Why sail Menorca
Menorca is the quiet one. A UNESCO biosphere reserve since 1993, with almost half its land protected and a coast of nearly a hundred calas, most of them empty of anything but a beach. Romans named it minorica, the lesser island; the British held it for most of the eighteenth century and left Georgian windows, gin and the harbour at Mahón; mass tourism largely passed it by. For a sailor it is the most concentrated cruising ground in the Balearics: sixty miles round, two of the best natural harbours in the Mediterranean at either end, and turquoise water in between. It is also the island most at the mercy of the Tramuntana, which is the other half of what this page is about.
Harbours and marinas
Anchorages, coast by coast
South. This is the coast of the postcards. From Mahón westward: Binibèquer and the islet of L’Aire, Son Bou’s long beach, then the cliff-cut calas in a row: Cala Mitjana, Cala Galdana (the one with a village and a marina), Trebalúger, Macarella and Macarelleta, Cala Turqueta and Son Saura. Pine, limestone and water the colour of the Caribbean. Anchor on the sand patches, arrive early in August, and expect the regulated buoys at the busiest of them.
West. Ciutadella, Cala Blanca and Cala en Bosch, and the low headland of Cap d’Artrutx where the Mallorca channel begins.
North. Red rock, dunes and no roads to speak of. Algaiarens (La Vall) with its two beaches, Cala Pilar reached only by foot or sea, Cala Pregonda and its islet, then the bay of Fornells with anchorages inside for every wind. Beyond it Cap de Cavalleria, Cala Tirant, Addaia and Es Grau on the edge of the S’Albufera wetland.
East. Sa Mesquida, a big sandy bay a mile north of Mahón, and Cala Taulera inside the harbour itself.
Buoys and the reserve
The whole island is a biosphere reserve and S’Albufera des Grau, the wetland behind Es Grau, its core natural park. What that means afloat: posidonia meadows are protected and patrolled, anchoring is on sand or on the regulated buoy fields the island council runs at the most popular south-coast calas in summer, booked online by the night, and the islets (L’Aire, Colom, Cavalleria) are landing-restricted. Sailing here rewards a good look over the side before the anchor goes down; the sand shows pale and the weed dark.
Wind and weather
Summer is mild, around 25°C with peaks a little over 30, and the sea breeze is gentler than Mallorca’s. The wind that defines the island is the Tramuntana. Menorca is the northernmost of the Balearics and has no mountains to break it, so a northerly arrives at full strength, bends the trees, and turns the north coast into a lee shore. It is mostly a winter and shoulder-season wind, but it comes in summer too, usually for a day or two after a front. The plan is always the same: Fornells or Mahón for shelter, the south coast for the day, and the crossing to or from Mallorca on the day the channel is quiet. Ciutadella has one more hazard of its own, the rissaga, a sudden surge in the narrow harbour that can drop and raise the water more than a metre in minutes; it is forecast, warnings are issued, and on those days you moor somewhere else.
Eating and going ashore
Menorca gave the world mayonnaise, or at least Mahón did, and it makes the only Balearic gin, Xoriguer, drunk with lemonade as pomada at every festa. The dish to plan a day around is caldereta de llagosta, lobster stew, at its best in Fornells; after it, stuffed aubergines, Maó cheese with its own DOP, and the sweet pastissets. Restaurants we send guests to: Sa Llagosta in Fornells for the caldereta, Cap Roig at Sa Mesquida for fish on a terrace over the bay, Cafè Balear on the harbour at Ciutadella, and Sa Pedrera d’es Pujol near Sant Lluís for the island’s most serious kitchen. Nightlife is small and pleasant: the harbour bars at Mahón and Ciutadella, and Cova d’en Xoroi at Cala en Porter, a bar in a cave halfway up a cliff, for the sunset.
Festivals: Sant Joan in Ciutadella on 23 and 24 June, the horse festival, is the one worth building a week around, and the harbour is impossible then, so anchor outside. Then Sant Martí at Es Mercadal (third weekend of July), Sant Antoni at Fornells (fourth weekend of July) and Mare de Déu de Gràcia at Mahón (6–9 September), each with the same black horses and the same gin.
A week from Mahón
- Day 1: handover, out to Cala Taulera or Sa Mesquida.
- Day 2: south round Illa de l’Aire to Binibèquer and Son Bou.
- Day 3: Cala Mitjana, Cala Galdana, Trebalúger.
- Day 4: Macarella, Turqueta, night at Son Saura or Ciutadella.
- Day 5: round Cap d’Artrutx and up the west coast to Algaiarens or Cala Pregonda, if the north is settled.
- Day 6: Fornells: lobster.
- Day 7: Addaia, Es Grau, back into Mahón.
About 60 miles. If a Tramuntana is due, do days 5 and 6 first while it is calm and keep the south coast for the wind.
