Log 8

05-09-07
Yesterday we had violent storm passing by. A big catamaran - 45 feet - began to drag. The crew had all left the boat and taken their dinghy into Mahon. A Scotsman and an Englishman - Dennis and Adam - and I took our dinghy and went over. We brought an extra anchor with us and managed to stop the catamaran.
But after 15 min the wind increased and the boat began to drag again. Now we were in a hurry because the shore came very close. We found a big Danfort-anchor and with 60 -70 m line we could stop the boat a few meters from the shore.
Soon the crew - 2 persons - came back, very glad for what we had done for them.
We took the boat further out from the shore to find a better anchring.

Doing this the real storm came. It was like a dark wall in front of us and we could read 29 m/s on the wind instrument. Bob - the owner of the catamaran - gave full speed and now I realised that I must go back to Unicorn. I couldn`t drag my dinghy into the catamaran, so I jumped overboard and cralwed into the dinghy and started the motor to go back to Anna-Karin.
It was difficult to find The Unicorn in the storm, but suddenly I caught sight of her and saw that A-K had started the motor, but we didn`t drag. Everywhere around us boats were dragging and it was a rather dangerous situation. You could easily get hit by a dragging boat.

Suddenly I saw that Adam´s boat also was dragging And he was still on Bob´s catamaran.As I was still in my dinghy I went over to Bob and told Adam about the situation. I noticed that Bob`s boat was quite still. He had in desperation run his boat with full speed up on the shore.

After a couple of hours we had saved both Adam´s and Bob´s boats and everything had calmed down.
Later in the evening Bob invites us onboard on his boat for a glass of Champagne as thanks for helping him but soon we returned to Unicorn.

Early in the morning - at 3 o`clock - we wake up an see a red parashute- light in the sky. We can hear on the VHF-radio that other boats have reported to the coast guard about the light. But we never heard what had happened.

The next day the weather is still very bad. In the evening we are invited to the Spurr - an Australien boat - lying in Mahon. But we postpone the dinner till next evening, as we don´t want to leave our own boat in the bad weather.

05-09-09
Today we are in Mahon and take part in a Fiesta. From many stages there are performences in Flanenco dancing - very nice. At 24.00 it all ends with a marvelous fire-work display.

05-09-10
Now we have been in Mahon for 2 weeks and it is time for a change. We sail along Menorca´s east coast to Cala Grau.

All well!
Håkan and Anna-Karin