Santa Eulalia

Akibbon
Richard & Helen Morris
Thu 23 Aug 2007 16:30

The morning dawned bright and breezy and with no change on the previous evenings Navtex forecast we were definitely not leaving for Mallorca.  Gales were on the menu for the next 2-3 days.  We had several options, the first being that we would go round the corner to Marina St. Eulalia and see if they had any spaces.  Off we set and arrived off the marina at 8:35 to top up with diesel.  An hour later we finally tied up on the fuel pontoon and enquired about a berth.  To cut a long story short (again) we tied up in the marina at around 4:30.  What a relief.  The weather deteriorated rapidly and we watched the waves rolling into the bay- what a useless pair, we didn’t take any photographs!

 

 Sadly the picture is not in smellie vision (rotting seaweed) or show that it was over a metre deep after the gale!

 

There was one boat which had been left at anchor by its owner whilst he was helping to sail a boat back from Palma. He was stuck there because of the bad weather.  Very fortunately one of the other boats in a more sheltered spot in the bay set off to rescue his boat as waves were breaking beam on to him.  Apparently 3 lads managed to bring it into the marina – albeit sideways, and then got back to their own boat.  It was very brave of them.

 

Another much larger yacht en route for Barcelona called the marina and was told there was no space and he couldn’t come in, subsequently refusing to respond to his VHF calls.  He ignored them and struggled round the end of the mole (no mean feat in breaking seas) and managed to tie up on the fuel pontoon.  He was told that he would have to leave and he advised that if someone wanted fuel there was no problem he would move away and then return.  Surprisingly no one wanted fuel…

 

In the meantime Richard went on a recce and we now have a new dinghy – hooray!

 

Distance run  5.56nM   Cumulative total 1973.39nM