The sail from Porto Colom, Majorca to Mahon, Minorca

We had thought we had had our last night sail weeks ago! 

Oh well.

This was to be our final sail of the year!

We planned our course, set our sails, worked out our ETA for Mahon and made for Minorca.

We were in no hurry. We did not want to arrive until daybreak – because we don’t enter unknown ports in the dark!  (hmmm..   been here before me thinks??)

The wind was light to start - we even had to use the engine, but, by 9 pm the wind had picked up to 10-13 knots and we were happily sailing. The sea state was still 2 meters or so as result of all the winds during the previous 24 hours but this size of swell is not even noticed by ‘Timeless’  - maybe a tad rolly for crew though! 

As the night proceeded the winds did not die down again – in fact they picked up. The weather in the central part of the Mediterranean at this time of year really is quite unpredictable compared with the summer  yes..

Just as John had got to sleep I was telling him to get up and “We have to reef”.  In the end we were only using the Jib and still doing 6 knots.

We saw two ferries but otherwise the night was quiet.

It was an eerie sail. The waves were at two meters, the stars were shining brightly, there was the odd sheet lightning and three rain squalls came through. These squalls pushed the wind to 30 knots as they passed through. 

John & I changed watches every two hours as the weather was just plain ‘topsie turvie’.

The boat was desperate to sail at 8 knots  - we did not want to arrive in Minorca until daybreak.

I kid you not when I say we reefed the sails in until we only had 3 foot of jib sail out and the tiniest of main sail  - and we still doing over 4 knots. 

We arrived at our destination at 5am  -  two hours early. 

UP and DOWN, UP and DOWN, UP and DOWN

John calculated how we could run across the entrance back and forth on a beam reach.  So for the next two hours we sailed three miles out and then three miles back.  Three miles out and then three miles back. Three miles out and ..

Actually this was all quite fun!

The sky was magnificent.  

The stars were amazing.

We had a brilliant new moon.

As daylight came we had a red sky.

The sea flattened out.

Finally at the earliest daybreak we sailed into port and made for a cala. We were going to anchor for a few hours until the Marina opened. Based on our previous plans they were not expecting us until later that evening. 

This particular cala was small and only had one other boat anchored.

We anchored up, made breakfast and enjoyed a calm anchorage. 

As it turns out the skipper of this other boat was called Edwardo.

Edwardo dingyed over (dingyed ..is that a word I wonder?) over an hour later and asked us if we knew that the weather was changing dramatically later that day with forecast 40+ winds. 

“Yes, we did know that there was another system coming in and that in fact we were moving on to a Minorca marina in about an hour.”

Wasn’t that good of him.

We keep finding that. So many experienced skippers are more than willing to share their knowledge with others.

Not like that moron back in Palma!

Edwardo, a professional  skipper arrived in Minorca 3 years ago and decided never to leave. Now he spends 11 months of every year anchored in one of the calas surrounding Minorca – cool huh!  He also winters for that one month each year at the marina we had chosen to winter at. This sort of pro skipper confirmation always leaves you with a warm fuzzy feeling!  He is also great friends of the couple about to keep an eye on our boat this winter.

The old sea dog saying is, “red sky at night shepherds delight, red sky in the morning – beware!”

We had just been admiring the red sky. Funny that.

We up-anchored at 11am and had a delightful trip down a beautiful 3 mile stretch of bay (it felt like the River Thames) to this seasons final marina. 

Help on the dock greeted us.

It is such a lovely marina. It’s very very quiet and it’s at the end of the bay so there is hardly any wave action from passing boats.

We settled ourselves in and then went for an afternoon nap to catch up. We never thought our last sail of the season would be at night, nor the conditions we found ourselves in at the last port.

The original forecast had been for a pleasant day sail on the Sunday!

Still! Lots of exploring of Minorca to do now!