Fai Tira anchored at Formentera.   38:46.77N 01:25.60E

16^th August 2011

We stayed in Cala Longa, longer than expected because they were celebrating the anniversary to their patron saint.  There were a few events arranged throughout the day cumulating in a firework display at midnight. 

Cala Longa a great anchorage.

We anchored just off the beach in 3 metres of water over sand.  We thought we would get a great view of the fireworks from here.  Wrong more about that later.

We rowed into shore to see what was happening for the celebration and stumbled across display of vintage motor bikes. Some of the older readers probably had one of these. 

A couple of old BMW and BSA combo’s.  There were BMW combo’s still in the German army  colours, one even had hand grenades on the sidecar. 

We found out that nothing much more was happening until 7pm so we returned to our favourite beach bar and had a pint and some lunch.

We spent quite some time under this tree.  Only because it was so cool in the shade.  On our return to FT we found a notice stuck to the hull asking us to move out of the bay for 9pm.  We thought we would be OK for the fireworks where we were.  We chilled out on FT for the rest of the afternoon and rowed back into town for 7pm and saw the reason they wanted us to move!

The mortars were placed at such a low angle that they would have blown us out of the water.  They had even targeted FT!!!! 

We decided to watch to traditional Ibizan dancing and then move the boat. 

The dancing was very strange.  The men jumped about a bit like Morris men while the women just moved about like Daleks.  It was great to see all the same.  We rowed back again and moved FT a couple of hundred yards out from the beach safe distance from the incoming barrage.  We then returned to the beach to watch an English rock band doing some old covers and a local band singing believe it or not in Spanish. 

We got in the dinghy for the last time and headed back to FT to watch the fireworks.  We were suprised that none of the other boats near where we were previously anchored had moved.  Probebly they hadn’t been targeted like us being locals!!

The low level display was good to watch, but not a patch on the Dartmouth regatta show.  We retired to bed about 1am and had a good night’s sleep knowing that FT hadn’t been blown out of the water.

Today we lifted the anchor at 9.30am and motored to Formentera passing Ibiza town.  The route was really busy with yachts, gin palaces and ferries we had to keep a good lookout all the time.  When we reached the anchorage at Espalmador we couldn’t believe how popular it was.  Hundreds of boats all crammed together.  I found a space not far off of the beach and we dropped the hook.

The beach was lovely and not to busy because you could only get here by boat.  We saw quite a few nudist’s some of them covered from head to toe in mud.  We both investigated the source but decided not to indulge.

We still have no wind so we will stay another day before heading to the Spanish main land.

Tomorrow Baz is going to introduce me into the art of Geo Cacheing.

Pete and Baz.