Richard Clark’s family came on board in Alicante. After a couple of days they sailed to
Formentera. My regular telephone
updates from Bill informed me that the marinas were hugely expensive (hundreds
of pounds) and that anchoring was what you did in the Balearics – along with so
many others that the anchorages were very crowded. I was also informed that nudity was the
‘uniform’ for many of the crew on the other boats. It turned out to be just so and among
all nationalities and families as well as couples. A 10 year old, or thereabouts, English
boy and his Dad were swimming back to their boat and the conversation between
father and son was about the sights they had seen and the relative merits or
otherwise, of the hirsute or otherwise, people they had seen. The boy seemed to know that many of them
were Brazilian! I don’t know how he
knew that, clever boy. Richard and Bill coined the phrase ‘pervoculers’ for the
optical instrument so busily employed – to check the anchorages mainly, I am
assured. Sorry Mrs Ward’s
geography class, perhaps this can be part of culture and humanities?
Unfortunately the item to repair the outboard motor had not arrived in
time for Gibraltar but luckily Paul James and Tracy were taking over from the
Clarks in Ibiza and brought it over with them. This meant a couple more days in Ibiza
whilst Raphael Torres a local Yamaha dealer fixed it. This was no hard shakes for Bill because
it meant he could visit Villa Mercedes once again with Paul and Tracy – a lovely
place apparently, with views, loungers and a hippy decor which creates a really
chillaxed (a term I learned from Tracy) atmosphere.
There
was a thunderstorm for the crossing
to Mallorca which cleared in time for Tracy to experience how lovely it is to
come into somewhere on a sunny evening.
Needless to say, Palma marinas were out of the question, costing
hundreds of pounds a night (apart from
the harbour authority one). A
little further towards the west coast and a slightly cheaper (Euros 110) was
found where Bill could wash the boat down but was still close enough to Palma
for me to come aboard.
The
bus ride was about 40 minutes and took in Palma Nova and Magaluf. Enough said! But it wasn’t far before
everything changed and we arrived in Port Adrianohome to Sunseekers
Germany. This will probably be the only
time we will afford to come here.
Phillipe Starke has got a 25 year lease to develop the place to take
ultra yachts (oh yes, bigger than super yachts). I am sure it will look great apart from
a sodding huge, grey concrete wall which is not on any chart yet. The work is underway and we did take
advantage of a very lovely dinner, courtesy of Paul and Tracy, in one of the
smart restaurants.
We had spotted preparations for a fiesta on getting off the bus and
went up there after dinner. How
surprised I was to hear music so much like Scottish country dancing (bagpipe and
all) and the group dances were very Gay Gordon too! The band would call the next song and
everyone seemed to know the dance. I didn’t know that Mallorca is actually
Catalan. The common language is a
dialect of Catalan. The culture is
very different from the Spain you normally think of. There were no other foreigners in sight
at the fiesta. What a lot people
miss!!
Next
day we sailed round the corner with the intention of Isla Dragonera, but it was
too crowded so we went to San Telmo and anchored. A dinghy came up to say hello and they
were Richard and Rowan with their guest Chris. They are having a Discovery 67 built
(the fourth in the series).
Richard was a previous owner of an early 55. What a small world! The visit was cut short by the ‘fun
police’ coming up to tell us we could not anchor other than in patches of clear
sand. There is an attempt being
made to protect (quite rightly, despite my quip) the posedonia – a weed which is
under threat (but which everyone is anchoring in all the time further
north). We tried Dragonera again –
no luck – tried somewhere else – no luck – and went back to San Telmo by which
time the day trippers had gone back (to Palma we suppose) and we were directed
to a buoy.
The next day we had
a brilliant sail to Port Soller (Soy-er).
We stopped on the way in a cove where I got stung by a pink jelly fish
and where we dinghied to the next cove to have a wonderful plate of mixed fish
for lunch. The next cove had on its
south side a cliff composed of lava flow (see picture). What is this rock called children? The north side (it isn’t a very large
cove) looked as if a giant had sledge hammered a different kind of rocky
promontory into boulders. It
doesn't look that old in geological terms.
We are on the edge of a seismic zone after all, being not very far from
Etna. More jelly fish floated by so
I quickly snorkelled away from the base of the old lava flow no doubt a
cavernous hideaway for some sea creatures.
By the way, there is disappointingly little sea life to be seen on the
sea bed and only two kinds of fish. Even out at sea we haven’t caught
anything.
Soller is a
beautiful little leisure port. It
is a gorgeous bay (see pictures).
There is a wooden open sided tram which runs regularly to the town of
Soller slightly inland. By the way,
the west coast of Mallorca is mountainous down to the sea. Spectacular scenery
which we explored further with a trip up the coast to Torrente de Pareis, a big
cove with a gorge leading down to it (see pictures). We also took a wooden open train through
the mountains to Palma, where Paul and Tracey caught the plane back home. We enjoyed their company very
much.
My
jelly fish sting has reared up into a livid red weal again. It was beginning to fade. All I can think is that it reacted to
some mosquito repellent I sprayed onto the area – but that was a good 7 days or
so ago. The Ship Captain’s Medical Guide
is singularly unhelpful in this matter, and if any of you think you know better,
NO you do not urinate on the sting, so the posters in the port authority office
which described 6 types of jelly fish to be encountered informed us, nor do you
put vinegar or bathe it in fresh water, just salt
water.
