Menorca

We have finally made it off Mallorca and are anchored up in a small bay on the southwest of Menorca! There was little wind on the crossing so it was motor all the way with very flat seas. We saw a shoal of strange tuna like fish that swam with us at a distance for a while, Carol spotted a turtle that quickly ducked under to avoid being run over and there was a very strange shark like fin swimming off our starboard side for awhile! Apart from that it was an uneventful 4 hours and we were all pleased to get here with no dramas!

Tomorrow we head for Mahon!

Global Location Data

Latitude: 39.936786
Longitude: 3.958138
Accuracy: 5.0 meters

Altitude: 5.0 meters
Accuracy: 6.0 meters

Timestamp: 2012-03-27 15:12:40

Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=39.936786N,3.958138E

Ratjada

We set off from Porto Colom this morning (pictured) after a pleasant night on a swinging mooring just of the harbour channel (which no one came to charge is for!).

Cala D'Or

After a 20 mile journey on the motor due to very little wind, we have arrived in a small fishing village on the east coast call Cala D'Or.

The entrance to the bay that the marina is in was sketchy to say the least! There was 1.5m swell being channelled into an opening of about 50m wide with nasty looking rocks on both sides, once we had surfed the waves into the bay the depth dropped of to 0.3 in the channel approaching the marina! We tied off to the fuel dock and went to find a marinera to direct us to our berth for the night. He directed us down one of the narrowest marina channels I have seen yet, at some points we could almost touch the bow rollers of the boats lining both sides! He assured me the channel was deep enough for our 2.2m, he left out that at some points it was only 2.3m, 10cm clearance is not a lot! I am going to try and video our exit tomorrow!

Global Location Data

Latitude: 39.372733
Longitude: 3.222713
Accuracy: 5.0 meters

Altitude: -10.0 meters
Accuracy: 3.0 meters

Timestamp: 2012-03-23 19:16:43

Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=39.372733N,3.222713E

Sa Rapita

Had a good sail this morning, managed to trim up to 7.3knts in only 10knts of wind! The wether changed after lunch with it swinging round behind us an gusting to 25knts which made for an interesting last 6 miles!

Now we are sitting in a bar on the beach drinking well deserved cold ones!

On to Cala D'Or tomorrow!

Global Location Data

Latitude: 39.363216
Longitude: 2.955678
Accuracy: 5.0 meters

Altitude: 8.0 meters
Accuracy: 3.0 meters

Timestamp: 2012-03-22 16:13:40

Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=39.363216N,2.955678E

Exploring the islands.....

For those of you who have been following you will see from the previous entries that our trip to Barcelona got cut short!  Annoyingly we have been stuck in Palma for the last few days due to quite severe winds, 33Knts in the marina was the highest we saw it got to!  Don't get me wrong I love Palma and on our return we got to catch up with an old friend we would have missed, however we both want to get out there and see some new places.

On our return to Palma so we could get Emily on a flight back to Germany we realised that we no longer have any reason to get to the mainland and have decided to cruise the Balearics for the next few weeks, something we would have missed out on!  So tomorrow we head for the east coast of Mallorca on our way to Alcudia where we will pick up my Dad and then head across to Menorca.  From there the plan is to come back via Palma on our way to Ibiza & Formentera and then head to Valencia.

On a practical note I have now managed to procure two second had dive bottels, a 7lt & 3lt, to go with the rest of the dive kit I brought back in the UK.  So we are now fully equipped  to deal with any underwater nasties that stop us getting to where we want to be!

Anyone fancy a week in Ibiza!

The culprit!

I managed to arrange a diver to come and check out what it was we had wrapped around our prop, after about 2 minutes he resurfaced with this:

The diver assured me that no damage had been done to the hull, except a few patches of rubbed off antifoul, and that we were all good to go.  After a quick engine test all of the power seemed to be back again, but i am going to properly check it out myself as soon as we manage to find a dive shop we can buy an air tank to go with our SCUBA gear from!  

You may alson be interested to see the fog that came in to Por Andratx about 2 hours after we had tied up;  we have been sailing around here for a while now and not seen, or heard about, anything like it!

Safe!

Made back to Andratx after sailing all night, avoiding numerous ferries intent on trying to run us over, navigating through some pretty thick fog and pretty much docking under sail! What more could you want from an adventure!

Our Location

As you might notice from the link below showing our position we are going backwards!

We have had to turn around and sail back to a small bay off Dragonera due to getting a fishing net wrapped around our prop. We are currently under sail in ten knots of wind and making about four. The wind is right on the nose so it's gonna take us the rest of the night to get back! Anchoring under just sail should be fun too! Personally I blame Lee & Serena for giving us some of there pot luck! Lol.

Global Location Data

Latitude: 39.686247
Longitude: 2.261408
Accuracy: 5.0 meters

Altitude: -6.0 meters
Accuracy: 8.0 meters

Timestamp: 2012-03-13 22:09:45

Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=39.686247N,2.261408E

Our Location

Bye bye land!

We left at 1600 local time and should be there in around 18 hours. I'll blog our position when I can, but mobile service is pretty dodgy!

Global Location Data

Latitude: 39.629942
Longitude: 2.295594
Accuracy: 5.0 meters

Altitude: -5.0 meters
Accuracy: 3.0 meters

Timestamp: 2012-03-13 16:27:27

Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=39.629942N,2.295594E

Now we are in Andratx

Global Location Data

Latitude: 39.547535
Longitude: 2.387169
Accuracy: 5.0 meters

Altitude: -21.0 meters
Accuracy: 6.0 meters

Timestamp: 2012-03-12 14:01:26

Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=39.547535N,2.387169E

Bye, bye Palma!

Early start to Andratx, but made up for by beautiful sunrise!

Ready for departure

The wind looks like it is settling down and moving round to the south so the plan is to leave for Barcelona at 4pm on Tuesday, which should mean we will arrive at about 11am on Wednesday. I'll post just before we leave and try to upload some location data during the crossing, but it will depend how good the signal is!

Cabrera - 2012.02.24 - South Of Mallorca

Some of the other photo's from our trip to Cabrera.
(click on the photo above to link through to the Picasa Web Album)

Great Sail!

Finally we had enough wind to sail to our next destination! It wasn't much, never went above 12.7knts, but it was enough for us to sail at a steady 5knts to where we are now. You can see a photo and location data in the post below. It's not far from where we were last night but it took us most of the day to get here as we went via a supermarket in Palmanova to stock up on essential supplies. I dropped Carol off on the beach and she came back with steak and wine!

There is quite a lot of roll going on in the bay at the moment, so it could be an interesting night! I am finally starting to trust our new anchor more and more with each use, hopefully soon I'll be like Super Steve and only wake up with nightmares of dragging anchors whilst safely berthed in a marina!

I'll let you know how it goes!

Alex

Now we are here!

Global Location Data

Latitude: 39.472281
Longitude: 2.520430
Accuracy: 5.0 meters

Altitude: -4.0 meters
Accuracy: 4.0 meters

Timestamp: 2012-03-02 16:26:45

Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=39.472281N,2.520430E

My Location

Global Location Data

Latitude: 39.532347
Longitude: 2.586853
Accuracy: 5.0 meters

Altitude: -12.0 meters
Accuracy: 8.0 meters

Timestamp: 2012-03-01 14:22:26

Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=39.532347N,2.586853E