Menorca

The gale wasn't as severe as forecast and didn't reach much over 30knots, so all was relaxed if occasionally a little noisy on board for the following couple of days. Hopefully this summer won't be a repeat of last year with respect to the number of blows that we've sat out. Hopefully being much further south and east this should be the case.

The fortifications around Mahon are simply extraordinary. Particularly around our anchorage which is in a backwater of the harbour next to La Mola, the fort built by us Brits in 1870 or so and later used during the Spanish civil war and WWII and finally as a prison which it was until quite recently. Apparently Franco was still executing undesirables there by firing squad up until 1972.

While Franco clearly has quite a bit to answer for, we are told that he hated Menorca with a passion, as it was the last part of Spain to fall during the civil war. The consequence of this is that it was starved of government funds and thus escaped much of the development that has occurred elsewhere in the Balearics. Fortunately by the time those restrictions were lifted, it's ecological value had been realised and prevented much subsequent indiscriminate development.

Hence there are great swathes of nature reserve to wander in and an extensive network of paths. We strolled around the deserted and slightly eerie fortifications of La Mola with Ricky and Donna from S/Y Patience and then escaped up the coast to Isla Colom which we had more or less to ourselves apart from several hundred nesting gulls.