Not sure why you are messing about with all those images and subsequent classnames. The Stu Nicholls' method of illegally nesting tables inside <a> links with conditional comments is very messy and not recommended - the suckerfish method is much better and cleaner. You also have a very confusing text and structure that does not match the graphics at all.
Consider this demo - no graphics at all :<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<style type="text/css">
<!--
#nav, #nav ul {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
width: 208px;
}
#nav li {
list-style: none;
position: relative;
margin-bottom: 4px;
float: left;
width: 100%;
}
#nav a {
text-decoration: none;
display: block;
height: 30px;
line-height: 30px;
padding-left: 20px;
color: #FFFFFF;
font-weight: bold;
font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;
font-size: 14px;
border-right: 4px solid #FFF;
}
#nav li a:hover {
background-color: #ED2124;
}
#nav .top1 a {
background-color: #867D78;
}
#nav .top2 a {
background-color: #867D78;
}
#nav .top3 a {
background-color: #958C85;
}
#nav .top4 a {
background-color: #9C938C;
}
#nav .top5 a {
background-color: #A79D94;
}
#nav .top6 a {
background-color: #B0A69D;
}
#nav .top7 a {
background-color: #BAADA5;
}
#nav .top8 a {
background-color: #C1B5A9;
}
#nav .top9 a {
background-color: #CBBDB2;
}
#nav .top10 a {
background-color: #DED0C5;
}
#nav .top11 a {
background-color: #DDDBCE;
}
#nav .top12 a {
background-color: #E7E4D1;
}
#nav ul {
position: absolute;
top: 0px;
left: -999em;
}
#nav li:hover ul, #nav li.sfhover ul {
left: 208px;
}
-->
</style>
<!--[if lt IE 7]>
<script type="text/javascript">
sfHover = function() {
var sfEls = document.getElementById("nav").getElementsByTagName("LI");
for (var i=0; i<sfEls.length; i++) {
sfEls[i].onmouseover=function() {
this.className+=" sfhover";
}
sfEls[i].onmouseout=function() {
this.className=this.className.replace(new RegExp(" sfhover\\b"), "");
}
}
}
if (window.attachEvent) window.attachEvent("onload", sfHover);
</script>
<![endif]-->
</head>
<body>
<ul id="nav">
<li class="top1"><a href="#">about us</a></li>
<li class="top2"><a href="#">catalina manifesto</a></li>
<li class="top3"><a href="#">amenities</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#">rooms</a></li>
<li><a href="#">pool</a></li>
<li><a href="#">bikes</a></li>
<li><a href="#">bamboo garden</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="top4"><a href="#">calendar of events</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#">link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">link</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="top5"><a href="#">catalina red book</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#">link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">link</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="top6"><a href="#">book it</a></li>
<li class="top7"><a href="#">meetings/events</a></li>
<li class="top8"><a href="#">maxine's bistro</a></li>
<li class="top9"><a href="#">kung fu sushi</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#">link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">link</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="top10"><a href="#">press</a></li>
<li class="top11"><a href="#">virtual tour</a></li>
<li class="top12"><a href="#">catalinalife</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>
Much easier to change and maintain. The css and javascript should be linked to external files.