Cruising progress 2015 (Click to enlarge)
2nd September 2015
A couple of nights before we left Puerto de Pollença the wind increased dramatically and was gusting about 35kts during the early hours. It was coming straight down from the hills and we ended up dragging about 5:00am. The dinghy, complete with attached outboard, which hangs alongside the boat at deck level overnight, was flipped on to its side in one of the gusts. Chaos ensued as three or four other boats also dragged and one dinghy and outboard which was on a long line at the stern was upturned. We managed to avoid hitting anything else in the dark and after an unsuccessful attempt to re-anchor in the same place, motored further away from the other boats and found a nice patch of sand in the midst of all the weed which held the anchor nicely (by this time it was daylight and we could see what we were doing). The wind gradually started to decrease in strength and Mike went back to bed, while I stayed on watch. The joys of sailing!
Our first anchorage in Menorca was in a beautiful secluded bay with crystal clear turquoise water and wasn’t particularly busy so we decided to stay for a second night. Unfortunately during the afternoon the wind got up, but we weren’t too concerned as the forecast seemed OK. Later the swell started coming straight into the bay and the wind increased, so we decided to make a run for it to more sheltered waters about 10 miles away. We upped anchor around 21:15, by which time the light was going and headed out of the bay into huge waves. Once we got the sails up we had a good fast sail of about 8kts back along the coast in 35kts of wind, all-be-it a little scary as by this time is was pitch black, waves were breaking on the stern and and we heard Mallorca MRCC handling a Mayday call on the VHF. However we made it round into calmer waters and found somewhere to anchor for the night. One unexpected advantage of this new anchorage was that it had good wi-fi, so we spent the next morning catching up with e-mails etc (a rare occurrence, as wi-fi this year has been pretty much non-existent).
We then started on an anti-clockwise circumnavigation of the island, anchoring mostly in secluded bays and then headed into Cala de Addaya, which is a long, well sheltered lagoon with blissfully flat, calm water. We did a bit more anchor dragging here as the bottom is very soft mud and weed, so weren’t too keen to leave the boat if any wind was forecast. One day we took the bus into Mahon, primarily to get Mike’s B12 injection and also do a bit of sightseeing forgetting that it was a Monday so all the museums were closed. We walked into the old town and were having a wander around when the heavens opened and we had a torrential rain storm. We ran into an indoor market where we did some shopping, hoping that by the time we’d finished the rain would have gone off. No such luck! Naturally we had no waterproofs, so looked like a couple of drowned rats! I thought I had seen a tourist shop which sold waterproof ponchos, so we retraced our steps and managed to buy a couple of oversized ones wich also covered our rucksacks. We looked very fetching but they were well worth the €3.50 we spent on each of them! Hopefully we won’t need them again. The visit was cut short and we returned to the bus station.
We’ve had several more thunder storms since then, one of which caught us out, as the window above our bed had been left open, resulting in sodden bedclothes and cushions. That night we had to sleep in the main saloon. You’d think we would have learned that it’s prudent to shut all the windows if it looks like rain, but the next time it happened a different window had been left open, again in our cabin, so the bedding got wet yet again. It’s just as well it dries so quickly!
The weather behaved itself for a couple of days in Cala de Addaya before changing without warning just before we went to sleep. We had lightning flashes in the distance and moments later it was directly overhead accompanied by torential rain and a huge gust of wind. Two boats charged towards us out of the night, just as our engine started. A 50' boat was blown sideways towards our left side at about 3knots and a 60' boat on our right was intent on skewering us with his 10' long wooden bowsprit. We shot fowards when they were both only about 10m from us and then had to take emergency avoiding action to miss a small dinghy heading for another boat. The wind probably peaked at more than 50 knots before suddenly changing direction by 90 degrees and dying after a couple of minutes. We seemed to be the only boat with navigation lights on and we would only get brief glimpses of other boats when there was a lightning flash. Despite unlit boats charging around in the dark only one hit moored boats and even he only caused minimal damage.
Last week we motor sailed back to Puerto de Pollença and by the time we were approaching the bay the wind was gusting 30kts and there were white horses everywhere. When we furled the mainsail away Mike noticed threads hanging off the back of the sail, however, at the time we were more intent in finding a safe anchorage. Thankfully all was calm the next day, so we started to take the sail down and it then got stuck. Eventually we managed to get it down, with quite a bit of swearing from Mike, and discovered that there were a lot of long tears down the leach. Most of the next day was spent sewing it all back together again. Hopefully this will hold together until the end of the season. We’ve been thinking we need to renew them for the last couple of years and are quite surprised they’ve lasted this long.
We are now in Santa Ponça and weather permitting will be heading back to Ibiza in a couple of days. We spoke to someone who'd sustained a lot of damage in Soller when 60knot winds hit that anchorage. Boats dragged into one another and were then swept down on to others as their anchor chains became hopelessly entangled. He'd managed to avoid 2-3 groups of yachts on one side before being skewered by one coming from the other direction. The UK press were also reporting a lot of damage caused by a tornado in Ibiza on 1st September just as we sailed down the North coast of Mallorca late at night. We were really glad to have missed that one.
I received an e-mail from by brother recently saying he’d been reading the blog and it seemed as though we were having a nice relaxing time. I would say that the last few weeks have been anything but relaxing!
The weather has been fairly unpredictable this season and made choice of anchorage more difficult, keeping us on our toes. Three people died a short time before we arrived in Formentera when their boat was driven ashore during the night. Friends also sent pictures of their mainland anchorage when we were back in Scotland. It became rough without warning and one Danish yacht was wrecked when his anchor chain snapped.
