Boat watching in Montenegro
9th June 2024
It’s funny, people watching the other boats in a bay. We’re currently anchored off Arza Beach in Mirista, Montenegro and there are about 15 other boats of varying sizes, style and price tag. Last to arrive was a Panama flagged motor boat, not huge, about as long as ours (44ft) but a fairly fancy looking Sunseeker and crewed. As soon as they dropped anchor, out came their swim platform and water toys, bevvies were cracked open and their music was turned on and UP! Now, it takes some balls or perhaps arrogance, to blare your personal playlist in a busy bay and so far we’ve had quite the interesting mix. First off we had some hardcore dance beats in an unknown foreign language, then we were treated to some Nina Simone and now we’re on to a bit of Celine Dion- “All by myself, don’t wanna be…”
It’s a beautiful bay – we’re about 200m away from the Arza Fortress on the Lustica Peninsula. Built in the 19th century, it’s a fairly well-preserved two-storey building known to have taken part in the successful defence of the Bay of Kotor against the Frech during the First World War. It looks super cool but sadly it has been privately owned since 2005 so you can’t get inside the building. A private investor bought it with the plan to build a premium resort with marina but the work was never started. I’m pretty sure it’s ok to have a wee nosey around the outside grounds so I’m looking forward to investigating tomorrow.
(Arza Fortress)
Oh, now we’ve got some Ace of Base! Christ, I’m not surprised the German flagged boat has just upped anchor and left!
Also in the bay we have the small island of Otočić Gospa, it’s about 160m long and 60m wide and holds the ‘Church of Our Lady of Grace’ dedicated to the conception of The Virgin Mary. Built in the second half of the 15th century this is where the priests who wanted to live away from the world first settled. Good on them, I’m sure we’d all like to do that at some point in our lives - I hope they brought some decent books and wine with them!
This place we can actually visit – My mum appreciates a good church so I might pop my nose in to this one and report back to her. According to Google reviews, Father Goran, bless him, resides and will happily show people around and read a prayer. I am sure the kids will be thrilled to join me.
And now we have some sort of classical dance remix – not bad actually!
I always wonder what the backstory is behind the people on each boat we come across. If it’s a big fancy pants boat – who are they and how did they make their money to obtain such a boat?! Is the boat in fact theirs? How often do they use it? And most importantly - do they have a washing machine??
This one has at least 2 crew on board. How the other half live a!
(The offending boat)
Hmm, another sailboat has now left the bay too – is it due to the music I wonder or was it just their time to go? It’s 5pm on a Sunday so soon all the smaller day trip boats will start to leave and only the hardy cruisers will remain overnight. We’re sitting at 10 boats now, my guess is that only 3 of us will remain. It’s a really beautiful spot, no wonder it’s so busy. It took as an age to find a suitable spot to anchor amongst all the others – you’d think the day boats could have made themselves known so that we wouldn’t have worried so much about swinging distances! Honestly, we must have circled the bay 3 times, weaving in and out of the other boats, gauging distances etc trying to ensure we didn’t get too close to anyone. Then most of them up and left within the hour anyway!!
Further in the distance, about a mile away, is Mamula, a circular shaped islet about 200m in diameter (ooh, I know this one! I recently did diameter, circumference and radius with Isabelle in boat school. The diameter is the length of the line through the center that touches two points on the edge of the circle. Thankyou very much) This island also has a fort on it, built in 1853 as part of the Austro-Hungarian Army's contingency plans of preventing the enemy entrance into the Bay of Kotor. During World War II the Italians converted it into a concentration camp and then in 2016 the government of Montenegro approved plans to turn it into a luxury beach resort! That’s a bit off!
(Mamula Island)
Fun fact – there’s a 2014 Serbian fantasy drama-thriller Killer Mermaid which was shot on the island, featuring an ex-German soldier living on the island and killing people to feed to a mermaid. It must be a miserable watch as it scores a measly 4.1/10 on IMDB.
Honestly, the things you find on Google – it’s amazing!
Ah, an Abba classic to finish with ‘The Winner Takes It All’.
