Freya & Us

Fornells is a lovely peaceful anchorage with lots of space, a pretty relaxed village in one corner and a national park and so undeveloped and green around the rest. After a very peaceful night at anchor we got the dingy out and and went on a long expedition (about 3 NM) to explore the cala. There weren't many places to land as the shoreline was either rocky - sharp rocks and rubber dinghies don't mix - or deep black mud that reminded us of the Severn Estuary. Unfortunately for Lorraine her feet sunk in the mud before we realised it was there. We did manage to land in a few places though, the first was an island with a ruined castle and home to a unique lizard found nowhere else in the world (looked the same to us!) and a lovely little beach only accessible from the sea with clear blue calm water and great snorkelling, even Paul had a go.

The town of Fornells was originally created around a fort that was built to defend the anchorage from invading fleets - Nelson attempted to land here - but is now a small and tasteful tourist town with a few small fishing boats, some owned and operated by the local restaurants. It is also home to the most expensive supermarket we have come across so far, with many of our regular staple purchases costing three times what they did in Mallorca! Despite this we like Fornells a lot and have been here a week.

We hired a car for a day and did another whistle stop tour but at least it's a smaller island than Mallorca! The scenery was beautiful and very green, with dry stone walls and tiered stone stables called "Taliots" in almost every field. We were quite taken by the rustic wooden gates and fences on the farms and many private houses. They would be very "designer" with a price to match at home but not here I think. We drove up the highest point on the island, only 350m high but with great views, including our cala and across to Mallorca. We also visited Cuidadella as we left the anchorage there after only an hour or so and hence didn't explore from the boat. It was a small town, quite charming but very touristy and the marina and anchorage were very small and crowded, we much prefer Fornells. Addaia is another potential anchorage on this side of Menorca and we drove down to it in search of Bar Pinns which was recommend by our good friend Harry, while we didn't find that bar, we did a very nice drink in the port as we took in the view of this small but very pretty cala.

The highlight of the road trip though must have the huge number of prehistoric sites we visited, some over 4,000 years old. There were huge cave complexes, a mix of natural and man made caves that have used as dwellings and tombs over time, the 3,400 year old Naveta Des Tudons, a restored stone built tomb, and the massive Neolithic village at Torre D'en Gaumes. This site covered over 6 hectares and must have had the remains of hundreds of stone houses, a number of large temples, and larger buildings. Many of the houses were occupied well into Roman times and you could see how they were modified from stone age round buildings into the more rectangular shape favoured by the Romans. It was fascinating and amazing value at only 3 euros.

The next day we had a "boaty" morning - cleaning, repairing the fore sail and had another look at the mains generator which has been refusing to start (with no luck). We were treated to an ariel display from the local fire-fighting seaplane. We had seen this bright yellow seaplane flying in the sky for the last few days and we're wondering what it was used for. This morning we saw it come down to the water only a few hundred yards from the boats and skim the surface for 20-30 seconds, "hoovering up water", it then flew up and dropped its load of water over the hills. It did this a few times before returning to base. This was obviously only a practice run, but at least a small mystery had been solved.

In the afternoon we took the dinghy ashore and walked up the hill to the tower behind the village for lovely views of the cala and the coast. We were running low on fresh water, so we filled a load of bottles and our 20 ltr water carrier from the tap on the quay. This was first time we've done this since leaving home as we usually fill up in a marina, but we've been at anchor for 10 days. We got the water carrier aboard OK, but as I put it down on deck to open the filler cap to pour it into our tanks, it did a slow motion roll and fell into the sea. Luckily it floated (fresh water is less dense than sea water) so Lorraine quickly got undressed and went for a swim in her underwear to successfully rescue it.

We took the bus to Mahon, Menorca's capital. We had a nice day wandering along the port and around the shops. There wasn't very much to see although the cala was lovely. As we started thinking about where to have an evening drink to wait for our return bus, we stumbled across some sort of festival. People dressed up in traditional costumes, marching band, lots of horse and donkey carts and some very feisty stallions. We had no idea what it was all about but it was very diverting.

We still couldn't get the generator started and our batteries needed charging - using the engine to do this is very slow and inefficient and so we decided to move onto the quay for a couple of nights to stock up on water and electricity. The weather was forecast to be bit blowy so we thought this would be more comfortable than being at anchor as well, but the swell rolled around the quay and caused Freya to violently snatch on her lines at times. Despite this it was nice to be able to walk ashore without using the dinghy and we did a lot of jobs on the boat, including fixing the Westerly Droop in fore cabin, (sagging headlining) and getting the generator working (adjusted the valve clearances), huge thanks to Gary for his advice on that one.

Occasionally we have some interesting episodes mooring in marinas in windy conditions, but we had some fun helping a German charter boat moor alongside us. First we just managed to stop them going aground as they headed to far along the quay, then as they tried to reverse into a space alongside, despite having bow thrusters they ended up sideways to the quay, with our port side lazy line wrapped around their rudder. I had to let this off, so it would sink, he reversed back a bit, re-secured that line, and then had to do the same with the starboard lazy line which was now around his keel. Eventually he got onto the quay, and in his defence the conditions weren't easy but it was good to know that other people can get it more wrong than us!

We are now at anchor again waiting for a weather window for the 200 mile, c35-40 hour crossing to Sardinia. We may be going Wednesday morning if the forecast holds.

These are our last few days in Spain where we first made landfall in Bilbao in September 2012. (Although we have spent some time in Morocco and a few months in Portugal). If we spend a couple of years in every country this is going to a long circumnavigation.

Click here for the interactive map of our travels