A,Our Russian Neighbour at Formentera Is in the Balearics
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Darwin, Singapore, Phuket, Aden, Turkey and now Gibraltar another goal achieved. We arrived in Gibraltar a couple of days ago. Our early morning approach made looking out for ships against the shore lights difficult especially as a couple decided to up anchor just as we approached them. In the month since I have written here we have come from La Spezia in Italy , to the Balearic Islands on to Cartagena on the Spanish coast and now a 2 day sail and we have reached The Rock, our half way home point.

As we approached Gibraltar we could see the lights of three countries, Spain, Morocco and Gibraltar. The rock itself was hard to see at first, then as we got closer we could make out a huge shape that looked like a sleeping dinosaur and there it was The Rock of Gibraltar, the place we had wanted to go to from Morocco 35 years ago. Closed borders with the spat between Spain and UK had made it a little difficult then. Relations are better now, its easy to get to Spain, just walk across the airport runway. Things must be still a little strained because we learnt yesterday that all mail to Gib, even from Spain, goes through the UK and can take some time or no time at all depending on how lucky you are.

Gib seems more like an English seaside town than a country, we are surrounded by English pubs, breakfasts and voices. Still not a bad thing, our brains are getting a rest, being able to shop in English for boat bits is a lot easier than Spanish. The major bonus is sports bars with live Rugby world cup games with English commentaries. We have just got back from watching the Irish beat the Aussies, what a great game. The noise cheering on the Irish from our small group soon had passers by stopping to watch.

I have had bloggers block in the last month and now thinking back where we have been and done there is quite a bit to write about but I won't bore you with everything just the major bits. I would like to say that the Russian owner of the 2nd largest private motor yacht, A, invited us for Sundowners but sadly no, we just shared an anchorage with him at Formentera Island. Maybe if we had flown the Chelsea football colours he may have waved. According to our google search he named it A so he would always be first on the list of super yachts and when it was built it was the biggest now it has been surpassed by another Russian boat. The shape of it is also an A shape, a very wide flat stern and pointed bow.

I would also like to say that we have had fantastic sailing from La Spezia to here...but once again no. Out of about 10 days at sea we have had about 4 days of mediocre sailing and many hours of motoring. The Motorreanean lived up to its nickname. On the first day out from Formentara Is in the Balearics we were sailing not too badly when we saw a yacht skimming across the water towards us, its spinnaker full. Alan was admiring it through the binoculars as it raced past and he spotted NZL76 on the sails. A Kiwi yacht, we couldn't let it go past without a conversation on the VHF. They were heading for Palma Mallorca to start in the two handed race around the world due to start end September. We now know from the race web site, that it was Ross Field and his son, Campbell who flew past us and were soon out of sight as we plodded on towards Cartagena. The day before at Formentera Island we had seen the ex NZ round the world yacht, Fisher and Pykel sailing through our anchorage.

We have done some pretty mundane body and boat maintenance , dentist for both of us and fuel tank cleaning while anchored in the lovely harbour of Mahon on Menorca island. Mahon harbour is very pretty and quite large but there is only one free anchorage in Cala Taulera, meant for about 20 yachts but when 40 or so squashed in we all had to be tolerant and hope the wind did not blow too strongly. Europeans on boat holidays like to get all over tans and also like to display their tans as often as possible so the close up anchoring provided some interesting sights.

I was a little disappointed when we got to Mahon, I expected to see lots of super yachts, it was after all August when everyone in Europe is on holiday, but the harbour and marina was surprisingly empty of the big boys. There were lots of the lovely small traditional Menorcan boats puttering around the harbour with stripy shades and brown bodies or neatly tied up in the little coves. A few old traditional sailing yachts were trickling in to the harbour over the 10 days we were there, I think for a regatta. The whole marine industry in Mahon was suffering we were told because the marina and harbour pontoons had been privatized over the last few years and berthing prices had soared, keeping even the rich guys away. There were several pontoons in the harbour for yachts to tie to. The pontoons were not attached to land, so no facilities and you still had to use your dinghy to go to town, they had water but no electricity and the charge for a 14m boat was still 100 Euros a night. The pontoons were mainly empty while we were there. They seemed to rather have empty berths than charge decent rates, seems stupid to me. The cost of laundry was 6Euro a kilo the most expensive anywhere needless to say hand washing was done on Tuatara while at Mahon.

Cala Taulera was a lovely if crowded anchorage and Alan enjoyed flying over the flat water the 2 miles to town in the dinghy. Luckily the weather was good although the afternoon sea breeze made the return journey a bit bouncy. We once again shared the anchorage with Cuttyhunk from Christchurch and met a couple more yachts, Aussies, Peter and Carole from Jack Tar and Swedes Anders and Susan from Ida Amoress.
We eventually dragged ourselves away from Mahon, a pretty city made more enjoyable by the summer sales which meant I could replenish my shoe and clothing wardrobe at a reasonable cost. Even though English is widely spoken on Menorca Is, especially in Mahon it did not seem as over run with English tourists as I thought it would be and there wasn't an English breakfast in sight! I was trying to use a bit of Spanish buying bread one day and the lady serving said, " just speak English , its easier" in an antipodean type accent. When I listened to the local English accents it sounded like they had all learnt their English somewhere between Australia and New Zealand.

From Mahon we had a couple of stops along the coast of Menorca before we crossed to Pollensa on the north coast of Mallorca. There we had two windy nights on mooring buoys. The buoys were there not to make our anchoring easy but to protect the Posidona seagrass which grows on the seabed. Posidona seagrass only grows in the Mediterranean and can be very difficult to anchor in and is also becoming protected in many parts of the Med meaning either no anchoring in places or compulsory moorings which of course cost us many Euros for the privilege of protecting the sea grass. Sometimes I wonder which is more important protection or income. But we do, do our bit and anchor on patches of sand which sometimes means a bit of circling around until the anchor is lined up with the patch of sand and then the anchor has to be let go at the right time so it lands on the sand and not the weed. This procedure can also include a few testy words between wheel and bow!!

From Pollensa we sailed, one of our few sailing days, around to Port Soller on the north west coast of Mallorca a nice little harbour where we once again caught up with Jack Tar and Cuttyhunk. We spent a week there a little longer than intended but the SW wind wasn't any good for anchoring at Palma so we stayed in Soller and took the train and bus into Palma. There is a vintage train that runs from Soller into Palma. The train goes through mountain scenery past gnarled olive trees that looked like they had been there far longer than the train track. We took the bus one day which was quicker and cheaper but far less interesting. In Palma we visited marine shops, wandered the pretty streets, window shopped and visited the impressive Palma cathedral that had taken 400 years to complete. Palma seemed to be the busking statue capital of the Med, the temperature was in the mid 30s and these buskers were dressed and painted up as various statues, they deserved money just for the perseverance of staying still, dressed in suits, top hats and in one case as a mermaid.

I must admit by the time we had left Soller even I was getting a little past visiting old towns, cathedrals and ruins. The sandy beaches and clear water at Formentera were a welcome break before we sailed off to yet another old town, Cartagena. We really didn't do Cartagena justice as by the time we got there we were starting to focus more on preparation for the Atlantic crossing in December. We are looking forward to the sand between our toes on those Caribbean beaches. From the NZ yacht Balvenie we knew where in Cartagena to buy our new solar panels we wanted, we did a big shop at a supermarket among other things and yes we did wander the streets and admire the town but not as much as perhaps we should have. We met another yacht crossing this year. Ask a cruiser "Are you crossing this year? ", especially at this end of the Med and they immediately know what you are talking about. Those of us crossing this year are all gravitating towards Gibraltar, getting boat jobs done, spending money preparing for the first step 600 miles to the Canary Islands. Some are going via Madeira, others braving the Atlantic swell for a stop over at Rabat in Morocco, some have taken a detour a little way north to Portugal before turning south or others, like ourselves, are going direct to the Canary Islands. We are presently tied up in the marina here, right by the airport runway, luckily there aren't many flights a day as the noise has taken a bit of getting used to. The first few times I thought we were having a burst of katabatic wind swooping down over the highrises.

The SSB net for our Atlantic crossing has just been started by the yachts Balvenie and Eye Candy, its called the Mag Net (after Magellan, the two yachts were in Portugal when they named it!) and today Alan finished his first net controller day with a list of 10 yachts, so we are going to have lots of company for our crossing In the meantime its back to boat jobs all to be managed around the Rugby world cup games.