So, we spent last night on Sardinia near Isola Plata on north west corner. The water looked so beautiful, we could clearly see our anchor.
We were sailing through the narrow pass between Sardinia and Isola Plata, that is guarded by an old tower. It was a little nerve wracking, since on some places water was only 3m deep (our kiel is 2,1m).
First day of passage was not so bad, except for the fact that there was no wind. So we were motoring the whole day, expecting for the wind to start blowing any minute. In the evening there was a gentle breeze, so we put out the sails and were sailing miserable 3 knots. It wasn't until 9 that the wind finally picked up and we were able to sail with around 6 knots of speed. It was my watch and i thought i was doing more than fine, until i spotted few storms with unbelievably lots of lightnings on horizon on south west. At the beginning they stayed on horizon, moving towards NE, so i hoped they will not cross our path. I have never seen so many lightnings, there wasn't a moment that at least one part of the sky wasn't lit. At around midnight i realized that storms were coming closer and closer to us and that we will have to go through one or two. So i woke up Tomaz, explained the situation and we started reefing the sails. I also told him i don't want to be out alone any more, so he took over the watch and i went in to try to get some sleep. Which didn't happen. Before storms arrived, big waves came and with reefed sails we did not have enough speed to sail through them comfortably. The waves were also very weird, 2,5m high, but very narrow and close to each other, so the boat literally fell down from the ridge of first wave into the valley of second one just to be kicked by another wave again. Needless to say the waves were hitting us from the side, although the wind was almost from behind. Every time i opened my eyes there were series of lightnings all around us. Tomaz managed somehow to avoid both of the storms, the rain areas were visible on radar so he changed the course and let one pass in front of us and second one behind. It was still scary. Towards the morning the wind died all together, but the waves of course remained. I started my watch, but Tomaz also couldn't sleep. So after a daybreak we were both out, staring into grey sky and grey very choppy sea. And without sleep the gray looked even murkier.
We were motoring again the whole day, both of us getting nervous as our fuel tank was getting emptier by the hour. We were so sure there will be some wind (as was forecast), we didn't refill on Sardinia. Finally at about four in the afternoon we caught a glimpse of Menorca through clouds and morale improved a bit. Shortly before seven we anchored in Cala Taulera near city of Mahon. The bay is very secluded and calm so we slept good and long the first night. Next morning two more boats came from Sardinia, both crew complaining about storms and waves.
One of the boats was Musketelle from New Zealand, with Barbara, Peter and WiFi on board. As you might assume Barbara is the lady of the boat, Peter is the master of the boat and WiFi is their cat. Here it is (the cat) sitting on top of their boat. WiFi is a famous cat, she has her own gmail address and is quite well known on internet.
Next day they came for the visit, first Barbara and Peter, then in the afternoon Peter came with WiFi.
She was right at home on our boat, first made a round to check if all is ok.
Our bed was comfortable enough - even for a cat.
While Peter kindly lend a hand, a hammer and some advice to Tomaz while connecting together two pieces of anchor chain, WiFi decided she needs to monitor what was going on from much closer. The best place seemed to be our main's lazy bag.
Later she joined our roud in the cockpit.
Having WiFi over made me sad - i was thinking of my own cats. Luckily, good people are looking after them.
On our many visits to Mahon we found the most important tourist attraction in town - gin factory (the building with a yellow sign). And guess what - you can taste their products before buying - no limits :-)
On tuesday we finally moved from our cala, we sailed along the rocky south side of Menorca. We decided to spend the night in Cala en Porter. It looks interesting from outside (later we learned there is a restaurant and the disco on this side) .....
... and also from inside.
The guys were really jumping from the cliffs.
Unfortunately, in the night the waves came and our bout was rocking like crazy. Our neighbors, an English sailboat, lift the anchor and left at 3 in the night, and we did the same at 4. When turning around the corner there were still techno beats coming from the disco on the outer side of the rocks.
We sailed further along south coast towards west, until reaching Cala Galdana, that seemed calm enough for anchoring. It was in the day, until in the night the waves started rolling in again. It wasn't to bad, i was able to go on sleeping, Tomaz spent one hour tying our dinghy. We stayed another day and another bad night - this time rollers came in the evening and it was well past midnight till sea was calm enough to go to bed. So next day we decided to sail to Mallorca - even if the forecast said there will not be much wind. This time we were lucky, there was enough wind and we were able to sail almost the whole time and we made over 40 miles to the town of Porto Colom on east coast. We chose this one over many beautiful calas (bays) that were nearer because this port is very closed and calm and we were hoping finally to have a good night sleep again.
We had very good night and today woke up in a nice bay near charming little town (if you ignore some hotels at the east end of bay).
After breakfast we made a ride around the bay with our dinghy before going on shore. On one beach in more shallow part of the bay we saw a guy with a fishing pole, trying to pull out something rather big that was splashing in the water. We slowed down to see what will happen when he started to cry out to us if we can help. With his spanish (actually he was Russian, so there were couple of russian words in the mixture) and our english we managed to find out that the fishing line broke and fish got away with the float (cork) and piece of line. And the guy wanted it all back - with fish of course. So we took him into our boat and went after the fish. And what do you know - we managed to track the float (luckily it was pink and visible very well), and the guy managed to grab it and to pull the fish into the boat. It was a beautiful dorade (sea bream), well worth going after.
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