Wednesday 12 – Wednesday 19 August
On Wednesday morning Mate had just about finished up a batch of hand-washing when the lovely lines of Tendrel-Aurelie hove into view around the corner of the cala. They settled quickly to their anchor and came straight over to say hello – huge hugs and smiles all round. One of the wonderful aspects of this life is that sometimes we meet people with whom we bond immediately, and know we’ll remain friends – this German couple are two such special people. We had a lovely afternoon catching up, and supper together onboard l’escale.
Aurelie, an Ovni 455CC (yes, very unusually she has a centre cockpit – only seven were built) is also an aluminium yacht, and was purchased in Greece in 2018. During her homeward voyage to Kiel in Northern Germany, she stopped off in the Balearics, and her Mate had also had a holiday there with her daughter, so they knew the island and its harbours well, and proved excellent guides to us first-timers. On the Thursday afternoon, after a lazy morning visiting and chatting, we all set off for a fabulous sail East to the deep inlet of Fornells. We took slightly different approaches to our passage, and some excellent photos of each other in a variety of sail plans.
L’escale on the left, Tendrel-Aurelie on the right
On arrival, Aurelie was soon settled to her anchor, while we continued to seek an elusive patch of sand on which to drop, mindful of earlier warnings from the ‘Posidonia Police’. An hour later, we gave up, and came to rest just behind our friends, who invited us over for sundowners along with another German couple they’d met elsewhere, who were here in their brand new (to them) Moody.
Undisturbed by any authorities, we enjoyed a day’s rest and further conversation at anchor during Friday, and on Saturday sailed in company again, to the anchorage at the seaward end of the long inlet that leads to the island’s main port of Mahón. Cala Taulera lies in perfect shelter under the watchful eye of Fortalesa (Fort) de la Mola, and across the channel from Illa del Llatzeret, nicknamed Quarantine Island for the hospital where those with infectious diseases were admitted for treatment, almost before they disembarked their ship.
The only drawback is that close in to the Eastern shore, where the land narrows and masts of yachts at anchor on the seaward side peep above the marsh, the bottom shelves rapidly, as we discovered when attempting to follow our friends without paying enough attention to their actual route. Never mind, within moments a kind Dutch gentleman from a nearby catamaran came over in his dinghy to join our friend who’d barely anchored his own vessel, Skipper stepped off into waist high warm water, and l’escale was wiggled gently off the rocks and back into deeper water. Ignominious though this arrival was, it encouraged our empathy for others who repeated our mistake, of which more later. With a few more scars to the underwater areas of the hull, we were soon settled for a visit to the capital.
On Sunday we enjoyed a scramble around the outlying areas of the fort (ignoring the No Entry signs onto the ramparts), and took in the glorious views up the harbour, and on Monday we made the long dinghy ride up into town at the head of the inlet, followed by a hot climb up into the old city, which necessitated a reviving lunch at a pavement restaurant. We saw a little of the city on the way to a largish supermarket, the spoils of which thankfully needed carrying only downhill back to the tenders.
On Tuesday evening we hosted supper onboard, and Mate spotted a kingfisher flitting along the nearby shoreline. Wednesday being our last day together before Aurelie set sail again back towards Gibraltar, we tried a road walk away from the fort, but weren’t very inspired and returned to the boats, where Mate completed a set of face masks and hemmed two lengths of Majorcan-design fabric as cockpit seat covers, in exchange for a batch of bedding in their onboard washing machine – such luxury.
Hoping for an early night before their dawn departure on the Thursday morning, our friends, along with the rest of the crews around us, were unimpressed when a large charter vessel, Black Marlin, attempted to enter the anchorage in the dark and managed to achieve a prop wrap – when a line or rope becomes caught and wound around the propeller shaft, rendering the vessel unmanoeuvrable. Insults and abuse were flying through the night air, and it was after midnight when they were settled and calm was restored.