It's not all plain sailing.
Beowulf
Tom Fenton and Faith Ressmeyer
Mon 16 Sep 2013 19:13
Yesterday we got caught in a huge, hour long pounding, drenching rain and wind storm - at sea. The sky and water were nearly black and seemed to come together with nothing between but looming headlands where the water churned even more. I was helming with all of what strength I have, holding on and concentrating so hard that I couldn't even switch from sunglasses, which were screened with spray anyway. Then came the hail. Then heavy seas. We weren't reefed because very light winds were predicted, (and no rain), and there was no way I was letting Tom leave the cockpit.
We didn't eat or speak (except for shouting) for 5 hours. Finally the quiet harbour at sundown. Relief. No one here in Pollença knew anything about it.
In retrospect it was a very nippy 30 miles of sailing, without the engine we've used much more than we've wanted to recently. So a good sail, really.
Palma today - what a culturally and architecturally alive city, from Arab baths to the 'Modernista' squares and avenidas. Most fantastic Gothic cathedral. Just an hour by bus from the other end of the island where we're moored.