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 28^th March.
‘Ken and Pam’ were leaving for Boston first thing on the 28^th 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.