Towards Mahon, Es Grau and Illa d'en Colom
Altea
Thu 17 Jul 2014 16:01
4 July 2014
It was a good call to wait a day and we have another good sail down towards Mahon with wind up to 23kn. We have picked up the weather grib files and again don't want to venture too far round the corner, so that we can avoid any onshore winds, and the swells that they will bring.
S has identified the ideal anchorage in the lee of Illa d'en Colom, around Cap Favaritz, which is protected from all but a northerly. We set the anchor in sand, carefully avoiding the weed that is protected in this bay, and diligently patrolled by the Marinero who comes over to check that we have not strayed into it. Next to us, on a buoy, is a modern take on a pirate ship, that would be Jonny's perfect boat. About 70 ft long, at a guess, and glossy black, it makes a pretty picture.
The village of Es Grau is remembered by L and S from previous holidays to Minorca. We dinghy ashore, and have a beer at Es Molls bar on the little town quay. Cute minorcan boats loll in the shallows, with their typical white hulls, plumb stems and blue and white awnings.
The village is small and sits beside a large inlet that is like a lagoon, sheltered on all sides and only a couple of feet deep. It seems like an ideal family holiday spot and it is great to see lots of kids messing about in the water and in boats.
We have grumpy tapas (that is the waiter, not us) and beer, followed by a dinghy ride back that has to follow a large S shaped route out and round the headland and through the shallows between the island and the shore. The sun goes down behind a small tower that must have been a signal post or gun battery in Napoleonic times, and we just sit for a couple of hours, watching the world go by until the stars come out.
We end up staying three nights in the bay. The highlights are: admiring the large Swan anchored in the mouth of the bay; swimming round the boat and cleaning off the remnants of Soller's weed from the water line; and most significantly of all, re-commissioning the water maker.
We started with half a day of orientation - working out the routing of the feedwater into the lift pump in the engine room, through the particle filter, back to the high pressure pump, then on past the reverse osmosis membranes through to the pressure control valve. As the pressure is turned up, the water is forced through the membranes and emerges as drinkable water, purer than if it had been distilled.
We worked out the sequence of switches to turn, crossed our fingers and switched on....It didn't work. Forearmed by our experience of freeing up the air-conditioning circulation pump, S located the slot in the end of the pump housing and turned the impeller by hand. The click confirmed our suspicion that it had been stuck. We tried again. Bingo. After an hour's running to clean out the preservative chemicals we had a tense tasting session and sure enough we had made fresh water from sea water. It seemed like magic. We switched the lever so that the product water went to the tank and stored away 250 litres in a couple of hours. This will transform our cruising. As long as we have diesel and a generator (the high pressure pump takes 1.5 kw) we are liberated from land and marinas.