I once did a Google search looking for the best places in the world to go sailing. I have been to many of the places listed, the British Virgin Islands, Lycian Coast in Turkey, Bay of Islands New Zealand, the Whitsunday Islands in Australia. One place that came up was Minorca, in the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain. It is described as having more spectacular beaches than Ibiza and Mallorca combined. The rolling landscape is mixed with secluded coves and beaches along with a climate ideal for sailing making it a true sailing paradise. It didn’t take much more for me to book a 40 foot sailboat for a week in September, 2017. This is after the main tourist season and I thought it would be easier to find places to anchor and moor the boat at delightful villages.
The flight from Toronto to Madrid was relatively uneventful. We spent the night in Madrid and then took a commuter flight to Mahon, the capital city of Minorca. We had a fair amount of luggage because you never know when you go sailing whether you’ll need your foul weather gear, whether you will run into storms, or whether you’ll just need a swimsuit for the entire week. Our luggage did not arrive…. We had to fill in the necessary forms, where will staying for the week etc. I tried to explain that we are sailboat and it really depends on the weather as to we will stay. They didn’t seem terribly concerned and said they would find us. Needless to say, the next time we saw our luggage was when it arrived at our house a week later a few hours before we did….
The boat had been fully stocked with beer, wine and food to last more than the week in case we got stranded.
Notice the conspicuous abscence of luggage…….
After 3 hours of sailing we entered Cales Cove. It was a beautiful cove with about 6 other boats.We threw the anchor. It was a very well protected cove. There was another boat that had three young sailors on board. We were talking with them. Their plan was to leave in the morning and sail to Brazil. It turns out that Brazil is the closest landfall when leaving Europe and going to the Americas. It is 4,868 miles. They had been fishing but as it turns out, they did not have freezer or fridge so they gave us their fish which made for a great dinner. I’m not sure if they made it to Brazil but we saw them take off in the morning heading in the general direction of the Straits of Gibraltar. It was going to take them 30-40 days with stops in canary Island, Cape Verde Islands and then to Brazil.
We contacted the airline to let them know where we are to see if they can deliver our luggage. Although the weather forcast seemed to be great for the next week, one thing about sailing that you learn quickly is that things can change in a heartbeat. We wanted to make sure that we had our foul weather gear and warm clothes as fall was fast approaching in the Mediterranean. The pleasant voice at the other end of the line said that they would get back to us. That was a last that we heard from them for the next week…….
The wind had shifted coming in from the west and so as we were travelling up the West Coast of Minorca, to get out of the wind, we felt the best option was to head towards the northwest end of the island and spend a day or two in Ciutadella.
It was here where we went shopping. All my running gear was in the luggage and it was apparent this time that the airline had no interest in tracking us down to deliver our luggage. We went on a shopping spree and spent about $1000. From my previous experience with Air Canada, they were pretty good at reimbursement of lost luggage expenses as this is happened to us more than on one occasion…..
I then went for a run around this lovely town. There are nice hiking paths all around the island. It was here I ran into a couple from New Zealand. Josh and Sara Tucker had just arrived in the Ciutadella port marina and were docked next to us. They had purchased a 50 foot Beneteau in France and were on their way to the Canary Islands. From there they would take the transatlantic ARC to arrive at St. Lucia sometime in December. Their plan was to sail back to New Zealand. They would go through the Panama Canal, on to Galapagos and then to the South Pacific. They would arrive in New Zealand in about 18 months. They had their three sons with them age 8, 6 and 4. They would do homeschooling and give them an adventure of a lifetime. They had sold their house pretty much everything to fund this trip. I followed them on facebook for the next 18 months. https://www.facebook.com/ROGUE.sailing.family/
Minorca has numerous coves and natural harbours. After two days in Cuitadella, we rounded over the top of Minorca and entered an unamed beautiful private protected Cove. There was a beautiful sandy bottom and we through the anchor. The water was crystal clear and warm. The sunset was spectacular.
In the morning, we left paradise and headed towards the town of Fournelles. We were motoring out of the harbour about 100 m off the shore when we hit a rock and the boat stopped dead in the water. We were going about 4 kn. The first thing I did was run down into the cabin and pulled up the floorboards to check the bilge. There was water coming in! There was a crack in the hull. My first thought was “oh oh, we’re sinking….” I quickly consulted the map and look for the closest harbour. Unfortunately, Minorca is sparsely populated, and the closest place was Founelles, about a three hour sail. Fortunately, we had our RIB dingy, and enough fuel to get us close enough to shore if we start to go down in a hurry. I revved up the diesel engine and aimed the boat towards Fournelles. I checked bilge frequently over the next 3 hours and for some unknown reason, the water stopped coming in. In retrospect, I suspect that there was a small amount of water in the bilge prior to hitting the rock and this crack in the hull was not causing a leak. However, there was no doubt the argument with the rock had caused some serious damage to the hall and my next thought was there goes my €1800 damage deposit…….
The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful. There was beautiful sunshine, and very light winds. We returned to Mahon after our week of circumnavigating around the island of Minorca. It had been a great adventure. The charter company were understanding about our misadventure with a rock and fortunately it was the end of the season and they were planning on pulling the boat of the water around this time. This is a place that I would want to come back in the future and spend more time.
