Its Spinnaker time… Gibralter only 20 hours away !!

So we were finally able to leave Menorca early last Tuesday morning. The boat repairs were finished about 5pm on Monday and we left the marina heading to the anchorage just at the entrance of the harbour. Our friend Roman (from France) had returned back from Fornells the day before and we had a wonderful steak dinner with plenty of French wine. He had been up to Fornells to dive on the wreck of their friend’s 45’ Lagoon, but unfortunately when they went down there was virtually nothing worth salvaging. Everything had been trashed by the rocks. He mentioned to us that no one had taken the wreck out of there yet as they were waiting to see what insurance was going to do… so the little bit that we were able to see the other day was literally all that was left after mother nature did her work. So sad to see, but a real eye opener.

We pulled out of Port Mahon Menorca around 7am… the winds were around 15knots, but of course we were sailing INTO the wind! Ideally sailors want to be sailing downwind to maximize speed and a comfortable ride! We headed to the northeast part of Mallorca and then down the north coast of Mallorca south of Ibiza. The first night was a very bumpy ride and most of us did not get much sleep. We took turns doing 3 hour shifts starting at 7pm. Of course our wind predicting software said winds would be around 20k at night… we had 50k winds for a while!!! But at least the swells were less thah 1 meter. The next few nights were a bit smoother ride, but still into the wind and averaging about 4-5knots. Saturday was a beautiful clear day with minimal wind and smooth seas so we made up a bit of time motoring along the coast of Spain south from Cartahena. Much more boat traffic now as we are usually around 10-20miles off the coast. Fortunately this passage we have not had any rain, but the winds have been gusting up to 40+ knots, but seas have been 1-2 meters. Saturday night turned very miserable after a beautiful day.. the winds started picking up around 7pm and gusted into the 40’s during the night. It was a very bumpy ride again. None of us got much sleep. On Sunday morning we decided to pull into an anchorage along the coast. The winds were not in our favour and we needed a bit of a break to do a few boat projects and to wait until the winds turned. Early Monday morning we departed early in the morning for Gibralter (about a day and a half away). We are now about 3 weeks behind schedule and have decided that unless the winds are 100% in our favour we will not make it to the Canary Islands.. so the target destination is Madeira where we will leave the boat for 3 weeks & come home for the holidays. Madeira is still a 7-8 day sail.. so we are really hoping for favourable winds. On the plus side, we are happy with all our boat repairs and we haven’t lost the life raft on this passage! Late morning the winds shifted so that we were able to sail downwind and by 1pm today we were able to finally get the spinaker out.. this is what sailing is all about!! Beautiful smooth ride.. sunshine.. the south coast of Spain off our starboard side and 20 hours to the rock of Gibralter!! Mighty happy crew today!