Soller, Majorca
Altea
Sat 12 Jul 2014 11:54
28 June 2014
We brought the boat over to Soller on Majorca, at the end of May. It was a good overnight trip, with fair winds and no rain. It was good to be able to sail all the way across, with just a bit of motoring at the end.
The only drama was that as night fell I heard a blast of air just off the port quarter, maybe 50m away, and to my surprise I turned to see the unmistakable spout and shape of a fairly large whale. In my ignorance it had not occurred to me that there were whales in the Mediterranean, but I can now confirm that there are. It was about 15m long, as far as I could tell, and having looked it up since, I think it may have been a fin whale. Interestingly, the fin whale is second largest to the blue whale. Worryingly, it is also the whale most likely to be hit by a boat. I don't know if that is because they are less intelligent than other whales, more short sighted, or just more likely to be sleeping on the surface. Anyway, I am pleased to have seen it at a distance. S and J are witnesses. Unfortunately L was already turned in for the night, in preparation for the small hours watch, so she is still sceptical.
Soller was as attractive as we remembered, and we anchored in the centre of the bay. We set our anchor trip line for the first time, with a small buoy set on a short line so that it sits above the anchor. The idea is that you can haul up the anchor with a different direction of pull if it gets stuck. We did it because a couple of the other boats had done the same and we wondered if the ground might be foul. The jury is out on whether it is a good idea. It announces to the world where your anchor is, and so makes it less likely that someone will drop theirs on top of yours, but it does limit the swing room. We came close to swinging over our neighbour's buoy, and vice versa. The danger is that the anchor is accidentally tripped in the process - or that someone decides to moor up to it, with the same result. I think we will only use it in future if there is a real risk of the anchor becoming stuck.
The rest of the trip was spent in a series of chores (including a day or two with our heads in the bilges giving them a good clean out), punctuated by a visit from C and C who were on holiday in Majorca. The highlight of that afternoon was a comedy dinghy ride, as S and I paddled in less than perfect synchronisation into a heavy headwind. But we got there, compared with our young neighbours who had to be rescued by a rib with an outboard.
We had a bit of exercise during the week, with a walk back from Soller town in the hills, and I had a run up to the lighthouse. We left the boat on the quay and went home for June, leaving S and L in charge.
When we returned at the end of June, she was ship shape and ready for off. We also had a qualified diver on board, as S had completed his PADI open water course in the intervening weeks. The weather was not great, so instead of setting off straight away we waited an extra day. We enjoyed a meal at a restaurant that S and L had found, up on the cliffs behind the military base,
overlooking the lighthouse and the mouth of the bay. The wine waiter persuaded us to have the Stairway to Heaven, which we thought was his poetic license, but turned out actually to be the name of the wine. We were very excited that it had a glass stopper, which is now in our drawer on board to be used if ever we leave a bottle half drunk.
The fishermens' festival was on, and the music on the quay went on until the small hours. On the 30th, reasonably refreshed, and happy that we would have fair wind for our trip to the North East of the island, we set off with Pollensa in mind.