The anchorage was very rolly and although Dan was sleeping on the narrow saloon seat, he slept the whole night and didn’t roll off, we couldn’t understand it! I was fine but Nigel doesn’t like rolly anchorages. So a better, if not perfect, night. In the morning of 20th August I spent a couple of hours preparing the boat for sea, because it is ten times easier to do this at anchor, even when rolly, than it is to do it at sea. Then we set off, this time we agreed to do the passage to Toulon if possible.

In the morning of 19th August we decided to do haircuts. I did Dan’s and Nigel’s hair as usual, then Nigel did mine. Whether it was due to over-confidence after his previous success, or to lack of sleep I don’t know, but Nigel got a little too scissor-happy this time, and cut off a lot more than he should have! I didn’t have a mirror to check progress and found out afterwards when it was too late!

Nigel took Dan for a swim while I tidied up and had a shower. Then we left the anchorage, bound for somewhere further around the west coast. Although Nigel then said he thought we should head straight for Toulon, a 2-3 day passage, we soon ruled that out, because the boat was not tidy for that sort of journey, and none of us had slept much which was a very bad start for such a long passage, especially given the possibility of encountering bad weather in the Golf de Lion. So we stopped in the evening at an anchorage towards the western end of Mallorca.

The second day, 17th August, we explored the harbour front, chandleries etc. The heat was oppressive at 37 degrees. We found the second-hand chandlery at the far end, and bought a few charts. The bargain of the day was to come, however, when we saw some electric scooters in the same shop, like the type you stand on and push with your feet, these had a 30 minute working time and went at 12 kph, and cost 102 Euros each! We tried the demo one out and decided to buy one to test. I rode it home and Dan also had a go with me, it was brilliant! Slightly dangerous, you have to give yourself the space and time you need to stop, but really handy. It takes the hard work out of a long walk in the heat, indeed at that speed you cool off a bit! We later explored some more of the town.

The next day, 18th August, we bought two more electric scooters! I took Dan to the supermarket in the afternoon which was a very bad idea, as the supermarket was quite a hike. Dan had his bike and I had the pushchair which I needed to load up the shopping. As it was late, when we got to the supermarket Dan said he wanted to go to sleep! So the shopping was difficult, and the return journey hellish! Dan had to ride his bike because the pushchair was full, but getting him to ride all the way back was quite a task!

That evening we had to say goodbye to our friends, we were moving on. They in their turn were looking to leave in the next few days, to avoid the gales that normally arrive in late August in the Balearics, and to make a start down to the Canaries for an Atlantic crossing at Christmas. We swapped details, if we make it to the Carribean we will find out if they are still there so we could meet up again.

We made friends and spent parts of the next three days with them, drinking beers and letting the children play together. Luka did not have a lot of friends as she was educated on board, and her brother was too young to play with very much. But Dan and Luka got on very well, so we encouraged them to spend a lot of time together. Dan doesn’t often get to make friends now so we were very pleased to have this opportunity.

16th August

After our first night we went to find the office. The lady we found was nice, and after agreeing that we could sort out our gearbox oil leak problem ourselves with the help and advice and parts from the boatyard chandlery, she let us stay. We found out why prices are so high here, as there are several taxes imposed on visiting yachts. One of them is imposed as a flat fee for a stay of up to 10 days. Consequently the price for one night is high, but here at the boatyard marina at least, if you stay for several days the price becomes quite cheap. The examples we were told were for one night approx EUR70, for two nights EUR 90, for three nights EUR 110, and for eight nights EUR170. We settled on three nights which cost 102 EUR in the end, averaging approx GBP 22 per night, which was ok.

We were close to the town centre and the cathedral, and on the first day we decided to take the tourist train into the mountains, to Soller.

The crossing was fine but what wind there was was on the nose, so we motored the whole way. The weather and visibility was quite good and we saw the mountains of Mallorca from 25 miles away. A few dolphins showed a passing interest in us a couple of times, but this is something of a yacht highway and I guess they see enough yachts for the novelty to have worn off. Nigel caught a respectable sized tuna, we put it in the fridge to cook when we got to Palma.

I am looking forward to going back to Guernsey, I am taking Dan and we still plan to get to the south of France (Marseille or Toulon) by the last week of August so that I can catch a TGV. It will be great to see everyone again, although I have a long list of things I need to do while I’m there.

In the morning Roger and his family arrived in their motor yacht, we spent quite a bit of time with them and they very helpfully agreed to take some of our excess baggage back to Guernsey for us in their boat, which was being delivered back from Alicante to St Malo by road during the following week. Maybe we can reclaim our rear toilet now! We had a few beers with them and Daniel had his first go in a jet-rib with Nigel, they went very fast and Dan was completely flabbergasted by the experience, when they got back Dan was speechless! His hair looked very funny and he wouldn’t move! Anyway he recovered quickly.
Roger set off later in the day as they only had a couple more days left of their holiday.

That night the boat was very rolly, and although we wanted to leave the wind was the wrong way. The next day we went to the playground, caught up with email, and did a very small shop, here there are two small Spar shops and they are very expensive! Plus I had only 12 Euros in my purse. Usually the cheapest 250g butter in a large Spanish supermarket is 1 Euro, here it was 2.5 euros! In the afternoon we took the dinghy to the neighbouring anchorage and swam into a couple of caves, we didn’t have a camera but Dan was very brave and swam into the biggest cave with his rubber ring! The water was incredibly clear.

Back on the boat we had Sangria and some tea, and I conked out about 9:30. Sangria seems to do that to me! For the record a litre carton of Sangria costs about 1 Euro and we share one between the two of us.

The night was fine.

We anchored in 10 metres of water, and decided to take the dinghy to look at the other boats and have a look at the beach. It was quite late and when we got to the beach we realised that it used to be a river, which had been diverted using a concrete canal, and a beach built in front of it, which was covered in loungers and parasols. To the left we heard some noise and realised there was some sort of childrens’ show, we went to have a look and sat down. We presently realised that we were on a private resort, it turned out that most of the apartments and buildings and beach equipment belonged to the Thomson holiday company, and that we were among a horde of almost exclusively British holidaymakers, the resort being quite out of the way and set in beautiful surroundings. We made friends with a couple from Newcastle, who were there with their grown-up son. They were on a totally inclusive package holiday which they had only booked the week before, and treated us to a lot of “free” beers. We watched the children’s show and later on the reps’ show, which was based on various musicals, so a good evening was had by all, and it was remarkably cheap. It was nice to chat with some ordinary Brits.

The next day we met up with Ted from the day before, and sat by the pool at the resort for a while. The area has been very well designed and I would recommend the resort very much. However we learned that the excursions do not seem very well organised. We took Ted out in the dinghy to explore the area a bit, and landed at the beach on the neighbouring anchorage, we had a rough landing because there was quite a swell on the beach. We met two British guys who had a motor boat in that bay, unfortunately they had been robbed the evening before – cash, phones and cameras gone. The boat had been locked and was forcibly broken into. They were trying to get the police to investigate. We later learned from them that it was the first incident of its kind for the local police, and that they were quite excited about having the project and were getting a forensic team in.

In the afternoon we went for a walk at our anchorage, and got somewhat lost in the cliff paths and ended up climbing some rocks before we reached a private residence. On the road we were helped by a passing Spaniard who told us where the correct paths were, so we got back successfully to the beach! The walk was well worthwhile however and Dan was quite happy to walk and climb, for once!

In the evening we stayed on the boat, and early in the morning Nigel started up the engine and we set off for our next port, Cala de Portinatx, right on the northern tip of Ibiza. It was only a short hop of an hour or so away, and although there was some wind offshore we were not really able to sail.

We waited for the first three and then managed to get alongside, by which time there were three or four other yachts waiting too. We filled up almost completely our two fuel tanks, together with our large and small petrol cans. The bill was some 250 Euros. We couldn’t get water however, which we were also very low on, so we went to the local marina and pinched a place where there was a bright yellow water hose on the pontoon. A neighbouring boat owner warned us that the berth holders would be returning very shortly but he seemed to be sympathetic and helped us hold the boat. The water took an age to fill up, luckily the berth holders didn’t return, but we were eyeing every boat that came in to see which one would start shouting at us! Finally the tank was full and I filled up all our other buckets too, so I could do the washing that I hadn’t dared to do before as we were so low on water. We motored off and thanked our helper, who signalled that he wouldn’t tell anyone! We went to the other side of the bay to anchor, there were hundreds of boats anchored in the bay, but it was difficult as there was a lot of weed. Our third attempt succeeded – we found a small patch of sand to drop the anchor in, and succeeded with this the second
time.

The night was noisy to start with as music from two or three bars blared out for some time, luckily the choice of music was good! The wind swung around in the night so it was fairly rolly for a time. And Daniel woke up several times, so we didn’t sleep very well!

In the morning, Monday 9th August, I got started with all the washing, and Nigel took Dan to the supermarket. They also managed to get several goes on the waterslide which we saw on our way in the day before, it is great to find a water amusement like this because Dan is too young to go on the rides in a proper water park.

Later Nigel took Dan to the water flumes again and then we all went into town for a look around and a bit of shopping. We found a children’s activity place where Dan went on the trampolines, and he also tried a sort of “bumper motorbike” which went around a track, with steering handlebars and an accelerator pedal. Dan did stunningly well and only hit the side a few times. But he was very tired and had not wanted much food that day except for sweets, unfortunately he was very unhappy on the way back to the boat!

In the morning of Tuesday 10th August we all went to the water flumes, and took quite a few pictures and video of us all on the flumes. Then we went back to town to the children’s activity centre and Dan had a go on a couple more rides, of course leaving was difficult again!

Then we went back to the boat and had a bit of lunch, before leaving Sant Antoni de Portmany to go to a more secluded anchorage further to the north.

The scenery was beautiful and visibility excellent, there was quite a swell and unfortunately very little wind. The cliff coast was higher than Guernsey’s, and was backed by endless trees. The calas varied in shelter and size but finally we decided to stop at St Miguel, which seemed fairly sheltered and had a small town shown on the chart.

The next day, Tuesday 3rd August, Nigel took Dan to the beach in the morning. Then we went into the shopping area by the marina, and found a couple of good chandleries. We bought a Spanish chart of Formentera and Ibiza, and fittings to make a shower in the cockpit. Also I bought a courtesy flag for Italy, I mention this because of the price of 3.3 Euros. It is the same quality of flag that you normally pay £10 for in England.

We ate very simply at one of the marina restaurants as it was clear most things were considerably dearer here than in Spain. Then we wandered further, and discovered the inland lake/sea which hides behind this part of the island. It is big enough to windsurf on, and is full of moored boats around its edges. Looking at the chart, further on there is another lake which is part of the nature reserve. Consequently the harbour is about 3km or a bus ride from the nearest town. We had a brief visit to the small supermarket and then used the local internet place which is in a hotel and very expensive at 5 Euros per hour. The other internet place nearer the harbour that we found later isn’t much better at 4 Euros per hour, although we understand you can arrange to connect your own laptop there.

We went back to the boat and swam from the boat. The water is about 28 degrees C with visibility of up to 40 metres.

Wednesday 4th August we went to the beach first. Nigel went snorkelling and Dan and I swam, Nigel spotted a lot of bream and went to get his speargun, he ended up with four, two with yellow stripes, and two brownish ones. We cooked them on the boat with garlic and rosemary and had a delicious meal. However the large stripy one was so chewy I gave up on it. The brown bream were wonderful.

Later Nigel prepared a cheesecake for dessert – so very good eating that day! I went into town to make the payment for our boat insurance which comes up in a few days – more money.

That evening there was a lightning storm over Ibiza, although we expected bad weather it never arrived over us, we got a maximum of Force 5. However during the preceding 24 hours the wind had changed direction about 360 degrees.

Thursday 5th August was a quiet day, we mostly stayed on the boat and swam from it. Large wind changes during the day. We have never seen so many idiots in charge of sailing boats as here. There are well over fifty boats in this anchorage, which curves along a sizeable beach. Yachts are coming and going all the time. The worst culprits are in Spanish-registered boats, both owner-driven and chartered. They will drive through the anchorage and instead of selecting an area thinly populated with boats, they will select a position between two boats which are properly spaced apart to be safe, and anchor between them. They put their anchor next to an existing boat’s anchor and drop back to a position only a boat length or so sideways of an existing boat. This means that when everyone swings around with the wind (which happens frequently here), they will be in the way either with their bow and chain threatening your steering gear, or with their stern tangling with your anchor chain. It also means that one of you will have trouble leaving because one boat is likely to be sitting above the other boat’s anchor.

At night the bay looks like a Christmas tree because of all the anchor lights, cockpit lights, deck lights and various other lights. We use a solar light for an anchor light, it is dim but better than nothing.

There is a considerable amount of nudity, not only on the nudist beach opposite, but people on their boats in full view. A quite old German couple next to us were polishing the stainless steel on their pushpit for quite some time, completely starkers!

And nobody seems to wave to each other. Everyone carries on as if nobody else is there, and even if they see you wave they don’t wave back. This is so different from anything we have seen along the coast of Spain itself.

Friday 6th August

We went to an internet café to connect our laptop, the first time we had downloaded our mail since La Coruña. After they had called someone specially to set up the connection, the download was quick. However I still cannot send mail via Outlook Express, it was suggested that the Spanish internet system may not talk correctly with the Guernsey server. I think I managed to send the emails I needed to by using the webmail, but I am not sure as they didn’t appear in my sent box.

Nigel took Dan swimming and later went windsurfing, although there was not quite enough wind.

Saturday 7th August Nigel took the dinghy in to the fuelling berth at La Savina, and found out that you could not obtain water unless you paid for a berth. So we decided to proceed towards Ibiza although we had two days in hand before we definitely needed a supermarket. We moved the boat up to a beach further north, nearly at the northern tip of Formentera. We swam and Nigel windsurfed although there wasn’t quite enough wind. I took Daniel to the next little island in the dinghy.

Sunday 8th August we swam and both of us windsurfed, there was a good wind. We met three Italians from Venice, who had sailed to Formentera from Sardinia. Later I walked to the northern tip of the island which was littered with constructions made of stones, driftwood and rubbish from the beach, making little houses, tombs, “gardens”, mobiles, windmills, and a full sized fisherman’s “house”. We do not know who made them, but suspect a naked bald man who slept on the beach!

In late afternoon we moved the boat from Formentera around the west coast of Ibiza.

On the way we caught a tuna, and managed a couple of hours under spinnaker only. We were aiming for Sant Antoni de Portmany (St Antonio for short), the only large town on this coast. The rocky scenery on the way was beautiful, with high cliffs and low rock shapes, and generally very deep water right close to the shore, typically 70-90 metres deep.

Although we do not have the pilot book for the Balearics, we have a couple of charts and the Mediterranean Almanac which gives details of a few ports there. So we decided to leave Cartagena for Formentera, which we estimated was some 30 hours away.

We started out tacking upwind, and after we had made very slow progress for two hours we gave up and switched on the engine. The wind slowly dropped to nothing by 2 a.m. but rose again to 9 knots by lunchtime the next day, so again we were able to sail without the engine for a time.