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Wednesday, October 8th, Barcelona, Spain
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Maó is reputed to be the Mediterranean's safest natural
harbor. Carved three miles deep into the
southeastern coast of the island of Menorca, Port de Maó,
as it is called in Catalan and English, or Mahon in
Spanish, kept Zia safe and comfortable during the
three day mistral that followed our passage from France.
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We
hooked up to a mooring ball that was disturbingly close
to the channel down which huge cruise ships and ferries
passed within a boat's length of our stern. Taken
unawares at my first sight of this, I nearly jumped up
and leapt into action to avoid certain collision as a
casual glance out of our windows revealed a huge wall of
steel bearing down on us. It made for some
interesting wakes and thundering noises in the wee hours
of the night. Still, we weren't complaining as we
were about as close to town as you could get. Our
new Canadian friends who pulled in six hours behind us
got stuck about half way down the harbor and had to
suffer the long, windy dinghy ride every time they got
off the boat.
David and Maryann had quite the story to tell us about
their passage to Maó. They left Ile de
Porquerolles just a few hours after we departed from
Toulon. As I might have mentioned before, it was a
fast ride for us so we made our way south ahead of the
building winds blowing out of the Gulf of Lion. "Kilkea"
got caught up in them, seeing up to 50 knots at one
point. Somewhere in the middle of this, David is
at the helm looking forward and just happens to see the
whale that is sleeping on the surface not twenty feet in
front of them, directly in their path. He
disengages the autopilot and yanks the wheel over to
port, but knew they were going to hit. There just
wasn't enough room to avoid the collision. He
squeezes his eyes closed and braces for impact.
Nothing. Next thing he sees is a panicked whale,
diving straight for the bottom. He breathes a sigh
of relief as the tale disappears in the water off his
bow. Something must have alerted the beast to "Kilkea's"
presence just in time. Turning around to look
behind him, David and Maryann are amazed to see an
enormous load of whale excrement floating in the water
behind them. The encounter was as disconcerting
for the whale as it was for Kilkea's crew, who literally
scared the shit out if it!
Between recovering from the overnight passage, laundry
and inclement weather, we wound up staying in Maó for
four days. We mostly just walked around,
discovering things as we went. The main city is up
the hill from the port area, although a healthy
sprinkling of restaurants and marine industry businesses
line the waterfront.
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With a good wifi signal, we used the internet to see
what there is to be seen in Maó. I immediately
came across talk of an Indian restaurant. We have
a history of bad
luck with our restaurant choices in Spain, and Joe
has been dying for an "ethnic" meal, so we put the Taj
on our list of things to do. We also discovered a
movie theater/bowling alley complex. At 3pm on a
Saturday it was completely deserted, all the attractions
closed. Perhaps it is an evening activity, or
maybe it was just too late in the season. We
didn't go back to find out.
The weather, which had been quite windy, finally cleared
up on Sunday. We cleared out of Maó at the crack
of 10am, motoring 14 miles around the south coast of the
island to Cala Covas. The whole coast of Menorca
is indented with fjord-like inlets called calas.
Although there was a light breeze from the south,
sending a slight swell into the south-facing bay, we
decided to anchor there for the evening anyway. It
was virtually deserted, with just one house up on the
hill and the occasional group of hikers passing through.
We were looking forward to a little peace and quite, a
nice swim, and a hike through the surrounding
countryside.
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Our hopes were quickly dashed. We dropped the
anchor and set it securely in sand. We then
launched the dinghy and took a line to shore to tie off
the stern. The inlet is so narrow, we didn't want
to risk swinging into the sides of it if the wind
switched. Just as we were surveying our work to
make sure it all looked good, we noticed a few jellyfish
in the water. As the breeze continued to blow from
the south, we knew it would bring more of these nasty
fiends into our little bay.
Jellyfish weren't the only unwanted creatures to disturb
our peace. One of the hikers and his dog decided
to settle in for the afternoon. He perched himself
on the rocky ledge just off our port stern, maybe fifty
feet away. We tried not to feel put out.
It's not our spot exclusively, after all. He had
just as much right to be there as we did. Okay.
No big deal.
It
was Joe who first noticed, but Juliana came up with the
nickname. She called him "The Dude in the Nude."
Yep. He sat there stark naked, reading his book
for most of the afternoon. At one point his buddy
joined him, although this one wore shorts. The
Dude wasn't at all shy about standing up to talk to his
friend, gesticulating and walking around as he made his
points. He seemed completely oblivious to our
presence. We tried to return the favor but at some
point, you just have to look! I shall say no
more ...
Okay, we still had our hike. We had heard about
this cool bar, situated in the caves along the cliffs
just a mile or so away. I had taken the kayak out
for a paddle and saw it from the water. With this
as our goal, we hopped in the dinghy and headed to shore to go exploring.
"Did anyone remember to bring a light?" It was a
little after 5pm so we figured we had a couple of hours
before sunset but this was definitely not the kind of
path we wanted to try to find in the dark. We
wound our way up the side of the cala, seeking the route
that took us towards the next bay to the northwest.
We eventually came to a road that led us to a cliff by
the sea, but we were still a ways from the "Cave Bar."
Not knowing our way, and not wanting to risk getting
stuck in the dark, we opted to head back home.
Although it didn't quite turn out as we expected, we
weren't too disappointed. We got some fantastic
views of the coastline and of our little home anchored
in Cala Covas.
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Not to be foiled in our mission to find a good bar, we
decided to take Zia around to the next bay, Cala En
Porter. The girls had requested a beach day and I
knew from my kayak trip that this anchorage would fill
the bill. Cova D'en Xoroi, or the Cave Bar as we
had dubbed it, was perched on the cliffs at the entrance
to this bay so we figured we could also catch our sunset
cocktail that had eluded us the day before. There
were no jellyfish in sight as we made our way into the
cala. Things were looking decidedly good as we
also connected to an unprotected wifi signal that gave
us on and off internet and email. A quick scan of
the beach revealed it to be "family oriented,"
alleviating my last fear about the place.
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We
got in our swim and beach time well before the jellyfish
showed up that afternoon. The warm sunshine was
just the right temperature, so not being able to jump in
the water didn't spoil the rest of the day. It was
disturbing to hear the sporadic yelps from swimmers as the waves of jellyfish drifted towards the
beach. There were a fair amount of British
tourists enjoying an off-season vacation and they soon
cleared the water.
The walk to the Cave Bar was about twenty minutes on
paved roads and much easier, although less adventuresome,
than the day before. We paid our cover charge,
which included one drink, and spooked around a little.
It's really an amazing place, built right into the caves
on the cliff.
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Stalactites drip from the ceiling, with the wooden bars
built with holes in them so their drops hit the floor.
There are numerous alcoves that are lined with seats and
bar tops.
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I
imagine the scene when the place is in full swing, disco
mode. I can't imagine myself there. I try
not to imagine my daughters there in a few years' time.
It was just perfect for the sunset though.
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We
left on Tuesday morning for Barcelona. We are
approaching the city as I write this, at 4:30am.
We should arrive in three hours or so. The trip
was a little faster than we expected so we are going
slowly now so we don't arrive before sunrise. We
are all excited to catch up with old friends here and get a
chance to visit our favorite spots in the city one more
time before we leave the Med.
Next Entry
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Many thanks to our friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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