South coast Menorca

Ever since before our first visit to Menorca we have been keen to sail along the south coast as we had heard it was very pretty and yes we have to agree it is very nice.  We only had a couple of days due to the engine problems but we had a south westerly force 2-3 for a peaceful sail (I am not sure why I have such a look of concentration in this photo as it was quite a relaxing sail!) from Mahon to Cala Coves which the pilot book refers to as the most spectacular Cala in the Balearics.

It is high side with lots of small caves in the rock face but it is quite a small Cala and very popular at beginning of August although difficult to access on foot so majority of visitors are on boats, we were lucky to find space to anchor although we only stayed for the afternoon.

Cala Coves

We motored a mile east to Cala Porter to spend night as this is a larger Cala, again this is surrounded by cliffs but is at the foot of a resort with couple of hotels and lots of apartments/villas. As a southerly wind had been blowing we unfortunately had a bit of a rolly night with a swell running in but it was very peaceful with only 1 other boat in the anchorage.

The next day was Marks birthday so we started the day with a swim before breakfast and pretty much had the beach to ourselves but by the time we went a shore a few hours later the beach had started to fill up.

Busy beach, Magnum the mast in the distance

We walked around the surrounding cliffs, the resort seems to have lots of apartments but not much else in terms of bars, restaurants or shops although there are a few beach bars.

About a 20-25 minute walk there is Cova Den Xoroi which are a series of caves which have been made into bar/café/nightclub.  We had though we would take a look but at 7.50 to just look around caves we were not that fussed, I am sure a few years ago I would have been desperate to get to the nightclub but at 25 euros and after midnight there is no chance of that! Luckily we could not hear the music from the anchorage.

Night club in caves

Typically the peaceful night we needed before our big crossing to Mallorca alluded us when a large boat (50+ foot) boat decided to anchor almost on top of us at about 10pm and after some discussion with the skipper we had to re-anchor!! Not what we needed after a relaxing evening and a bottle of fizzy but glad we did as overnight they would have blown on to us.  We were then woken before 7am with shouting around the anchorage as 2 charter boats that were tied together and had decided  anchor between them would be sufficient  started drifting across the anchorage and before anyone was on deck had already hit a few small powerboats! So we were up and off!