Favaritx, the Light in the Darkness

 

 

 

 

I hope this finds you, your family and friends, safe and well.

May the Joy of Christmas give you Light to dispel any darkness.

Picture: Favaritx, by José Orfila.

The Shipwreck of "General Chanzy" 110 years ago.

One of the worst disasters ever to occur in Menorca, took place at 5 in the morning of February 9th 1910, during a tremendous storm with hurricane force winds and giant waves, when the luxury 2300 tonne French passenger/cargo steamship 'General Chanzy', en route from Marseille to Algiers, crashed into the cliffs close to Punta Nati on the northwest coast of Menorca. As she immediately began to sink her boilers exploded.

 The General Chanzy in the Harbour of Marseille

The scale of the disaster was only revealed at 8 in the morning on the Saturday 11th, some 48 hours after the accident, when the sole survivor 23 year old Marcel Baudez, presented himself to the farmhouse of Son Escudero asking for help. Within days the terrible truth would be known; 159 persons had lost their lives in this accident.

 The Cliffs at Punta Nati with rough sea.

The funerary monument in the Ciutadella Cemetery

 

 Load recovery works.

 The saddest job. Collecting of the copses that could be recovered.

Gloria

A storm with the disturbing name of Gloria has hit our country viciously.

And despite its destructive power, it has left precious images in the island.

...from the air

Nice video.

© Edgar Granados

Tramontana

In an extremely windy day in which a power failure has left most of the village of Es Castell without electricity, it well worth going out to get some fresh air ...

The Tramontana is a katabatic wind, which is a wind that blows off a mountain system due to the cool denser air at altitude in the mountains sinking, and funnelling off into the coast. Tramontana winds rush down the Pyrenees and crosses the Mediterranean and so, the Balearics. Menorca is particullarly exposed to that wind.

Although these winds are mainly in winter, sometimes they occur in spring and even summer. For those who we like them it is a real spectacle, approaching to the coast to perceive their strength. 

Sa Mesquida

Cala Tirant

 Brave surfers cant resist the call of the waves.

Cap de Cavallería, on the Horizon.

Cavalleria Lighthouse

In 1857 a lighthouse was built on the most northern point of Menorca, called Cavalleria under the petition of the authorities of the island, due to the frequency of wrecks taking place on the northern coast. The lighthouse tower is 15 metres high and it is located 94 metres above the sea level. It shows two white lights every ten seconds and reaches a maximum of 32 nautical miles.

In fact, more than 700 wrecks between the 14th and the 19th centuries are documented in different charts. According to these written records, many of them wrecked during the 18th and 19th centuries, such as San Josef (1712), La Asunción (1821), San Jaume (1892) and Bourgianen (1900). Two of them, La Asunción and Bourgianen have been located in the past few years.

Punta Nati. Ciutadella.

Punta Nati Cape is located further northwest of the island located in the town of Ciutadella. This area is characterized by rocky and barren landscape, impressive precisely because of its hardness. Only a few specimens  of the plant world that survive in this desert-like landscape.

Ecballiuem Elaterium also called squirting cucumber.

Ecballium Elaterium

The lighthouse, which is a few tens of meters high above the cliffs was built in 1913 as a result of a dramatic shipwrecks, the "General Chanzy "covering the journey Marseille-Algiers that killed more than 200 people and only one survived. The lighthouse, which was inhabited until the second half of the twentieth century, has a white tower, a dome and aluminum flashlight. Also has large housing units for the old lighthouse keeper and a courtyard surrounded by a stone wall. To the right of the lighthouse are the remains of an observatory and a battery built during the civil war.

The coordinates of this lighthouse are: 40 º 3 '0.20 "N 3 º 49' 24,91" E,

Favaritx

Cap de Favàritx stands 47 metres above sea level with a height of 21 metres. Its light has a range of 16 nautical miles and the light flashes every 15 seconds in a pattern of 2+1.

The development of this lighthouse was a milestone in the history of the island’s coastline along with the other two northern lighthouses of Punta Nati and Cap de Cavalleria.

Numerous shipwrecks particularly in the early 1900s due to the rocky northerly coast and the punishing Tramuntana  winds lead to the development of the lighthouse to prevent such occurances in the future.

The shipwrecks of the “Isaac Pereyre” in 1906 and the “General Chanzy” in 1910 were particularly notorious. The first was a steam packet covering the route between Marseille and Algiers and was wrecked in the same spot where the “Ville de Rome” also owned by the French Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, had foundered in March 1898.

It was designed by Mauro Serret but modified by Miguel Massanet. Work began in July in 1917 but the lack of funding and the protests of the owner of the site for not having received compensation paralysed the works and the lighthouse was not completed until 1922, entering service on the 22nd September.. The light used a catadioptric lens manufactured by BBT with two 85mm Chance lamps producing a light pattern of 2+1 every 10 seconds. This lens is now on display at the Portopi museum in Mallorca. The tower, with a height of 33m was the first to be built completely of concrete in the Balearic Islands. The lantern, which had a diameter of 3m was manufactured by La Maquinista Valenciana.