Mahon, Menorca, Balearic
Islands.
28th March 2013
“Timeless, Timeless, Timeless ..this is
Sinbad, Sinbad, Sinbad”
The call came loud and
clear over the VHF radio as we were 15 miles out into the Mediterranean Ocean
from Menorca. Mahon in Menorca was “Timeless’s” 2012/13 winter home.
We had slipped our mooring
lines at 0320 UTC for our first major sail of the season. The weather prediction
was S to SW at 10 -15 knots for our 190 mile journey across to the west coast of
Sardinia. It was exciting to be
leaving. We had a weather window of 2 days before the next storm was due
through. It took us 45 minutes to
quietly motor out of Mahon harbor. The journey, just before sunrise, was eerie
as the few town lights played on the dark water.
On reaching the harbor
entrance we found 8 knots of wind in a suitable direction for straight rhumb line to Alghero.
The
sails were set and we were off.
At 5.05 we saw a wonderful
sunrise.
The VHF radio was Serapio
calling to wish us a “Bon Voyage and safe
sailing in 2013!”
Serapio had just woken up and it was 7 am local time.
During the winter Serapio had been keeping guard over “Timeless” whilst we
were back in Canada. He lives on his sailing boat, “Sinbad” with his partner
Liane and their two wonderful children - just a few berths along from the berth
Timeless had been allocated in Mahon. Liane had been keeping the systems ticking
whilst we were away and arranged the pre-season spring clean. They did a
fantastic job as did the Menorca Marina.
Our sail to Alghero will
take about 30 to 35 hours to cover the 190 mile distance. More importantly as it
is our first serious sail of the year we are taking everything s l o w l y and carefully ..as we get back into the swing.
Hopefully, we have timed everything such that we can easily arrive during
daylight.
The weather Gods have
smiled on us. No only do we have a moderate consistent wind but the sea is
relatively smooth at less than ½ meter waves and the cloud looks only 30%
coverage as the sun begins its monotonous journey across the sky (Gosh! It must
be boring to be a Sun!).
A great new sailing year ahead of us
– but first lots of jobs!
It’s been really good fun
to reunite with our new sailing buddies.
“Ken and Pam” have an Oyster 54 on
the next pontoon along from us and are generally cruising the Med for a few
years. We first met them in Guernsey as they were sailing from Ipswich (UK)
having just purchased their Oyster. Ken writes great emails and can always be
counted on for his unique and fun insight on matters surrounding his home
country, the US.
“Peter and
Vessna” have a beautiful new catamaran just across the way from our berth. Peter
lived on his catamaran during the winter and had come all the way from Australia
to take delivery of it in France.
and then, 3 boats along from us..
Serapio and Liane have their 37 year old pirate ship! Serapio found and
renovated their pirate ship in Turkey a few years ago. They sailed it to
Menorca ..and just never
left.
Oh! While I think of
it.
Note to memory. Beware of taking a cycle ride with guys that cycle every
day during the winter and other guys that cycle over 11,000 miles a year at
Olympic standard!
Phew! My legs hurt for days afterwards”.
Jobs, Jobs ..and more
Jobs!
There are such a lot of things to check out on a boat
as you start the season following a winter break!
Although “Timeless” was
immaculate when we arrived back to the boat there were still jobs to be done
before we could set sail again this year. We ended up writing out 3 long lists
and religiously ticked them off one by one.
A New
Sunshade.
During the winter break we had a huge sun shade
made. The shade reaches from the mast right back to the stern of the boat.
Everyone says we’ll need this for our time in Turkey. I’ll post pictures when we
pop it back up later in the year.
WEATHERHEAD Patent No.
567/WEA/BLAH/2013
Before we left “Timeless” last November I
VERY carefully took various measurements around the pulpit fixing of the boat.
The plan was to take these measurements back to Canada and make a super clever
support beam and fixing out of teak and stainless steel so that our passarel can
be used off of both the stern AND the bow. It wasn’t as if you can just custom
fit it as you make from 5,000 miles away!
Would it fit?
With quite a few
onlookers on the dock wondering what on earth I was doing I set about fixing it
to the boat.
It worked!!!!
So, We now have a super flash passerel from
the bow of the boat and everyone thinks I should patent it!
Oops!! “We have a little
problem..”
“Sorry”
The winds had been quite
strong in Menorca over the few weeks before our arrival back to the boat and
this mean that lifting the boat out of the water to replace the various anodes
and scrub the hull clean of barnacles and other nasty things was difficult.
Consequently Serapio had arranged a scuba diver to clean the hull and replace
the anodes in situ. When we arrived there was still one anode left to replace.
This is a simple job – it was the anode on the prop.
For non-boaty people,
anodes are used as sacrificial lumps of metal and stop more important metal
parts of your boat being eaten away over time (you know, things like engines and
the like).
The diver duly arrived and dived into the water armed with his
trusty spanner and the new anode. (It looked quite cool really.)
Five minutes
later his head emerged holding one half of the new bolt he was fitting with the
new anode. The other half was still in the prop!
He had over tightened the
bolt and it had sheared off.
A few minutes later it was confirmed
that the ONLY way to remove the sheared bolt from the prop would require lifting
the boat out of the water and getting a specialist mechanic to spend 2 hours
removing it.
NOTE. BEWARE OF OVER ENTHUSIASTIC
SCUBA DIVERS!
465 Euros and pretty most
of a day later the prop was fixed and we were back to normal.
Still.
The good part
was that we did find he had also missed another BIG anode and had forgotten to
clean the bow thruster (which also explains why the bow thruster didn’t seem as
strong this year!)
NOTE. BEWARE OF SLOPPY SCUBA
DIVERS!
A super new teak deck!
We decided that as
“Timeless” was our pride and joy, she deserved a bright clean new deck. Not
literally of course but we did have the deck lightly sanded, cleaned and a teak
waterproofing applied. This was all very labour intensive but “Wow!” “Timeless”
looks amazing now!
The weather has been
decidedly chilly in Menorca over the last 10 days. The daylight hours have been
fine as long as you didn’t sit around in the shade – in fact we have been
wearing just a Tee shirt most of the time. But the evenings can be really cold still.
I’d left all my
winter clothes back in Canada – where it’s meant to be cold!
The tourist
guides skip over telling you just how cold the Med can get in the
spring!
The last night in
Mahon.
We were leaving for Sardinia first thing on the
28th March.
‘Ken and Pam’ were leaving for Boston first thing on
the 28th March.
‘Peter and Vess’ would soon be leaving for
Barcelona et al onwards around the Med.
Serapio, Liane and children were
looking to stow away in our lazarettes.
Mackerel was in plentiful
supply now.
Vess loves making pasta salads.
Wine here is good – and cheap!
.. this all pointed towards a farewell evening Mackerel & Pasta salad
BBQ on the pontoon!
Thanks to our ‘hosts’
Serapio and Liane for looking after our boat and for organizing the great
farewell BBQ for us ‘travelers”.
Thanks to “Rosendo”, the
manager of the Marina Menorca, for his help and providing such a great marina to
over-winter our boat.