Balearics - Isla Menorca
Bondi Tram
Peter Colquhoun and Sandra Colquhoun
Thu 2 Sep 2010 18:59
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The entrance to Port Mahon. We arrived early in the morning after an
overnight passage from
Ajaccio, Corsica. Lot's of wind (up to 30 knots), swell (3 metres)
and thunderstorms.
 No anchoring allowed in the main harbour, so we stayed here, about a 20
minute dinghy ride from
town.
  We were dragging our anchor soon after we arrived, and this is
why. As we dragged slowly into
the channel the tourist boats used, our anchor winch failed before we could
get up the anchor.
Not what we needed after an overnight passage, but all was fixed eventually
without harm. The definition
of cruising is "fixing boats in exotic locations".
 It's a small world. In front of us is Constance Singapore with Frank
(French),
Ming (Singaporean) and their 2 girls, aged 4 and 7. Frank worked
for
Simpsons, the Beneteau agents in Singapore and put the mast up on our
boat.
They left Singapore shortly after us, and we saw them again in
Thailand
and the Maldives. Frank and Ming went south and we went north.
They
went around the Cape of Good Hope, across to Brazil, up to the Caribbean
and
across to the Mediterranean, and we hadn't heard of them in 3
years.
So it was a wonderful surprise to meet them here, all well and almost back
to
France. They were only in Port Mahon to meet Frank's brother on his
annual
sailing holiday. Truly a small world.
 The 18th. century fort on the hill above our anchorage.
  Downtown Port Mahon.
When the French controlled Mahon, a chef made a sauce for Napoleon's
Governor, who liked it so much he took the recipe back to France, where it
was a big hit.
He called it 'Mahonnaise', which we now call mayonaise.
   The old markets, now an upscale food hall with supermarket in the
basement.
 Cala Santa Galdana, on the NW coast of Menorca, a popular holiday
resort. This picture eliminates
the high rise hotels!
 That's us,first boat to the left of the cliff.
 These guys carry a good supply of beer. Another boat with them had
the bottle on top, but our picture
of it didn't turn out well.
 Menorca has many pretty little anchorages, just gaps in the cliffs.
Unfortunately, most of them
were full of boats, being August.
  Some interesting houses, in and on the vertical cliffs.
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