July 13, 2012 Leaving Mallorca, slowly

sailing around the north shore of Mallorca 

Hiking at Soller with Len and Lesley, friends from Pollenca 

Soller harbor 

After spending three weeks relaxing in Puerto Pollenca, meeting up with friends from Barcelona, it’s time to move on.  Forecast was calling for NE wind, which was promising for 3Rivers to head west around the north shore of Mallorca, to get closer to Ibiza. Since Puerto Pollenca is a huge bay, it takes almost 2 hours motoring in strong headwinds, just to get out.  But as soon as we turned the corner, we were ready to sail. And true to any weather forecast, the wind is always 5 to 10 knots either more or less than expected and we got more.  We were told that Cala de la Calobra, behind the Torrente de Pareis, a large and spectacular bay with a slit in the high rocky cliffs, could be an excellent spot to anchor.  However, the bay was too exposed on this day and we saw three fair sized yachts rolling not-so-happily as swells were making their way into the bay.  So we decided to head to Soller, one of our favorite towns and the only harbour of refuge on the whole 50 mile stretch of the rugged, inhospitable northwest coast of Mallorca.  The last time we were here, it was in May and the place looked so different after two months.  Both the marina and the bay were packed with boats.  More tourists on land, and that led to more shops and restaurants open for business.  Another boat from Puerto Pollenca was also there, and we spent time hiking and dining with Len and Lesley until two days later when we each going the opposite way.  We did another five hours run to Sant Elm, but this time, we were sailing with great wind behind us, instead of motoring.  Unfortunately, not so much for Len as he must be bashing into head wind all the way back to Pollenca.

 Sant Elm bay

Things you can do with a dog...

Hiking trail, overlooking the Isla Dragonera 

Road signs for the trails: the large one made of stones points another way.

The second time in Sant Elm was a charm.  It’s a pleasant bay with sandy beaches.  Although small, it’s a growing tourist resort with a nice ice cream shop, and a very nice restaurant called Es Moli.  Ben had made a reservation for a mooring ball (free!) for the first day and were we glad that we did.  The bay looked very chaotic, with boats of all sorts, and water activities going on everywhere.  As soon as we turned into the bay, the port authority staff, the boat traffic controller, zoomed right up to us from his zodiac.  At the time of our arrival, every mooring ball was already taken.  One ‘unauthorized’ boat was told to go to make room for us.  We felt so important. 

The next day, after some boats had left, we’d decided to move closer to shore and anchored just beyond the buoyed off area for swimmers.  The water here was simply crystal clear.

We almost didn’t want to leave Sant Elm as this little place had almost everything we needed.  But strong wind was blowing into the bay, so up the anchor and off to Santa Ponsa we went.  Same as last time we were here, we did not spend too much time checking out the area although it was considered as one of the most picturesque harbours in Mallorca.  Again, boats of all sizes can be seen here, but one in particular, Candido, with a look of a spaceship, was anchoring right in the middle of the cala. 

The next day, it’s time for us to cross the water and to the party land of Ibiza.

Eating our way through the Balearics: our waiter serving John Dory, a delicious local fish 

This has got to be the most extraordinary mega yacht we've seen!

Time to say bye to Pollenca July 6, 2012

The 'Pine Walk' at Pollenca Bay

A day at the beach, looking out to the large anchorage 

Market day at Pollenca

We have been enjoying our stay at Pollenca, and before you know it, three weeks have gone by! After a while Puerto Pollenca has become ‘our’ neighborhood. We know the good restaurants with suckling pig, roasted lamb shoulder, and sizzling steak; the little shop with wonderful home-made pastries; and the well-stocked groceries.  We routinely take the 5-minute dinghy ride from our boat to shore, do a little grocery, or stop by a coffee, or take an evening walk. A few of our friends from Port Vell in Barcelona are also anchored here, plus some new yachties we’ve met, so we have a bit of social life going, including a birthday dinner. Summer has quietly arrived, bringing the occasional heat wave – especially if it’s a south wind from Africa. But most days the temperature is pleasant, as there’s usually a cooling sea breeze at the anchorage. The bay of Pollenca is very big, but it’s well sheltered from the swell from the open sea.

We had one gale which was not really forecasted. It started in the afternoon, and the wind kept strengthening until it peaked with 48 knot gusts. The sound on the rigging was like a freight train, white caps whipped up within the short fetch and immediately blown flat into foamy spindrifts. Boats all around were dragging, including some unoccupied boats that drifted out into the middle of the bay. It was pandemonium! There is a government seaplane hanger at the other side of the bay, and fire-fighting seaplanes routinely takeoff and land on the water. We watched a seaplane landed during the height of the gale, and the plane was blown backwards on the water, unable to reach the hanger! Miraculously our anchor held. It went on for hours until mid night when it finally winded down.  And the hope to watch the Euro 2010 final, Spain vs Italy, was blown off as we wanted to stay on the boat, just in case.  We knew Spain had won, by the sounds of firework and cheering. 

Storm looming, our summer awning wildly flapping 

Forecast called for a moderate 20 knot wind, but it peaked at a gale force level of 50 knots. The blue boat dragged anchor and was getting blown out of the bay.

Seaplane unable to land on the water and forced to depart

Finally it’s time to move on. We picked a blustery day to sail west-ward around the northern coast of Mallorca, towards Ibiza, the next Balearic island. The fresh easterly was directly behind us and we made good speed on a dead run, with poled-out genoa and staysail wing-on-wing. But we had forgotten how choppy the sea can be, with a 15-20 knot wind having blown through the night. Anything not secured in the cabin was sent flying.  Ah, too much wind, too little wind….

 One more hiking trip before leaving Pollenca. This is Saint Boquer, a scenic pass looking out the north coast of Mallorca.

Puerto Pollenca June 17, 2012

We sailed the 50 miles to Pollenca, stopping at Cala Agulla, a nice bay that’s sheltered from the blustery SE wind for an overnight stay. Overnight the wind reversed directions and started to blow right into the bay. The calm, sheltered anchorage quickly became extremely rolly, so we took off early next morning and sailed, closed-hauled, the rest of the way into Pollenca Bay. We rarely use the engine these days; by taking the time and waiting for favorable weather window, and with anchorages that are all within half-day’s sail, we always sail. It feels great!

Plenty of boats anchored in the Bay of Pollenca 

Polenca is a large, sheltered bay, and some cruisers stay here the entire summer. This will be our last stop before we depart Mallorca and go to Menorca, the eastern Balearic Island. We have been here for a week, just relaxing and visiting surrounding areas. The town at the bay is a large resort town with plenty of restaurants and shops. The old town of Pollenca is actually about 10 km inland, located to provide some safety from attacks by pirates. We took a long walk to the old town on a lovely Thursday morning. It’s a picturesque small town, with a beautiful town square, tidy ochre-coloured stone houses, winding lanes, and of course fine churches, including the 18^th-century Parroquia de Nostra Senyora dels Angels and the Convent de Santo Domingo, where it holds Pollenca’s Classical Music Festival in July and August. The musical activities take place in the Cloisters and the grand piano is already there. We also walked 365 steps up a steep hill to visit the chapel El Calvari. It’s a small chapel with a Gothic Christ on the altar carved in wood.  After a lunch rest at Manzana y Peras at Placa Major, we continued for an hour-long hike up a hill to visit the monastery Puig de Maria. The monastery has a commending view over the Bay of Pollenca to the north and the Bay of Alacudia to the south.

Climbing the steps to the chapel El Calvari

The view from Puig de Maria  

The next day, while resting to recover from our long walks, we watched a neighboring boat getting stuck on a shallow patch. The inner Bay of Pollenca, where it is more sheltered, is very shallow with only about 3 meters deep. That’s fine for sailboats that typically have 2 meter draught, except there are some shallow patches less than 2 meter deep. This German boat dropped anchor at the proper depth, but overnight is swung onto the shallow. We spent several hours tried to winch them off, but in the end we needed the help of two powerful dinghies from a nearby sailing school, one pulling a halyard to heel over the boat, and another dinghy to pull the boat off the shallow and against the fresh afternoon breeze. It was quite an exercise. Afterward we had a wonderful supper with our new friends, Achim and Hartwig. The roast suckling pig and lamb shoulder were wonderful!

Lots of help to get Lazy Life unstuck from a shallow patch

A Scenic Drive around the Island June 6

We are tied to a mooring ball at Porto Colom, a large bay completely sheltered like a lagoon. The port authority managed the mooring balls which are intended for visiting yachts, but unfortunately they seem to be mostly used by local boats. We were able to find a vacant ball, but the lead-line is missing so we struggled to lift the heavy ball to tie our line through the chain underneath. The town is a fishing village on one side and a growing economy tourist resort on the other end. It’s a relatively quiet place, not much for scenery, but it’s a perfect place to leave the boat and go inland to do some sightseeing.

We rented a car and crisscrossed the scenic interior of Mallorca. Most of the island is semi-arid, dry with limited vegetation, but some parts are lush and covered with tall pines. We first went to Puig de Randa, on a tall hill overlooking the bay of Palma, there’s a sanctuary, Santuari de Cura. There are few tourists here. The musical sound of monks chanting drifts out of a small souvenir shop. Antique wrought iron farming tools scatter around in the courtyard as ornamental pieces, baking under the hot sun. A large garden anchored by tall palm trees swaying in the mountain breeze, semi-overgrown with exotic flowering plants. This is a wonderful place for meditation.

Santuari de Cura

Quaint towns in the plains of Mallorca

The very pretty, tiny village of Biniagual 

For our lunch stop we visited the small village of Biniagual. Half expecting another touristic place, we were pleasantly surprised to find that it was a beautiful small village nestled among vineyards, with completely no shops. Other than a small busload of German tourists, who quickly left, the village was completely deserted; not a soul was visible. Feeling like we had the whole village to ourselves, we walked through the quiet cobble stone streets lined with old, stylish houses, some with beautiful courtyards and gardens well-hidden by stone walls and tall hedges. A fountain quietly gurgles somewhere in a corner under the shade. Ah, someday, we should have a home like one of those, and properly retire…

  Monasterio de Lluc

Cap de Formentor

We visited the Monasterio de Lluc, an institution regarded by many to be the spiritual heart of Mallorca. Built in the 17^th and 18^th century, the monastery has an imposing Baroque church which contains the stone image of La Morenta, the Black Virgin of Lluc, supposedly found by a Shepard boy on a nearby hilltop in the 13^th century. We kept driving to the northern tip of the island, to Cap de Formentor, where the land narrows to a  strip of barren shear cliffs rising above the clear blue water of the open sea. It’s a beautiful spot, but too popular with tourists and the trails were crowded. So we turned around and headed back to our quiet anchorage, our smart phone/GPS guiding us through a labyrinth of deserted back-roads and through beautiful towns that were quiet in the late-afternoon heat.

Cabrera National Park May 31, 2012

We sailed the 10 miles from Mallorca to the Cabrera Island in perfect sailing condition – 10-15 knots wind on the beam, flat sea, blue sky. Plenty of other sailboats were in the vicinity, enjoying a weekend outing. We are moored at the Cabrera Island, which is part of the national park maritime reserve just off the southern tip of Mallorca. The park comprises a group of rugged island with numerous coves, small beaches, rocky shelves and sea cliffs. The waters here are exceptionally clear and one can easily see through 15 meters into the blue sea bottom.  No anchoring is allowed, and visiting vessels must make reservations to tie to one of the 50 mooring buoys available in the large, sheltered deep bay at Puerto Cabrera. In peak seasons boats are only allowed to stay one night; off season one can stay up to 7 days. The on-line booking web page is very difficult to find and to navigate, but luckily we managed to book our mooring for 4 days. And it’s all free of charge. The surrounding remains me of our sailing-camping at Killarney and Beausolie National Park in Georgian Bay, Ontario - the rugged coastline, the serenity, the clear water, but without the mosquitoes!

View from the hill-top castle overlooking the bay

Crystal clear water. And no jet ski allowed :-)

Hiking trail to the lighthouse 

The climate of island is semi-arid, but there is an exceptional variety of flora and fauna. Bird life is rich, including falcon, stormy petrel, shags, and many shearwaters. The small Balearic lizards are everywhere, ducking in and out of stone crevices. There are still a few professional fishermen on the island, using traditional small fishing boats, called Llaüt, and using hand-drawn nets; this activity is regulated to ensure the natural space is fully respected. There are several hiking trails that meander through the island and offer excellent vistas of the rugged coast. There’s a castle which towers over the harbor entrance. Built in the 14^th century, the stonework is still as good as new. We took a two-hour hike to see the large light house which stands at the western edge of the island at Punta de Ensiola. In this late-May, the weather is perfect for hiking – mid-20’s by mid day, a mountain breeze keeps the air cool, the calm Mediterranean Sea spreads out under an infinite blue sky. In the rain-ward side of the island, where there is a small forest of shady pine trees, stands a memorial to the thousands of French soldiers who were held as prisoners of war on the island during the Napoleonic war. Many perished from exposure, disease and starvation. It was a quiet place; most cruisers chose to hang around the water. We enjoyed the view from this perch, listening to the wind-driven sighs of the pine forest, the wind rolling off the sun-baked hills, and in the absolute quietness of the hills the only sound was the pines sighing, like waves after waves.

Western Mallorca May 20, 2012

We are slowly sailing counter-clockwise around the north-western shore of Mallorca, having departed Porto Soller and motored through the north side in light winds. Once the corner is turned around Isla Dragona, the shoreline is very different and is full of anchorages and harbors, all within a few miles from one another. We typically stop at an anchorage for a few days, and then sail for a few hours to the next one. That’s enough hard work for us! We stopped at Port Andraitx, a large harbor with a still active fishing fleet. Fresh catch are available for sale at a fish market every afternoon right from the fishing boats, but prices are steep. One afternoon we returned to our boat after a visit to town, and found that our boat was tied to our neighbor boat. Our anchor had dragged! Thankfully our neighbor was kind enough to had taken a line and secured our boat to his. The Andraitx harbor is full of debris on the bottom and is notorious for fouling anchors, but the opposite had happened to mine. I had the anchor properly set when we arrived two days ago, but the wind had shifted to the opposite direction, and the anchor was pulled out and did not reset properly. Well, time to think about getting a better anchor.

 Andraitx Harbor

 We had planned to sail to the next island, Ibiza, and spend a couple of weeks there, but the forecast of strong winds altered our plan. This is our first gale warning this season! Even though the Balearics is not as frequently windy as Sardinia, but yes they do get gales here too. So we are staying put at a small bay called Cala Portals. It’s an attractive bay sheltered on three sides by steep cliffs, with three small cloves that each have a sandy beach, beautiful water. The only down side is that it’s only 8 miles from the tourist center of Palma, and is very popular with all kinds of day-trippers. We settled into the anchorage when it was nice and quiet in the morning, but by mid-afternoon the bay was jam packed with all kinds of sailboat, powerboats, huge sight-seeing catamarans, and a few large yachts. Plus of course the chartered sailboats, usually packed with 6-8 people, coming in and simply dropping their anchors with minimal anchor rode, and immediately starting to drag.

Cala Portals, with some some ancient rock caves/tombs

Some big boats packing into the bay 

Michel and Martinique, sailed all the way from Montreal

The next day, a Canadian yacht dropped anchor in the bay. It’s a rare occasion to meet another Canadian sailboat. They stopped by in their dinghy to say hello, and we invited them onto our boat for coffee. Michel and Martinique are from Montreal. They built their own 32 feet fiber glass sailboat from scratch. It took them 10 years, and La Foret Deav seems to be a well-built, strong boat. They sailed it across the Atlantic, spent a year at the Azores, and are now slowly working their way through the Med. As true Northerners they enjoy swimming in the 18C water every morning!

Sant Elm May 11 – 14

We waited till noon at Soller for the land breeze to pickup and to sail west around the northern coast of Mallorca. The breeze did turn up in the harbor, but it was deceiving. Once we exited the harbor, the wind die down to a whisper, and we had to motor the entire 30 miles to our next anchorage. We were in the wind shadow of the island which blocks the prevalent southerly breezes. Around the Gulf of Leon and in Corsica and Sardinia it is blowing at 20 to 30 knots, but here we get nothing. Ah, too much, too little…

 Isla Dragonera 

Sant Elm bay

The bay at Sant Elm is the first secure anchorage on the north-west side of the island. Sheltered on three sides by small islands, the larger one being Isla Dragonera (use some imagination and you can see the dragon’s head and tail), the bay is a lovely quiet little spot with good holding. The white sandy bottom reflects the sun and turns the clear water into a beautiful turquoise blue. Schools of small fish swim around. There are some small beaches and resort hotels, a few boats anchored, people swimming in the still cold water. The weather is gorgeous, around 25C in the day, with a light breeze driving small, sparkling ripples in the sea, the blue sky shimmering. There is a small swell coming into the bay, rocking the boat gently. We like it here, doing some small chores, reading a book, watching boats coming and going, listening to the rhythmic surfs on the beach.

Our pigeon visitor checking out Eliza's cockie crumbs

One afternoon a messenger pigeon stopped by, either lost or on his/her way to somewhere. It was a beautiful bird, with a blue patch on just one shoulder. There were identification rings on both legs. She was clearly looking for human company, and stayed at exactly touch distance from us. She accepted some water, but declined our salted seeds. She slept at our cockpit in the evening, and by next morning she was gone, hopefully on her way to her destination.