Departing the mooring buoy at 9am we were headed back to Addaya. This is where we have decided to lift Gemini J out of the water for the crazy month of August and we’ll spend the month at home before resuming our travels in September. It was a gorgeous morning aboard albeit with little wind. We put the sail up hoping it might give us some shade ! It was a short hop of just 7 nautical miles round the beautiful coastline to the tricky entrance at Addaya.
We managed the port and starboard buoy channel really well and came onto a berth for an hour or so before the extremely friendly and helpful Martin and Xavi were ready to lift us out of the water. It’s the first time we’ve been lifted out from “below” rather than “above” and we were quite nervous. The place where the lift takes place was pretty tight and once again Skipper Nigel pulled out all the stops to get us alongside and ready for the lift. Once we were done it was a case of watching on nervously as Gemini J was lifted onto the cradle then driven up out of the water. It went really well and before we knew it our home for the next four days was our boat on the hard standing here in the port !! It will certainly be different, climbing a ladder to get aboard but it’s actually very lovely here so we can relax while we await our flight home.
One thing we missed in Sardinia and Corsica was ice cubes, giant ones, the Italian and French just don’t make ice cubes like the Spanish 😉 so the first thing we did after the lift was get ourselves some iced drinks, shortly followed by lunch then a quick trip to the supermarket to see buy some more giant ice ….. what a treat ! Being aboard when not on the water is discombobulating to say the least – especially since we haven’t been on land for over a week – we both kept thinking the boat was rocking even though it’s firmly on the ground (well on the framework they built to support her).Â
On Saturday I took the bus to the airport and picked up another hire car – this time slightly larger than the last 😉 We went out for lunch and found ourselves with British style fish and chips from a Spanish bar (there are seemingly a lot of Brits here in Addaia). They were both astounding and delicious in equal amounts.
The following day we headed out towards Es Grau attempting to explore Favoritx lighthouse on the way. I reality we found an awful lot of nothing. Stunningly beautiful, very rural nothing. We didn’t even pass a bar! We did pass a lot of places to buy cheese. We followed some signs to what we thought was a water park where maybe we could swim. We found a visitor centre (with no café) and lots of instructions for long walks into the wetlands (not in 30 degrees heat thanks). We finally reached Es Grau village and found ourselves in the centre of their fiestas with bunting, bike races and lots of people …… we drove on (past a couple of full to capacity bars) through the lovely village and out on the same road we came in on (there aren’t really that many roads here either).
Since we were so close we thought we’d head to Mahon where we could finally get a coffee for sure 😉 amazingly we found plenty of parking and a lovely cafe where not only did I get coffee and a pastry but we also enjoyed a delicious salad (having seen the people on the next table eating one and asked for the same). It would have been rude not to visit the chandlery so of course we popped in – Skipper Nigel invested in a couple of pots of stuff to maintain a couple of small patches of rust on our keel while we’re out of the water. Yes, I used the word invest carefully- I think the paint / anti foul was more expensive per litre than printer ink (which I believe is more expensive than liquid gold!). I may joke about the ruralness but Menorca is stunningly beautiful and while it’s a minor inconvenience that the bars/restaurants only seem to be in the town’s and villages it also makes for a lot of why the island is so lovely and unspoilt.
In the evening there was a small matter of an England Germany football match to watch – no matter that it was 33 degrees we got ourselves well prepared;-)
On our final day we started the morning with boat jobs – getting everything ready to depart for a month. We then headed off on a fuel run and for some lunch. Once again beautiful roads, stunning countryside and nothing at all (except for cheese farms) between places. We had a couple of lovely tapas in Fornells before coming back for the all important siesta (it’s August now!)
More about the boat jobs and leaving Gemini J next time ……
The Adventures of Gemini J 