After leaving Porto Petro we had planned to overnight somewhere on the east coast of Mallorca and then head off to Menorca but the place we stopped did not live up to expectations and the weather was not as predicted (a fact we have noticed in the Med continually) so after a few hours of indecision and looking at the weather, rather optimistically as it turned out, we decided to head straight for Menorca some 25 nm away. We had been moaning that the winds were too light to try out the new gennaker but of course this all changed and by half way across we had 30k winds from the north west and big seas!
We arrived in Cala Galdana about 8.30 pm a bit bedraggled but in a good anchorage for the night.
The next morning was spent getting red rain off the boat. It is dust from the Sahrara that blows from Africa then hangs around in the atmosphere till there is a tiny bit of rain and down it comes. This is our second experience of it in a big way, sometimes there is a light coating that blows in without the rain. The rain just makes in one step more horrible. It’s gritty and smelly. A VERY well kept secret about the Med! It goes everywhere and gets in every nook and cranny, not just boats obviously but houses, cars etc too. We’ve heard it suggested that nothing good ever came out of Africa – but I disagree, there’s diamonds, some decent wine and me (born in Kenya)! the only thing you can do if not in a marina with loads of fresh water is to hose down with sea water. Then you have to go over all the stainless steel and windows with fresh by hand. There doesn’t seem to be any fresh real rain around here.
Cala Galdana is lovely. Clear clear water and a good dinghy area just up a little creek with shops and the usual cafes and bars. It’s quite touristy and we’ve had lots of fun watching them rent out the floating cars with water slides on them. Bunches of squealing topless girls being followed around by young guys, and the poor man who rents them out trying to stop them breaking through the buoys into the swimming only zone – a hopeless task.
“Adventurous” sailed in a couple of days after us. We had met them in Mallorca and they came aboard for a rum or two or three. We all got the bus to Ciutadela (can be spelled a variety of ways) one day. it’s a very ancient historic town which we found very pretty. We looked in a couple of grand homes of the old aristocracy that are preserved. The old buildings are all made of the lovely pinkish stone that we liked in Alhambra with windy little streets as well as wide squares and boulevards.
Apparently in many of these seaside and river towns the streets were deliberately built crooked with dead ends and switchbacks so as to confuse raiding pirates, wild hoards and armies who then if they managed to land couldn’t just storm in a straight line to the strategic parts of town. Pretty hectic time they had of it round here too. In one 100 year time frame in the 1600’s to 1700’s Mahon (now the capitol) was taken over by no less than 6 times by different countries, some of them twice! The island of Menorca was highly strategic - off the coast of Africa and on the main shipping lanes.
After a very nice time in Cala Galdana we sailed 9 nm to Cala en Porta where we are now. We got the opportunity to sail the new gennaker and are very happy with it. It’s a bit more robust than our previous two which is good and will stand higher winds before having to come in. We still get close to half wind speed from it eg 12k wind 5.6 k speed.
In our new bigger dinghy we’ve been able to go from one Cala to the other for a look see without having to leave the anchorage in CEB, so we get about without losing our good spot. The caves in this coastline number in the hundreds, some of them able to take kayaks or a dinghy to explore. We had drinks aboard “TuSan” last night with Ott and Paivi a Finnish/Swedish couple along with David and Mary from “Adventurous”. We all swapped the usual funny/scary sailing stories.
