39:31.903N 2:35.236E Fri 11^th Sep 2019.  58nm 10:15hrs

We’ve finally had two really good sailing days.  On Tuesday we covered the 54miles from the mainland to San Antonio on Ibiza, 8¾hrs with only a couple of hours engine time to get us out of a coastal lull.  Then is was a lovely beam reach all the way in mostly light winds and flattish seas.  I was last in San Antonio 41 years ago on a brief diving holiday and, whilst it was then beginning to build its reputation as the party capital of the Balearics, boy has it reached a tacky zenith now!  Fortunately we are quite late in the season, most discos have closed and noise levels were perfectly bearable.  The town is pretty dreadful though, so we were happy to move on once we’d restocked the store lockers.

Local boats in San Antonio:

We then has a short motor along the north coast of Ibiza to a lovely cove on the NE tip.  Despite it being so late in the year the tiny cala was pretty full of yachts and we had to squeeze in to a too-small gap and re-anchor 4 times.  The final time was just as it was getting dark and we had to fend ourselves off from a moored power boat.  Oops.  The water was a gorgeous, inviting turquoise and the swimming delicious, so a great stop on the way in that respect.

Cala Portinaix:

We left the next day just as it was getting light (07:30 around here, dawn 0800) for the passage across to Mallorca.  The forecast was for light winds at an angle which, if we were very lucky, would allow us to sail all the way without tacking.  And we did, passing less than 1/3^rd of a mile from the headland we needed to round to get into Palma bay.  It did mean a quite busy day adjusting sails and compensating for a strong current sweeping us in the wrong direction, but we had a lovely day’s sailing with the engine only on for a tiny bit at beginning and end.

We had hoped to get a berth at Palma yacht club but as we got near we could see a very large number of big yachts racing and we thought “better check if there is a regatta on”.  Indeed there was and a couple of phone calls established that the main Palma marinas were totally full for the weekend.  This is a pain because we had arranged for someone to quote to repair our interior varnish work.  So we had to divert to a little anchorage 5 miles from Palma where there was just enough shelter from the brisk south easterly winds.  We’ve had a bit of a rolly night and morning at anchor and are now trying to find somewhere we can park and get this quote organised.