Espalmador
Juno
Paul and Caroline Frew
Tue 13 Sep 2011 20:59
The sun has just slipped over the horizon leaving a pinkish glow in the
anchorage. There is a gentle breeze blowing off the beach and the water is
lapping gently on the hull. We are anchored in Espalmador and its heaven.
The day after we arrived from the mainland we motored the short distance
from Puerto de Savina on Formentera to Espalmador. This is a private island,
no more than a mile long and a few hundred metres across, separated by a
sand bar from Formentera and it feels just like a Caribbean island, minus
the palm trees. The beaches are soft powdery white sand that forms ridges
under the glistening clear water. The sea is 31 degrees and sparkles an
aquamarine blue, washing over the white sand inviting you to swim. We have
anchored about 500 metres from the beach in 5 metres of water and tonight we
share the anchorage with about twenty other boats of various shapes and
sizes. As night falls the sky has darkened to a crimson streak across the
western horizon and over the beach to the East the moon hangs in the air,
casting its shimmering light on the water. We had drinks in the cockpit
watching the sun go down and now Caroline is in the galley cooking another
amazing feast. The generator is rumbling away quietly charging our batteries
in the absence of our broken alternator, and we use the power to run the
water maker to desalinate sea water and turn it into pure fresh drinking
water in our tanks.
We have been here for two days and at last we feel relaxed and at ease after
four weeks of relentless passage making. This is what we had imagined when
we planned our voyage and we are savouring every moment. Yesterday we took
the rib into the port and shopped for bread, newspapers and vodka. The
marina was a heaving mass of day trippers from Ibiza, queuing on the
pavements for the fast catamaran to ferry them back to the night clubs of
San Antonio. The ferry charges into the port in a surge of white water and
amidst much shouting and gesticulating its heavy dock lines are looped over
large rusty bollards on the dock and a steel pasarelle thumps down in the
middle of the queue, sending the waiting holiday makers scrambling for
safety. With everyone blaming each other for this near death experience, the
drama subsides and the waiting brown bodies are shepherded into lines of
plastic seats on deck. With the casual skill that comes from repetition, the
crew retrieve the killer pasarelle, free the mooring lines with a flick of
the wrist and with a roar from the engines the ferry reverses away from the
dock and powers out of the port, a huge rooster tail of white water
streaming from its stern. Once more, quiet descends on the port but already
the queue is forming for the next ferry. We browse in the boutiques in the
port and buy another fishing lure from the chandelry with the usual looks of
indignation when i question the efficacy of yet another improbable looking
lure, costing 25 Euros and soon to be joining the collection of rusty hooks
and brightly coloured baubles that is my tackle box.
We climb thankfully back into the rib and skim across the shimmering water,
stopping for lunch at a beach restaurant on Formentera, which is heaving
with bodies. The car park is thick with scooters and mopeds and we think of
Jamie who spent most of his holiday with us looking for an opportunity to
ride a moped. Then it's back to the tranquillity of our bay. We don swimwear
and head to the beach and take the footpath through the dunes to the mud
baths which are famed for their powers to restore aged skin to its former
youthful sheen. The mud baths are pools of disgusting looking muddy water
that sit within a large inland salt marsh. I step gingerly in and my feet
sink into the gooey mud, thankfully only ankle deep. I take a handful of the
grey gritty substance and as i spread it on my skin it gives off a strong
waft of sulphur which i assume is all part of the rejuvenating process. We
cake ourselves in the mud, which after a while feels reasonably pleasant,
rather like a coarse exfoliating cream, and then we race into the sea to
wash off the goo which has by now caked itself to our bodies. The remarkable
thing is that as the mud washes away it leave our skin feeling incredibly
soft with a slight oily sheen, but the scent of sulphur lingers as we head
back to the boat.
Tomorrow Andrew flies to Ibiza and will join us in the evening for the sail
to Palma, our final destination.
