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Canet to Tarragona
Canet to Puerto Liggat
Finally
TT and her crew levered themselves away from the factory docks at Catana.
We had had to wait until the completion of some “must-have” boat work,
and the arrival of sun curtains for the cockpit (fabric extensions for
the bimini). These last had been promised 2 weeks earlier, but the
ubiquitous everyone-takes-August-off syndrome affected us too. Eventually,
however, we were ready. Or so we thought!
We headed south towards Spain, with the intention of spending a couple of days in Puerto Cadeques, a quaint town not far from the border of France. The only reason not to go there would be a southeast wind – the harbour was protected from every other wind. Well, of course, the wind was southeast when we got there, and it was quite crowded, so we headed slightly north again to a cove with a northwest opening, Puerto Liggat, and anchored there.
Initially,
our anchor didn’t hold the first time we set it. Came up draped
with weed. We tried again, and this time it set. We spent
a day there, relaxing and doing one more job - removing the speed log
transducer and cleaning it. This did not produce the “couple of
cups of water” as promised – more like 3-4 litres! Exciting to say
the least. Weather forecast promised that we would be safer staying
in Liggat for the night than heading back to Cadeques. Wrong again.
Wind turned in the middle of the night, and Garry spent much of the night
on anchor watch.
We had planned to leave at noon that day so as to arrive at Menorca around noon the next day. Wasn’t destined to be. During breakfast, the wind piped up, and we started dragging anchor, quickly. There was about 1.3 meters showing on our depth sounder before we got control of the situation. After some very quick action on both our parts, we managed to get the anchor up, and we got out of the anchorage. With few anchoring options, we decided to head south to Menorca then and there. Fortunately, the boat was ready to go.
Puerto Liggat to Port Mahon
The wind was from the northwest at 25 knots or so by that time, and we were heading downwind. With a double reef in the main, and a partial jib unrolled, we began the 110-mile trip. The seas began building rapidly, and in the Med, that means short and steep. Wind averaged 25-30 for the first few hours, and then began creeping upwards. The sky was overcast, and the seas were gray. Just as importantly, we were making good speed, and that meant arrival in Menorca before sunrise. We knew we had to slow the boat down. So, we dragged the main down to its third reef point, and rolled up a bit more jib. As darkness fell, we were not anticipating a great night.
The forecast had indicated that an easing in the wind was due around midnight as we approached the Balearics. Seas of 1 meter had also been indicated. Well, steady 35 with gusts to 42 didn’t seem like easing, though the direction did change a bit towards the northeast as predicted. Seas, however, were still short and steep, and we spent much of our time on 2 of them at a time. It’s hard to judge their height, but they were certainly closer to 3 meters than to 1. We began to learn about the Med weather and the accuracy of weather predictions!
The night did finally end, and we arrived at our waypoint off the entrance to Port Mahon as the sky began showing signs of morning. Thankfully, we headed in towards land, and greeted the rising sun with relief.
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