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
