Albania Baby!

Up until the last minute, we had not been entirely sure about visiting Albania. We went back and forth on our decision before we decided to just go. Albania had been completely closed off from other countries until the early nineties – the fall of the communist regime. We had heard that tourists are very welcome nowadays, but that checking into and out of the country with a boat is a hassle, and that Albania itself is still a pretty rough place to visit. And off course, the bad guys in the movies are always Albanian mafia!

After a long day and part of the night sailing, we tied up in Durrës port at about 2am. We usually avoid arriving anywhere at night, but it just had to be done, considering the timing of filling Spacegrazer up with diesel in Montenegro, after which you have to check out of the country and go. Durrës is a large commercial port, not set up for yachts, so we had to tie up on the dock among container ships. It was a bit intimidating, but interesting as well. We parked Spacegrazer directly under two massive cranes. Our bow line was even tied to one of them because the bollards are so far apart. We saw some other yachts so we knew we were not the only crazies.

Early next morning our agent met us to formally check us into the country. He was really nice and everything went smoothly. Since Albania does not have much of a recent history of pleasure crafts, all boats are treated the same. This means that we have to go through the same check-in procedures as a commercial ship. Private ownership of boats was not allowed for Albanians for a long time, since so many tried to cross over to Italy and neighbouring countries to escape the communist regime. Even though times have changed, we did not see any pleasure craft flying an Albanian flag while we were there.

Discovering Durrës

Durrës turned out to be a delicious mix of crumbly old buildings, potholed roads, and funky new bars and shops. All this lovely chaos is lined by a slightly scruffy promenade along the beach. We loved wandering around and taking it all in. We had the best cappuccino we had had in a long time in a cosy cafe, ran around on a square framed by fountains and a mosque, looked in at the Roman amphitheatre, took a dive in the sea, then had a decadent lunch of fresh seafood, pizza, and prosecco along the beach front.

The next day we went to an organised beach, as we jokingly call them: rows and rows of deck chairs and parasols neatly lined up in front of beach bars and hotels. This is not normally our scene, since we prefer to drop anchor in hard-to-drive-to bays and have the place to ourselves, but it made a fun change.

Off course we could not resist taking photos of the cart that had the word shite written on it… it simply means selling, but we had a giggle anyway.

Bianca Kindler