Thursday, June 21, 2012

Around the Balearics

Hi Everyone, we thought we had better try and do a decent Blog update since we have not bothered for the last 3 weeks while Rich and Caroline have been with us, also we seem to have a good wifi connection at the moment so we had better make full use of it – wifi has been pretty hard to come by the last week or so!!!

Rich and Caroline arrived in Santa Ponsa a good hour earlier than expected and were soon settled on board ready for a long break. We spent a few days relaxing at anchor while we stocked up with supplies, studied the weather and tried to come up with some sort of a plan while R & C were with us – not easy when you are subject to the vagaries of the Med Winds.

Santa Ponsa is a great anchorage with loads of room, good shelter from most winds and good holding in sand, occasionally a bit noisy from the shore bars and clubs but not really too bad.  Good Eroski supermarket for shopping but a good walk from the dinghy landing , we really needed our sack truck shopping trolley for the haul back to the boat.

We finally decided we needed to make some progress on the Monday (4th June) after watching the Queens Diamond Jubilee celebrations in a local bar.  Pity the wind had not got the same idea because we ended up motoring for 6 hrs around the NW corner of Mallorca to get to Port Soller, a very pretty harbour and town with plenty of room to anchor in the harbour area and wifi as well!!! We only stopped overnight but it was pretty full of boats anchored around us – it must be packed in the peak months.

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Peninsula de la Foradada

Sundowners in Colabra

From Soller we covered a huge 7nm to Cala de la Colabra and the Torrente de Pareis, a truly spectacular place to anchor the boat, quite busy during the day but most boats leave and only a few stay for the night. We were lucky to be able to anchor quite close to the beach but still in 7m of water, most boats were anchored in 12 – 15m so a lot of chain is needed. The cala is open to the NW and the sun sets over the sea just N of the cliffs so we saw a couple of gorgeous sunsets in almost total peace and quiet. The first evening we were amazed to spot a large goat right on top of the surrounding cliffs about 200m up, he stood there perfectly still for about 15 minutes and seemed to be watching the sunset with us.

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Torrente de Pareis Gorge

Billy Goat Gruff Watching The Sunset

The small pebbly beach is situated in a narrow gap between almost vertical cliffs with a tunnel and pathway leading around to the small village with shops and bars, the bar here was memorable for being the most expensive we found at 5 Euros for a large beer – a bit different to South Bar at 1.5 Euros.

The gorge runs for about 8km inland and is absolutely amazing, long stretches have vertical cliffs either side up to 250 – 300m high while the gorge itself is only 10m wide in places. Also it is a very hard trek, Rich and Chris set off one morning to tackle the walk expecting it to take about 4hrs, they eventually returned 6 1/2 hrs later absolutely exhausted after one of the hardest treks either of them had ever done. Much of the gorge is full of huge rocks and boulders that you have to climb over, around or under, you also have to walk along the sides of the gorge well up from the bottom in places – it was probably as tough as it gets without actually needing ropes and climbing harnesses. Despite all that it was a truly memorable hike and well worth all the hardship.

For anyone following us you will need sturdy footwear, plenty of water, energy food and plenty of stamina if you want to get all the way to the top of the gorge, also start as early in the morning as you can because the sun shines straight into the gorge in the early afternoon making it even harder. You can also just go as far as you want before turning back, it is still amazing and still difficult even at the beginning.

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The Beach and Torrente de Pareis Gorge

Anchored in Cala de la Colabra

From the awesome sights of Colabra we headed around Cabo de Formentor at the NE tip of Mallorca and into Pollensa, this was much busier with a marina and lots of moorings but still enough room to anchor among or outside the moorings in 2 – 5m of water.  We found it well protected and should be fine in most weather conditions, easy dinghy landing and Eroski very close by to allow us to stock up with supplies again.  We also managed to find a bar to watch England v South Africa, a close game but England lost, we then had a great meal out where we had Manuel’s brother (Fawlty Towers) as a waiter, he was really good fun.

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Sand Sculptures at Pollensa

Underwater Scenery

We had a nice couple of days in Pollensa before we decided it was time to head for Minorca, after motoring all the way along the N coast of Mallorca we were finally blessed with near perfect conditions to sail across to Minorca.  We had between 15 and 25knts of wind with pretty calm seas and we managed to sail practically the whole of the 55nm passage to Addaya at the NE end of the Island. We had originally intended to head into Fornells but decided to go the extra 12nm to Addaya because the conditions were so good.

Addaya is a fairly small narrow cala with some shallow patches in the twisty entrance but it is well marked and pretty easy in good conditions, there are a lot of moorings leaving limited room for anchoring but we found a good spot beyond the moorings. The cala extends quite a way beyond our anchoring spot but it is all very shallow with lots of old salt flat lagoons beyond and some pleasant walks around the area.

We thought Addaya would make a great place  to depart from for our 200nm crossing to Sardinia so we studied the weather and decided we needed to leave around 0700hrs on Tues 12th June so we could arrive late Wednesday. The forecast was for around 15knts of wind from the NW with around 1m waves to start with then easing as we crossed, Rich and Chris were up early leaving the girls in bed as we left Addaya, however as soon as we got out of the Cala it was pretty clear that Sardinia was not going to happen today!!!  We had 20knts from the NE with 2m plus lumpy seas and a hasty about turn saw us heading back into Addaya and reanchored before Sue and Caroline realised we had even left!!!

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Paddling Cows in Addaya

Spectacular Location at Cala Porte, Minorca

After more studying of weather forecast for the week ahead we had to conclude that there was no real sign of a decent weather window to make the crossing to Sardinia so we changed to Plan B and Rich and Caroline booked flights home from Palma instead of Sardinia and we set off to explore the SE coast of Menorca and the rest of Mallorca.

We left Addaya the next day in much better conditions as we sailed past Mahon and around the corner  to head into Cala Porte for the night, another lovely anchorage but not much room because of a line of buoys marking a submarine cable meaning around a third of the Cala could not be used.  Also a number of Calas that we passed along this SE coast of Minorca were totally blocked off as anchorages by swimming buoys. We had a bit of a rolly night due to a slight swell but we had a good forecast for crossing back to Mallorca.

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Captain Rich and Admiral Caroline

Waterfront at Porto Colom

The 43nm trip to Porto Cristo started in great conditions but as we neared Mallorca the wind dropped off and the swell increased to make for a pretty uncomfortable last couple of hours. We also used every sail on the boat including the spinnaker as we tried to make decent progress.  We got into Porto Cristo through the swell in the entrance to find very little room for anchoring and still quite a bit of swell rolling around, we managed to anchor with our stern only a couple of yards away from the yellow buoys marking the swimming area. Fortunately we were fairly comfortable in the swell but the same could not be said for a couple of monohulls anchored ahead of us, they were rolling around so badly that we almost felt seasick watching them – it must have been awful on board.

Next day was a short sail down the coast and into the sheltered waters of Porto Colom, plenty of room to anchor in shallow waters, blue skies and hot sunshine. We anchored among a line of 5 catamarans with only 1m of water beneath us in lovely calm surroundings. The town itself was very clean and tidy with plenty of restaurants and mainly Spanish holidaymakers, however it was very quiet with most places only having a handful of customers.

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Drinks in Porto Colom

Rich and Caroline, Porto Colom

Next stop was Colonia de Sant Jordia along the S coast of Mallorca in the middle of some great beaches and fortunately not too much tourist development. Good anchorages either side of the town to suit most wind conditions and, again, fairly quiet.

We then headed to Cala Pi, a small narrow cala surrounded by cliffs with a nice beach at the end, here we needed lines to the shore to keep us in place and it took us over half an hour to get secured as we waited for other boats to leave and for us to fix lines in the rocks, however it was worth all the effort to spend a couple of nights in another amazing place.  Once we were secure it also meant we could watch the antics of the other boats as they went through the same hassles as we did.  An Italian skipper of a large charter cat asked us if we could help him tie up – he obviously didn’t trust any of his guests – we got him secure and he came across later with a nice bottle of wine as thanks.

After that a Polish flagged, new 50ft boat came in with only a youngish looking skipper on board, we took a shore line to the rocks for him and suggested that he might like to put a mask on to make sure his anchor was safe but after about an hour it was clear that he had no intention of getting wet and he seemed sure his anchor was safe.  Chris thought it best to check seeing as he was right alongside us and a quick swim showed his anchor rolling around on the bottom at the end of his chain that was nearly straight down from his bow!!!!  Some shouted “advice” convinced him that he needed to do something but he still had no idea about how much chain he should put out in 6 or 7m of water, he seemed to think 10m of chain was fine (30m is about right)!!!!  Chris finally had to get on board with him to convince him he needed to put his anchor further away and had to go for a swim again to get him to set it properly. It makes you wonder how someone like that is in charge of around £200k worth of boat!!!

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Caroline & Sue Overlooking Nimrod in Cala Pi

Rich and Caroline on Yellow Bucket Washing Duties

 

All to soon it was time for Rich and Caroline to fly home so our last trip was into the Bay of Palma to anchor just outside the marina at Arenal. We were just off a busy beach that seemed to full of 18-30 type holidaymakers and we had a couple of RIB’s and banana boats circling around us at regular intervals, the shoreline also seemed full of bars and clubs that promised a very noisy night, so we moved to the opposite side of the marina, only half a mile but a complete contrast with a nice quiet beach and no discos or boats screaming around.

R &  C left last night (Wed) so we are now left on our own again trying to decide what to do after having such a great time with them on board.  We think we will spend a bit of time around Mallorca and hopefully bump into some of our friends from winter in Lagos before heading back to Menorca ready to try and get across to Sardinia again!!!!

Hi all Sue here

Well I can’t believe how quick three weeks can go!! We have had such a fantastic time with Caroline and Richard on board it was really sad to see them go home. It is very quiet on the boat now and I am especially missing our sun downer jug of sangria which we had perfected by the end of the three weeks!!

Although our plans to get to Sardinia didn’t work out we all agreed it didn’t make any difference to the holiday. We hadn’t realised how beautiful Menorca and Mallorca were and we were glad we got to see it all.

We have visited some really beautiful Cala’s but think we all agreed that Cala Colabra was the most stunning. At each new place Caroline and I used to challenge ourselves to swim ashore, completing some quite long swims. The men used to think it was really funny as we both used to swim with our sunglasses on, well we both hate getting salt water in our eyes and don’t like goggles, I’m sure it will catch on!! We must have looked a bit like Patsy and Edwina out of Ab Fab arriving on the beach but we never quite mastered to swim with our drinks in hand as well!! On one particularly long swim Richard said he would follow us later in the Kayak to make sure we were ok. Off we set and about half way I just happened to glance to my left and there was Chris and Richard heading of into the distance on the Kayak without a backward glance!! So much for our safety boat!! We then sat on the beach and watched them paddling away in the distance, not a care in the world as to whether there lovely wives had made it to the beach or not!!

Many an evening was spent playing a board a game we were introduced to in Lagos from Switzerland, called Brandi Dog. It’s a very competitive game and second to last day the men managed to go ahead 7-6 then refused to play another game on the last day to give us chance to break even!! Never mind we can wait until next visit.

We will potter around here for the next few days as we have to wait for some parts to arrive from the UK for the alternators, luckily we have a friend Nick who’s boat is in a marina in Palma and can have them sent there. Then it’s wait for right weather window to cross to Sardinia but we no longer have our crew to help with the watches, come back Caroline and Richard!!