Entente Cordiale

Porto Cristo was a nice stopping point. Whilst we were there we found a large Eroski supermarket and so were able to stock up on not just the essentials, but also some seafood for our last dinner there on 9 May. We keep a keen eye out for ferretería (hardware stores) as we wander about because these tend to be where we get our gas bottles changed. The ferretería in Porto Cristo also supplied us with some nice terracotta dishes and so we can now produce ‘post-graduate’ standard prawns pil pil delivered to the cockpit still sizzling in the new dish.

Having enjoyed the prawns and a massive seafood paella, we hatched a plan to head for Menorca the following day.

There was next to no wind forecast and so we had expected to motor a lot of the way. Instead we actually had a fantastic sail: a fast broad reach in 15kts of wind from the south. The high ground of Mallorca slipped away behind us in the haze but it was a while before Menorca appeared on the horizon as it is a very flat island. We were sailing so well that instead of stopping in Ciudadela on the west coast as we had planned, we continued to Cala Morell on the north-west coast.

The north-west corner of Menorca seems to be uninhabited moorland but with lots of conical megalithic burial mounds and monuments. We saw several as we sailed along the coast and apparently there are about 400 of these Bronze Age constructions on the island.

Strangely, looking back the mountains on the northern side of Mallorca now stood out very clearly. 

Our destination, further along the coast, proved to be difficult to spot. The villas on the cliffs above the narrow entrance stood out...

That’ll be why it’s called elephant point

...but it wasn’t until we were really close that Punta d’es Elefant stood out and lived up to its name, plus a French yacht’s mast showed up from behind the point as a further clue.

Cala Morells is very sheltered but with a nasty shoal patch on the eastern side, which restricts the anchoring space slightly. The French yacht was anchored in the middle of the cala so it took us a couple of goes to get the anchor laid so that we could swing exactly as we wanted, keeping us clear of him and the cliffs. We joked that as soon as we were settled he would move off and then, guess what, as soon as we were settled he started to pull in his chain! We got as far as starting our engine again so that we could poach his spot but it quickly became apparent that not all was well. Their anchor was fouled on something and would not come up. After much peering at the underwater rocks the French crew put their chain out again and decided to stay for the night.

We had elected to anchor in 5 metres on the sandy bit and were glad we had. These pictures were taken in the morning but you can see how clearly our anchor and 20 metres of chain stands out – nothing fouling our anchor!

The morning was lovely. There was no wind and the cala looked like a swimming pool. Fish swam around BV and the water looked very inviting so we went for a pre-breakfast snorkel. There were lots of fish to look at, plus we could see lots of old concrete mooring blocks and chains around where the French yacht was anchored. Their anchor had well and truly snagged one of these chains. I dived on it and attached a tripping line and buoy so that they would be able to recover their anchor.

They were very pleased, especially as it was clear that they didn’t have any gear onboard to do that themselves. After a bit of jiggling and some careful direction from Nicky on which way to pull on the tripping line, the anchor came free and the very relieved crew of Le Loup were able to continue their journey on towards Sardinia.

With our good deed for the day done, we enjoyed the anchorage for a little longer and then, after breakfast, we also weighed anchor and headed anti-clockwise around Menorca back towards the old capital of the island, Ciudadela.