Helli

The wind will blow along the Spanish coast, either east or west along the Costa del Sol, and then only when you believe you'll get the wind on the beam as you turn the corner, you have it on the nose again. Really, that's n...

I doubt there is one, but if you are the type of yachtie who wants to use his engine to get out of the marina, straight away set his sails, and only use the engine to find yourself in a harbour, then you'll be disappointed. There's lots of motoring in the Med.

The wind will strike along the Spanish coast, either east or west along the Costa del Sol, and then only when you feel you'll get the wind on the beam as you turn the corner, you get it on the nose again. Really, that is not quite correct, because for 10-20 miles north of the south-east corner, the wind continues to blow east-west. Even when the wind blows, it will not usually start before 12 noon, and often not till later.

So the thing to do is run up across to the Balearics, because we found that the winds around the islands are good sailing winds. You often get good winds round Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza, and there are lots of good anchorages and marinas to stay in. It is specially the north-east of Majorca, a great touring floor, and nearly all of Menorca.

Many people consider the Med to be either calm, or with just very simple, however it can blow as clearly down there as around Devon and Cornwall. The huge difference is that the wind may come from nowhere and get right up to a force 7-8 in half one hour. And neither the sky or the measure give you much concept.

Caught Out in an inland sea

We have been pretty happy in this respect, but as we were caught out badly. We had cunningly anchored off the less popular side of an area in the inland sea of La Manga. All was well the first night, and the next day, and then the wind was designed to change and originate from the east, I believe it was, although not before next day. At about 8 pm the wind from the west dropped, and we expected nothing to take place the nights tend to be calm. Within thirty minutes, the wind hadn't just gone around to the north, but was blowing at a force six driving us onto the island!

We could not go around the other side because the water was not deep enough, so we'd to go into the marina in the channel leading from the inland sea. That could have been easy enough except that the lights marking the entrance to the channel were not operating, and by the full time we got there it absolutely was pitch dark.

That wasn't all; due to silting, they'd had to mark out a channel to the canal, and this was a dog-leg marked by rules linking a few buoys red and white would you believe. Worse than that, there was several red ones, and only one white light at the beginning of the funnel, as it were, to the channel. Therefore obviously, we could not see them and just had to inch our way toward the wall until I suddenly found a silhouetted in the air.

At that moment, we got so close to the string marking the channel that it caught around the skeg, but fortuitously slipped off easily enough. Even when we found myself in the marina we'd employment mooring as the wind was blowing us so difficult off the jetty the man was not amused by the only space left being the fuelling jetty, which in charge of it when he came another morning.

We've since learned that the Spaniards in particular aren't proficient at placing and lighting buoys, and that they frequently do not bother to restore ones that are broken. Night sailing is best reserved for long articles in the open ocean.

So, like somewhere else, unexpected things can happen when you travel in the Med, but you visit some great sites, meet some beautiful people, and can have some great sailing so long as you know where to go - that does not include the south Spanish mainland!

Seasons have been now spent six by us traveling in the Med, gradually going east from Estepona, and lots of people ask:

"Is the Mediterranean the best destination for a sail?"

By David Hartley close remove frame