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Sept 6, 2015, Lazy Bones Travelogue, Balearic Islands

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Sept 6, 2015, Lazy Bones Travelogue, Balearic Islands September 6, 2015, Lazy Bones Update: Cruising Spain’s Balearic Islands After spending ten months at home in Los Angeles, we were ready to begin our 2015-2016 cruising season. With three large pieces of luggage full of boat parts and one small one for clothes, we departed L.A. for England on July 9th to visit Jeff’s daughter Danielle, Darren, and our two year old granddaughter, Deven, who live in Hastings. It was great spending time together and seeing the changes in Deven, as it had been ten months since the last time we saw them on our way home to L.A. from Barcelona last September. The following week we hopped on a flight to Barcelona, spent the night at an airport hotel, and the next morning caught the bus to Sant Carles de la Rapita, 90 miles southwest of Barcelona, where Lazy Bones spent the winter on the hard. Juan, who runs the boat yard, organized a taxi to pick us up at the bus station and get us and our big bags to the boat. Just after our arrival customs showed up and removed the bond on Lazy Bones, officially starting the EU clock again. After decades of sailing, and eleven years of cruising, we soon learned that ten months is probably too long for Lazy Bones to stay on the hard. The repair list started growing. The bottom needed to be sanded back to the base, thru hulls needed to be replaced, and so many things broke it was hard to keep up with them all. To top it off, a heat wave intensified for the three weeks it took to get Lazy Bones ready to sail again. It averaged 95 degrees inside the boat while we were working, with ten fans running nonstop. We renamed the boat “Hell on the Hard”. At 8:00 pm we would finally quit, have a light dinner aboard, and walk to our air-conditioned hotel room near the port for a shower and sleep. Lazy Bones was launched back in the water on July 24th and we spent a week finishing up work at the dock. We decided to spend a few nights at a well-protected reef two miles from Rapita just to make sure all was running well. It was a good idea, because the generator, the fridge, and the galley sink pump stopped working the first night, even though they were working fine at the dock. Holy cow, what next? Jeff managed to make the repairs and got them up and running again. We kept our fingers crossed. The good news is that we had planned on spending a month in the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain and we were not on any timetable. On August 3rd we sailed overnight for Mallorca, 108 miles southeast of Rapita. Apparently everyone and their cousins had the same idea, as the traffic at night, especially ferries and cruise ships, made the radar screen look like a video game to dodge boats! The Balearic Islands of Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, and Formentera form one of the most attractive cruising grounds in the western Mediterranean. There are hundreds of anchorages and harbors, ranging from large metropolitan ports such as Palma de Mallorca to completely deserted anchorages in beautiful calas (inlets usually surrounded by cliffs with a sandy beach at the head). The islands are an interesting mix of modern infrastructure and European charm. Holiday development has definitely had its impact on the Balearics, with many calas lined with hotels and apartment blocks, with beaches full of paddle boats, banana boats, etc. But we also found that about half of the calas had nothing but aqua water and tree-lined cliffs. The cruising guide warned of the placement of mooring buoys in calas and the prohibition of anchoring, but we didn’t find this to be the norm. Granted, some of the calas were fairly small, but there were plenty of larger ones to choose from. We always found plenty of places to anchor, free of charge, even during the height of the tourist season in July and August. We did not go into any marinas, which are probably fairly expensive. Local bus transportation was easy and inexpensive. Most people spoke English as well as Spanish. Food was good and reasonably priced. At the waterfront restaurants a nice pizza averaged 10 euro, a tenderloin steak dinner was about 22 euro, and a glass of house wine was 3 euro. The euro to the U.S. dollar is at 1.12, a great exchange rate compared to 1.33 last year. Mallorca is the largest (62 miles long and 47 miles wide) and most cosmopolitan island of the Balearics, with a population of 530,000. The north and east coasts are mountainous with numerous coves, and the south coast has rolling hills and sandy beaches. There are many historical sites to visit, especially in the capital port of Palma on the southwest side of the island. We arrived at Puerto de Soller on the northwest side of Mallorca at 7:00 a.m. It is a well-protected harbor with sandy beaches and a cute waterfront town, surrounded by mountains and pine trees. We took it easy that day with swimming in the afternoon and dinner in town in the evening. The next day we took the very slow vintage train from the waterfront to old Soller town two miles inland (it takes 30 minutes, no kidding, to go two miles) to have lunch and see the old square, church, and shops. Soller also has an old Victorian train that goes to Palma, which is a popular and scenic one hour journey, but we planned on going there with our boat, so we passed on that excursion. In cruising the Balearic Islands it is wise to monitor the swell and the wind direction often. Having determined that the wind would be mostly from the west and northwest for the next few days, we decided to go clockwise around Mallorca, which also allowed us the opportunity to jump over to Menorca and back without having to backtrack. Heading east, we dropped anchor in the east part of Pollensa, a very large and protected bay on the northeast side of the island. Six months ago, through a very strange set of two degrees of separation, Jeff got reconnected with Bryan and Lynn Visser, who now live in Mallorca near Palma. Jeff had worked with Bryan more than 25 years ago at Unisys. Knowing that we were in Mallorca, Bryan and Lynn drove across the island to take us out to lunch in old Pollensa town. It was great to see them again and catch up on the last 25 years. We had a great time but it was far too short. We had hoped to visit them at their home in Santa Ponsa when we made it around to Palma, but Bryan and Lynn were in London for their son’s wedding by the time we made it to that side of the island. It will just have to be another time, maybe even in Los Angeles! Continuing clockwise we motored around the corner to anchor behind the breakwater at Alcudia, another large bay next to Pollensa. We took the dinghy to a marina restaurant landing, had lunch, and then walked 1.3 miles inland to the old town to walk the medieval walls and see the ruins of the old Roman city and theater. We had a nice dinner near the marina, and after checking the weather online, decided the next morning we would sail to Menorca 36 miles west. Menorca, with a population of only 60,000, is 26 miles long and 11 miles wide. It is much flatter than Mallorca, giving it a more barren appearance due to the rocky cliffs along the coast, but with many calas with pretty anchorages. We arrived at Cala Son Saura, a large bay surrounded by little more than pine trees and scrub, where we had a nice swim in the aqua water. The next morning we headed three miles further southeast to Cala Galdana, one of the prettiest calas we have visited. The town was picturesque and quite charming. We were hoping to spend several days here, but we saw the weather changing and wanted to make our way toward Mahon, the main town of Menorca, before the weather turned, so we picked up anchor and continued late in the afternoon, following the rugged coastline to Cala Binibeca for the night. The next morning we continued around the southeastern cape and on up to Mahon, where we anchored in Cala Taulera, one of only two anchorages permitted inside this enormous bay and harbor (the other anchorage is east of Isla del Rey). The anchorage was well-protected and quite crowded, with 30-40 boats at any given time, but everyone managed to find a spot. We are really grateful to have our 121 pound Rocna anchor, which keeps us well-secured with shorter scope in situations like this one. We took the dinghy further up the long inland channel to the pretty port of Mahon, the largest natural harbor in the Balearics. We tied up at the large dinghy dock well past the marina, walked around the town, and had a nice fish dinner on the waterfront. Early the next morning we took the dinghy to the shore next to the anchorage and walked up the road to visit the huge Fortress of Isabel II at La Mola, built between 1850 and 1875.
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