4th Oct 2008 - Boat holed
Bali Hai
Neal Stow
Sat 4 Oct 2008 23:52
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Not a good day. The one person who can
celebrate is the crew member who threw the expensive davit handle into the sea
as there is now someone who feels even more guilty.
The morning started well as we headed to the shore
for breakfast. A lovely meal of scrambled eggs and bacon with cappuccino
whilst admiring a beautiful sleek Italian Wally yacht, with it matching
tender. While my tender is not quite the same class as the Wally, it is a
top of the range Avon RIB with centre cockpit steering bought brand new this
year. While three of us ate unhealthily, one crew member preferred to
go for a run and on returning to the restaurant then took my tender back to the
boat for a shower. A short while later that crew returned looking
sheepish. After leaving the mooring, the tender had hit a rusty metal bar
on the dock and put a large hole in one of the tubes, which had promptly
deflated. I managed to get the tender back to the boat without it going to
the bottom of the harbour and attempted to patch the hole with the Avon repair
kit. Unfortunately the rip was too large and both patches I put on failed
to stop the leaking but at least slowed it to the point where the tender is now
useable.
The plan today had been to leave Mahon and anchor
in a bay in the south of the Menorca. However, because of
the tender problems and (unfulfilled) predictions of gales by the harbour
staff we decided to stay an extra night. After a lunch of interesting
local Menorca dishes we decided to go for a walk to Fortalesa de la
Mola, a large fort built in the 19th century. Unfortunately for us the
leader of the walk was Mo. In a previous log entry
you may have read of "Jim the Duracell Bunny" on account of his
ability to stride forth with gusto. Well, in comparison, Mo is the Nuclear
Bunny who kept up such a pace during this marathon walk that only Haile
Gebrselassie would have been able to have matched him.
The fort was pretty impressive, particularly the
architecture in the tunnels. After seeing the fort, the majority of the
party were keen to head back but Mo wanted to trek further to see the "big gun"
and so unfortunately we were forced to tag along. The effort was made more
bearable however at the sight of Mo falling into some barbed wire while trying
to take an artistic photo of the big gun and ripping his designer
jeans. Although, for some reason, Mo felt that the rips and specks of
blood somehow made the jeans more chic.
The highlight of the day was that, as we started on
the long walk back to the boat, the receptionist at the fort took pity on us on
her way home and gave us a lift.
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