Montenegro swims

Been vacationing in Kotor, Montenegro, a beautiful historical bay town in the Balkans. Really was not hard to decide on this location when I saw pictures like this.

The picture above is taken from the side of one of the mountains here, on which you can see medieval walls and churches. The mountains are steep, but the wall can be climbed due to stairs carved out of the rock. It’ll take you about 30-40 minutes depending upon how many times you stop to catch your breath. Frankly, not worth it to climb all the way to the top as it is dusty and dirty (trash everywhere) up there and the view isn’t as great. About 2/3 of the way up the view is incredible.

And of course when you’re that high above a beautiful bay, what else can you do but jumpography!

Swimming has been done here, too. Not just sightseeing and jumping. Got two solo swims in so far, along with several “noodling” type swims with the family. One daughter and my wife like to go out with me and swim along the shore, watching the beautiful old houses go by, the fishermen come in, the locals sunbathing. We cover about two km each time, one down one back, just lazily enjoying the water, heads up breast with some freestyle thrown in. Yesterday we rented a boat and went to Sv. Marko island, over by Tivat. We swam around for about an hour, playing games with the kids, drinking wine and Radlers. It was enjoyable.

Today I did my second solo swim, along the coast of Muo to the marina, about 1.4 km or so down. I wanted to go farther, but it wasn’t safe. I was swimming along minding my own business, counting strokes, keeping an eye out for jellyfish (we saw smacks of jellyfish all over the bay yesterday while boating), when I heard the tell tale sign of a motor boat nearby. I looked up to see one of the small tourist submarines coming right in my direction. It was still maybe 300 meters off, but it wasn’t moving left or right, despite me being only about 20 meters off shore. I swam towards an empty space among the dozen sailboats at the marina. At the same time, I noticed a catamaran right in front of me preparing to pull out of its parking spot. The captain was motioning to another sailboat coming in (both these boats were about 70 feet long). I caught the captain’s eye, pointed to the sailboat coming in then to the empty spot I was treading water in front of and he nodded “Da.” Great. So I’m swimming right in front of the parking place this incoming boat wants to go to.

I immediately turned around and headed back home. So much for my idea of doing 4k this morning. I stopped a little after and noticed the catamaran that was pulling out was now pulling back into another spot, and yet another sailboat was preparing to leave. Maybe Saturday morning isn’t the best time to swim there!

No worries, I swam back, hopping out at one of the stone piers near the house. An older lady was sunning herself and she said “Dobro jutro” (good morning) with a smile. Then I realized that she was there two days ago when I swam my first solo! She smiled and watched me unhook my bright orange buoy, remove my rash guard (I burn easily) and doff my cap and goggles. Nice and bright early morning swim, totally 3km with my zig-zagging. Delightful.

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