I turned the internet on to get a weather forecast and some info from Navily as I was sitting on the boat at anchor in Durres. My less than 5 minutes of online time cost me £33!! The weather forecast essentially said there were going to be southerlies again but they were going to be very light..I was making decent time down to Corfu to meet Wenna but the anchorage was open to the south in any case so I decided to move on. The alarm was at for 5am but I woke at 3:39am to what I first thought was wash from a ferry or something but which turned out to wind caused waves. I left about 5:15 and although getting out of Durres bay was ok, by the time I got to the next section, ie up to the point I could bearaway into Vlore Bay, the weather was atrocious. There were very steep waves, high 20s winds and significant waves over the deck, etc..They might not have been the strongest winds I have encountered in this boat so far, but they were certainly the worst conditions. Even the toilet when flying at one point. Eventually after motoring at 1.8 knots (maybe it was 2.8 knots) and feeling like I would never get there, I eventually had enough angle to bear away a little..The winds came off the nose about 15 to 20 points but the waves remained very steep until I got protection from the mountains on the far side of the bay. In fact, I could actually sail for a few minutes once I was through the worst of it  but then the wind died. I turned the engine back on and had the full mainsail now up (previously I had two reefs in) when one of the shackles holding the mainsheet to the traveller broke.I eventually got to the marina which despite ignoring my hailing on the VHF had an enormous space for me to get into. Despite the very little cross wind, I gave up after a bit and went in forwards. I felt very tired. I ended up staying there for two nights to recover.

Durres To Orikum

Crew: 1

Crew Logs

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