on our way to Tivat, Montenegro, where our Marlow 72 Explorer, Azura, spent the winter. We are excited to see how far the Navar shipyard has got with the pre-season preparation of our boat. As always, we relied on our German technicians to service the engines and generators but there were plenty of other repair tasks we’d asked the shipyard to do.

Luckily, the yard is very close to Tivat Airport, with plenty of direct flights in and out from all over Europe. If the wind is in the right direction, you fly in so low over the Bay of Kotor on the final approach that you could almost jump out onto our boat before the plane touches down. However, today there is a light westerly wind, so we land from the mountain side.

When we get off the plane, we are hit by a wall of heat – mind you, we are starting our cruise a little later than usual, so it’s already 6 June.