Tuesday 2 September 2008

Warning

Warning of Force 8 Gale Imminent!!! Oh No!! A quick check outside. Beautiful blue skies. No clouds. A gentle breeze. Checked the Navtex again to find that the forecast was for Plymouth!!!! Poor old UK!! Came out here after a shocking summer. The worst one in 45 years according to the papers, and more personally, the first one for us in UK for about four years. What a disappointment!! Great to see family and friends, but otherwise sh**””!!!
Anyway back to God’s own Country! Beautiful weather all week so far. Motored to Menorca and stayed in the beautiful bay of Fornells, which is even more idyllic because you can park for free! A sun-kissed Menorcan Adonis motors up to you in his dinghy, labels telling you that he is employed by the Portuaria de Menorca, and instead of demanding payment the minute you’ve tied up to one of his buoys, he offers to help you, so that you don’t have to lean over the side too much, and says you can stay as long as you like for free!! Only problem is you get some local scallywags who, rather than pay expensive marina fees, leave their boats crumbling away on the buoys gratis. As you can imagine, Ian enjoys a good old British whinge about such dishonest practice!
A lovely overnight stay in Cala Santandria, on Ciutadella’s doorstep. Beautiful spot. You have to put down an anchor in the middle of the channel, making sure you don’t hook it under the disused power cable, which we so adeptly did several years ago. Then to stop yourself drifting into a neighbours boat, you have to take a rope from the back of the boat and tie it to some rocks on the shore. This we did in the customary mountain- out- of- a -molehill way!! Shortly after our neighbours arrived and Ian let them know in a clear British-we-are-masters-of-the-waves-and-have-the-medals-to-prove-it way!! They pretended they didn’t understand a word and carried on regardless. Just to hammer the point home, they tried to prove that Russian, loosely described a “pop music” was better than British we-invented-good-music! After an hour or so of trying to read Kate Mosse’s blockbuster “Sepulchre”, to the mind-numbing oom-pah crap from the Ruskies, we got in our dinghy and paddled up the creek for a hearty cheap meal. I felt quite smug as our paddles silently dipped into the water, in contrast to the racket which was coming from the Ruskies 50’ Sun Oddysey. It might be bigger than ours but at least we remembered to put our anchor light on!!
Interesting to see what will happen to all these nouveau-riche Russians with all their new-found Western toys, when Putin and Nedvedhev say that they’re not afraid of another Cold War!!
Cracking sail back to Alcudia. Really hot. Off to Ramon’s Tapas Bar, cos Punyetes is closed for descanso on Tuesday. I suppose they must have a rest sometime!!
Hasta Luego Pobres!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Ian and Marie,

Glad to hear someone is getting some decent weather! It has been the worst summer I have ever known, but at least we are luckier than the poor people in Northumberland.They really are having it rough with all the floods. But I would like to see a bit of sunshine sometime.#

Not much to report from here. Had a call from Laura yesterday, she seems quite happy with her job, and is doing very well from it! Rang Kate the other day, she is looking forward to visiting you on the boat on Wednesday, and glad to get away to some decent weather! I believe Colin is going as well, hope you all have a lovely time, will think about you!

On Friday I am going with the Fairweather Court crowd to a pub called the Bourne & Poacher at Cleveleys for a meal, we have been before last year, and had a very nice meal, there was also dancing and Bingo and music as entertainment.

Marie, saw your mum and dad, they came to visit me, it was lovely to see them. They are going to Turkey tomorrow, so hope they have a good time, I am sure they will!

Cant think of anything else to say, so will finish now, a bell has just rung, so do not want to lose this,
Lots of love, Mum xxxxx

Anonymous said...

Dear Ian and Marie,

Glad to hear someone is getting some decent weather! It has been the worst summer I have ever known, but at least we are luckier than the poor people in Northumberland.They really are having it rough with all the floods. But I would like to see a bit of sunshine sometime.#

Not much to report from here. Had a call from Laura yesterday, she seems quite happy with her job, and is doing very well from it! Rang Kate the other day, she is looking forward to visiting you on the boat on Wednesday, and glad to get away to some decent weather! I believe Colin is going as well, hope you all have a lovely time, will think about you!

On Friday I am going with the Fairweather Court crowd to a pub called the Bourne & Poacher at Cleveleys for a meal, we have been before last year, and had a very nice meal, there was also dancing and Bingo and music as entertainment.

Marie, saw your mum and dad, they came to visit me, it was lovely to see them. They are going to Turkey tomorrow, so hope they have a good time, I am sure they will!

Cant think of anything else to say, so will finish now, a bell has just rung, so do not want to lose this,
Lots of love, Mum xxxxx

Marie said...

Thanks for the comment Florence. Good to hear from you. Hope you had a nice day on Friday. It's awful weather in UK. So glad we're not there yet. We've even experienced some effects here, with the winds being a bit stronger than is comfortable in anchorages. So we've spent more time in port than we normally do, but at least it's sunny most of the time. Can't believe the difference only two hours flight away! Lots of love Marie and Ianxxxx