Cala Santa Galdana

We left the anchorage off Isla Colom at 0800 on 24 July and headed east around Menorca.

Cala de San Esteban near Mahon   

Our route took us past the entrance to the large natural harbour at Mahon, which we had visited last time we were in Menorca, but just before we aimed for the southeast point of the island we decided to take a quick look at Cala de San Esteban. Just to the south of Mahon, it’s a deep but narrow cala. It was great fun to nose into but not really large enough for us to anchor in (despite the assurances of our pilot book) as there are now moorings along both sides of the cala, presumably accommodating the boats belonging to the owners of the villas that line the cala’s sides.

Passage off Playa de Punta Prima   

At the southeastern tip of Menorca is Isla del Aire and between the island and Playa de Punta Prima is a shallow passage. At around 6 metres deep it ss no real hazard for us but the shallow, sandy water is a beautiful colour.

Approaching Cala Santa Galdana   

All along the south coast of Menorca are a series of small calas. They are quite beautiful and generally have a rather nice beach. We aimed for Cala Santa Galdana because our pilot book claimed that it has the best shelter on the south coast.

Anchored in Cala Santa Galdana   

New toilet valves
[Ed: happily, no photos of the old ones!]    

As we were coming to expect, it was already quite busy and filled up even more during our stay. However, we were nicely anchored a little way away from the beach and switched our attention to the list of maintenance tasks. The one that had bubbled up to the top of the list was replacing 2 of the valves in the aft head. Mmmmm, replacing toilet valves… not my favourite bit of yacht ownership!

Playing with the aft heads and then scrubbing BV’s bottom filled the afternoon and then we relaxed and enjoyed a nice barbeque in the evening.

Why we do anchor watch!   

Whilst the evening was calm, overnight the clouds rolled in and we experienced the very edge of the mistral we’d come south to avoid. Further into the bay the anchoring disciple had been pretty terrible during the day and so when the wind got up to 20 knots we started an anchor watch. I think the strongest wind we saw was only 25 knots; being further south and tucked away in a high sided anchorage had been a good strategy. The anchor watch was not because we thought that we would move but more because we were worried about boats close to us dragging onto us. The nearest yachts were the ones pictured above; their owners sleeping below, oblivious to the fact that they were barely feet apart until they got up in the morning. A British motor yacht near us swung and moved closer and closer to a large Spanish yacht. The TV seemed to be on in the saloon so we didn’t want to interfere but when their dinghy was close enough to the Spanish yacht’s anchor chain for us to think it might become entangled, we decided that there was also a very real risk that the motor yacht would be impaled on the sailing yacht’s bowsprit. With no dinghy inflated, Nicky swam over to warn the crew. It turned out that the (naked) skipper was asleep in front of the TV and was most shocked to be awoken by Nicky’s knocking on the hull and calling from the yacht’s bathing platform. In the end, it seemed as if the motor yacht had swung and then stretched out a bight of anchor chain which was, fortuitously, just not quite long enough for the motor yacht to touch the sailing yacht. Nevertheless, they were uncomfortably close and the motor yacht repositioned.

At breakfast time there was a general shuffling and re-anchoring of yachts as people realised that they were all at bit close, except for the catamaran above. He had a yacht swinging a couple of feet behind him and a smaller yacht on his starboard side that they had to keep fending off but despite the chap patrolling his deck with hands on hips and stern stares, no one moved.

The other reason for choosing Cala Santa Galdana was that we knew that we’d be here for a few days. It is a large enough resort to have several minimarkets and so getting fresh bread etc was not an issue.

Despite the rather grey skies brought in by the mistral, it was still very warm. On one of our trips ashore we took a wander around the large beach and climbed up onto the cliffs overlooking the anchorage.

Looking down on Cala Santa Galdana   

It was a good vantage point and well worth the climb.

In the end, we stayed 3 nights in Cala Santa Galdana, which was a little longer than we had expected but we used the time to catch up on some admin and ticked off a few maintenance chores and so it was worthwhile stop. The plan for the next step of our journey was to move back to the north side of the island and eventually meet up with Charlotte who was coming out to visit us.

Cala Santa Galdana, Menorca, Spain