Yesterday was a rather fruitless day spent travelling round in circles. We set off rather late in the morning hoping to anchor in a peaceful bay for lunch, only to find it so full of boats that there was no room for even one more. We had read that this was often the case but this was our first experience of it since arriving in Ibiza. We decided to head round the coast a little more but soon realised that this was not a good idea. There was no guarantee the next anchorage on our list had any space either and as the wind was building and would be against us the whole way it didn’t really seem worth it, particularly as we had no idea whether the anchorage would be protected from the swell.

 

 

Fishing boat at the bottom of the cliffs                                            San Miguel, a small holiday resort.

 

 

So we turned round and anchored in the bay off the beach of San Antonio, a very large town, about half a mile from where we had spent the previous night. The anchorage must have contained in excess of 250 yachts of varying shapes sizes and nationalities. We took the dinghy in to town but soon realised we were much too old for the activities on offer. The majority of visitors were twenty-something, mainly on holiday from the UK. Back on the boat we had a quiet evening in, in what turned out to be one of the calmest anchorages yet.

This morning we set off early to reach San Miguel well before the rush. We had read that this was a beautiful place and again, likely to be crowded. The journey took us along some spectacular scenery of wooded hills leading to sheer cliffs meeting the sea. The area is very undeveloped. We made good time to the anchorage and arrived in time to secure a spot for the day. It was indeed popular and many boats arrived during the day for either a long lunch or an overnight stop.

 

    

Our boat is right in the centre.                                                             Smugglers caves offer cool afternoon’s entertainment

 

We were real tourists in the afternoon. Going for a walk ashore, we saw signs for a cave advertised. We went in to find an old smugglers cave from many years back that smugglers had used to remove contraband from incoming ships and hide it until safe to move it on. It was a very well organised tour and we thoroughly enjoyed it, not least because the caves were about 10^o  cooler than the ambient temperature.

 

We always take great care when operating the windlass as we are aware of the damage it can do to small body parts caught in it’s machinery. We were quite concerned, therefore, when the gentleman on the boat next to ours went to weigh anchor completely naked......