September started with us anchored in a bay to on the east
of Isola de Sant’ Antioco, Sardinia.
Once again, we were waiting for a weather window for a passage and had
time to take things easy. We picked up
anchor at 12:50 and had a pleasant, into-wind, sail round the bottom of that
island and up to I. di S. Petro, again anchoring in a small bay. On the second, we decided to go into
Carloforte, the largest town on the island.
It was only 4 miles up the coast, so we didn’t bother with sails and
just motored. The pilot book suggested
that we could tie up, for free, on the town wall but, as so often happens, this
information was out of date. The space
was occupied by a marina which charged us 40 Euros per night, quite reasonable
by Italian standards and gave us water and power. The Town turned out to be very pleasant, with
usual tourist stuff near the harbour but a picturesque old quarter on the hill
behind. We took full advantage of the
water to wash all our ropes, which had become salt encrusted over the summer,
together with a good wash down of Ruby.
We also went ashore for our final genuine Italian pizza of the year.
Ropes hanging out to dry, Carloforte.
The forecast was for a good wind for crossing to Menorca on
the 6th but it looked as though we would get a better angle to use
it if we started further north. We
believed that we could get a beam reach, on the 3rd, for the 40
miles up to Oristano bay, so did a good shop before departure and left at
12:30. Unfortunately, the wind was 45
degrees off and, even close hauled, we couldn’t quite make it up the coast
without tacking so it was a motor-sail for much of the way to arrive at sunset
to a bay to the north east of Capo San Marco. Here, there were many mooring
buoys laid, anchoring being prohibited to protect the Posidonia (sea
grass). The buoys are free to use, so we
picked up a convenient one and settled in.
I regret to report that, even though there are extensive ruins on the
shore, half a mile away, we did nothing but relax for the next two days, apart
from one re-position to be further from the swell creeping round the headland. Eat, sleep, sunbathe, repeat. We reasoned that we need to get into practice
for the Caribbean.
We had about 200 miles to go to Menorca and estimated about
36 hours so, to be on the safe side for a daylight arrival, let go our buoy at
0400 on the 6th and motored the couple of miles to the point where,
as forecast, we found a nice easterly F4 to help us on our way. Unfortunately,
it only lasted for about 6 hours but we managed to get sailing winds for most
of the way having to motor for only about 90 minutes the next night. The last 40 miles were done on a slow broad
reach but the timing worked and we arrived at Fornells at 1600 on the 7th. A daylight arrival was a good thing as, once
again, the pilot book information was well out of date. The area where we expected to anchor had been
taken over by mooring buoys and we were resigned to sitting on one of these
(had actually picked one up) when a helpful chappie in a RIB came over,
confirmed that we were welcome to use it at E29 per day but were equally free
to anchor further south. We quickly went
for the second option as we had shot through Menorca on the way east and wanted
to spend some time exploring it now.
On Thursday, 8th, we took a bus into the capitol,
Mahon. This is only 24 Km but the bus
calls at every tourist resort on the way and takes 90 minutes. While waiting for the bus, we discovered that
it was a local fiesta. Our joy at this
was damped on arrival as everything was closed but we made our way into the
centre to see if anything was happening.
As we approached, there was an obvious throng and emerging from it was
a, very slow, procession of horses. We
stopped in a side street, expecting a fuller parade but just horses and riders
both done up to the nines. I am
certainly no equine expert but they were foaming at the bit and very skittery
so we deduced that there must be more.
We found another way down to the throng and pushed our way through. In a long plaza, there was a stand with
bigwigs and a band (which only knew one tunes – memories of Up Helly Aa). Teams of 4 riders would enter, salute, and
have 32 bars of the tune to prance up and down while persuading their steeds to
walk on their hind legs and paw the air.
Onlookers were encouraged to mix in with this and physically support
horse and rider. I say prance up and down
but, occasionally, they ended up sideways.
I unfortunately did not have the camera ready as Elsie found herself
face to hoof with a ton-and-a-half of black stallion and ended up sitting in
the sand.
Dancing horses, Mahon.
We then hired a car for a couple of days to see the rest of
the island. On Friday we started along
the north coast driving, after a trip toCcap de Cavaleria, to Cala Algaiarens,
our first anchorage in May, to see it from the shore. There is a free car park about half a
kilometre short and a good hike but, even this late in the season, the beach
was packed. We had a short bathe and
continued on to see Calas Morell, Blanes Blanco and en Bosc, with a walk round
the harbour at Cuitadella on the way. We thought to finish the day with another
trip to a beach at Macarella. While the
roads in the centre of the island are good, those leading to the coast are
small and all dead ends. This one proved
smaller than most and it took us 30 minutes to travel the 15 Km each way and
then another 15 minute walk down to the beach.
The following day, we took it a little easier and spent most
of the day at Santa Tomas, on the south coast.
It is definitely a leisure resort, with hotels, tat shops etc, but has
good access, a variety of beaches and some nice housing behind. Definitely gets added to our list of ‘maybe’
places. A good shop at Mahon
supermarkets on the way back and we were done.
On the 11th, we picked up and had a pleasant sail
the 14 miles down to Cala Algierens. The
anchorage was a little fuller than it had been in May but no problem in finding
a space and repositioning to the prime spot once the day trippers had
left. We spent an idyllic couple of days
here – swimming, sunbathing and generally being lazy, then picked up again to continue
to Mallorca. We had a good sail back to Pollensa,
getting in at 1830 and staying for 3 nights. We had a much better look round
the town than we had in the spring, liking it very much. We also hired a car for a day and explored
the east and south coasts. We do like
the Balearics.
Sunset at Soller.
On the 16th, we motored the 6 miles to Cap de
Formentor, then sailed along the north coast to Soller, anchoring inside the
harbour. This gave us an easy get-away
at 0500 the following morning to continue on to Ibiza. We struck 5 miles offshore on the port tack
and were then able to continue on the starboard tack, at first close hauled, then
beam reaching most of the way, just having to motor the last 10 miles onto Cala
St Vicente, our departure point in April. We stayed here 2 nights then, on the
19th, motored first to Cala Llonga for lunch and then on to Cala
Talamanca. Longa is beautiful formed but
unfortunately has a hotel with loud air conditioning and generally a lot of
people about. Talamanca is a lot less
scenic but is just across a narrow isthmus from Ibiza town, which we wished to
see. We dinghies ashore on the 20th to do this and a bit of shopping. The old fortress was well worth the trip
though we failed to spot the supermarket 100 metres away from where we parked
Rubette and carried our groceries much further than necessary.
Olt town, Ibiza.
Once again, we were waiting on a weather window for our next
leg and decided to go back to the beautiful anchorage at Espalmador, between
Ibiza and Formentora, pausing to take an extra 50 litres of fuel in Ibiza, in case
the winds disappointed on our way to Gibraltar.
Our anchorage had been covered in mooring buoys for the summer and we
were required to pick one up at a cost of E29.
We did this for one night and then, as the wind had died, motored down
to the port of Sabina on Formentera, anchoring just outside. As in May, the area between was decorated
with many super yachts, including Prince AbdulAziz, once the largest yacht in
the world and now owned by the prince so named.
We wondered whether he got any more joy from his yacht than we did from
ours and decided probably not. A dinghy
ashore in the evening to look at the port – definitely tourist central with literally
thousands being shipped over each day on high-speed ferries and, judging by the
numbers available, each hiring a bicycle or scooter to tour the small island.
The wind forecast led us to leave at mid-day on the 23rd.
After an initial, excited, spell with
the cruising chute, we motored for a couple of hours in variable winds until
well clear of Formentera when the wind settled to its forecast easterly. We continued under main and CC with F 2-3
changing the latter to full Genoa at 2200 as it increased to F4. There were huge lightning storms to the north,
apparently well clear of our track and we agreed that Elsie would continue with
one reef in the main unless she actually heard thunder. At about 0130 the wind suddenly died, which
should have alerted me. 20 minutes later
there was a northerly squall. Fortunately
she had furled the Genoa, but it was still a struggle for the 2 of us to put 3
reefs in the main. The northerly F5-6 continued through her watch then started
to veer and, by 0900, I was on a broad reach with 2 reefs in the main and one
in the Genoa. By mid-day it had decreased to F3 and we continued under full
sail, mostly broad reaching but occasionally goose-winged. As we approached the Spanish mainland, the
forecast suggested that we would get better winds if we delayed by 24 hours, so
we dropped anchor just to the west of Cabo de Gate at 0945 on the 25th.
We set off again at 0750 on the 26th
and, once we were clear of the land, it looked very promising. I had rigged the inner stay while waiting and
headed off downwind with full Genoa on the port side and staysail to starboard
in a NNE4, giving us a good 7 knots. This increased to 8, then 9 knots as the
wind picked up more and we reefed the Genoa to the same size as the staysail. The wind then started to decrease (full Genoa
again) and then died forcing us to motor or motor-sail through the night. It
was no better in the morning, by which time we had furled the Genoa and just
left the main up for stability. It was
stowed at 1100 and we motored round Europa point and up to Gibraltar, pausing
to get our fuel tank refilled duty-free, and then on to La Linea where we had
engine maintenance booked, tying up at 1310.
We soon found ourselves in a little community of others doing much the same as us, waiting for weather to take us to the Canaries and beyond. The main engine was serviced, at eye watering cost as a leaking sea water pump needed replacing. We also bought new service batteries to replace ones that had been overcharged due to tour lack of understanding of our systems. This involved a little voyage back to the fuel dock at Gib to get them duty free. Elsie did lots of laundry and washed Ruby down while I caught up on a few maintenance jobs. At the end of the month, the forecast still looked good for a departure on the 2nd or 3rd so we relaxed a little with the promise of a fellow sailors birthday party on the evening of the 1st to look forward to.
Monthly stats.
Logged 897
Over ground 829
Monthly stats.
Logged 897
Over ground 829
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