Sunday 16 June 2019

Tranquil evening scene

Fornells (pronounced Fornays) is absolutely delightful. It is also a natural enclosed water and therefore perfect for dinghy sailing, windsurfing and kayaking. It boasts that it is one of the best places in Europe to learn to sail. I expect that could be debated by others, but today the bay was being used to its full. All these craft were out with all levels from beginners to expert sailers. I missed getting a photo of an RS800, a very tippy dinghy, being sailed superbly, at at some speed, with the two crew both out of the trapezes, and their spinnaker up. That requires good skills. A crew of two in the smaller RS200 were being coached by an instructor in a rib close behind them. The windsurfers, including one on a foiling windsurfer, were blasting up and down in the good breeze. It was all good entertainment during the morning.

Fornells history dates back to time immemorial, as a fishing village. During the Middle Ages the bay was fought over by the Austrians, British, French and Spanish. The British Invasion was in 1798, when it was captured by Commodore Duckworth. The remains of a defensive fort is on the shoreline.

The village is small, completely unspoilt, and picturesque with all the buildings having pristine white walls and terracotta roofs. During our walk around the outside of village, on the hillside, the only noise was the crickets in the undergrowth.

The small hamlet of Ses Salines in the southwest part of the bay, and just a one mile walk away, is home to the sailing club, sailing school, a restaurant and a few holiday villas and apartments. To holiday here you’ll certainly be getting away from it all.

The one building that does not conform,  it is a little out of the town

During our trip ashore with the tender, we chatted a little more with our French neighbour, another of the several single-handed sailors in the vicinity. He asked more questions about Equinox and how we set ourselves up out at sea. He knows this place well and was off for a bike ride along the coast.

Distance covered today	0	nautical miles
Trip distance covered	871	nautical miles
Distance covered 2019	871	nautical miles
Tricia (and Steve)