Slow boat to Menorca

39:52.6N
04:18.4E Saturday
26th July The
forecast for this trip was the South Westerly wind to continue through the
night, which would be ideal, but of course that is not how it all happens at
sea! We came out of Cala Gran to find a gentle North Easterly blowing which was
just about exactly what we did not want or need. The swell had died away out at
sea and with the light headwind, we simply motor sailed for the first three
hours. I have a theory that there is no natural swell out in these islands, it
is just all the powerboats roaring around like headless chickens that causes it
all! As
soon as it got fully dark I started to see lots of faint flashing lights ahead
of us on the starboard side. Nothing was showing on the radar, but when viewed
through binoculars, each light actually showed up as a group of lights very
close together. Given that our course was clear of these, I pressed on and can
only assume that they were perhaps marking fishing pots or nets, but if that is
the case they are the very first ones we have ever seen lit in any way, in any
country! At
Midnight a huge fireworks display started directly behind us, presumably in or
near Cala d’Or, but as we were now 20 miles away it was not something we
could properly enjoy, but even at this distance it was possible to see that the
display was very impressive and for good measure it continued until 12.45, when
the massive finale lit up the sky. By
2.00am the wind had risen to around 10 knots and had backed enough to allow us
to sail. Given that we did not want to arrive until daylight, we unrolled the
smaller headsail and cut the engine. We were able to sail our chosen course,
but only just and the boat speed through the water varied between 3 knots and a
heady 5 knots, however it did mean that whoever was off watch, got a better
sleep. Sarah then saw even brighter lights which she thinks may
have been marking an underwater cable (?) as again there were no boats showing
on the radar. 7.00am
saw us approaching the Southern tip of Menorca, with a steady stream of charter
flights dropping over our heads as they made their final approach runs into the
island (must be Saturday!) but the wind had shifted by now and we were not able
to make the course we wanted to cut inside an island (Isla del Aire), but we
were still in no hurry so we made the best course we could and had to make
several tacks before we were able to finally, in a dying wind, approach Puerto
de Mahon which is a very attractive commercial, naval, fishing and yachting
port, situated up a long and deep cala. Within the confines of the cala there
are a number of brilliant anchorages, providing safe, calm and very picturesque
refuges and was in the best of these (cala Taulera) that we found plenty of
space and dropped our hook and again went immediately for a swim. In
the late morning we launched the dinghy (Doris) and motored out through the
Canal de San Jordi (a man made link to provide a second access route to the
bay) and over to a town on the main island to do some essential shopping. The
afternoon and evening was spent lazing and reading a paper (I wonder what poor
old Gordon Brown does on his holiday as he certainly will not be wanting to
read any papers!) Tomorrow
is to be a day of relaxing and sorting out some of the lockers prior to
departing around 9.00pm on our two and half day odyssey to Sicily. |