Santa Ponsa

We left Palmanova and took a short hop westward to Santa Ponsa which is a popular holiday destination.   We met up with yet another couple from Cartagena, Colin and Maggie, there were a lot of us there!    Ian spent some time cleaning the green slime that had accumulated on the bottom of the boat. It’s a hard life I know.

The Puig de sa Morsica Arachaelogical park is here, so off we went to explore!  It gave great views of Santa Ponsa and the surrounding areas.

View of Santa Ponsa

The rock that we climbed

View of the whol bay of Santa Ponsa

Banyalbufar

From here we were making our way up to Soller but on the way spotted a lovely village on the hillside called Banyalbufar.  There was only room for one boat in the bay so we dropped anchor.  We went ashore and walked into the village which was a very steep incline.  There were terraces of vineyards.  It was a beautiful.  The area was famous for the cultivation of the Malvasia grape variety for wine production, which modern vintners in Banyalbufar are now successfully re-establishing. We stopped for a glass of local wine and I can confirm it was very nice and so much so I had a second glass!  Very reasonable too.

Soller

Our next stop was Soller on 5^th Jul.  This was the first place we had arrived the previous month, 2^nd June, from the mainland, Mataro (Barcelona).  We met up with Mark and Nikki here who live there in the summer (we met them in Cartagena, yes more from our winter community).  Maggie and Colin were also here.  We stayed a few days here and watched more football, England v Sweden in a local bar.

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Every Thursday and Friday night here they have a “FoodFest on Wheels” at La Base.  We wandered along the far end of the marina quay side, through a car park and then behind large containers was the bar with small sofas laid out and a big screen to watch more football, this time the Brazil v Belgium.  We wondered where our map was taking us but so glad we found it.  There were various vans selling tapas, burgers and fish and chips.  Once the football was finished the band began which was jazz.  They were playing in front of the Superyachts, AKA “Gin Palaces”.  It was a great night!

Cala da san Vicente

Time to make tracks again, so off we went.  The coastline is quite dramatic along here.  We anchored in Cala de san Vicente, which is small tourist resort.  This was a beautiful little cala with crystal clear blue water.  We spent two nights here.  Ian put up his big sunshade, which I was bit wary about as I was thinking I might have to sit in the dingy to get any sun!  Any way it was fine as one half of the front was nicely shaded and the other half not, so were both happy!  I don’t sit in the sun as much as you would think I do, now that we have pretty much unlimited sun, but when we are in anchorage as stunning as this it’s nice to catch some rays.

Coastline from Soller to Cale de san Vicente

More Coastline from Soller to Cale de san Vicente

Cala de san Vicente

Ian under the sun shade

Fish in the clear water

Pollensa

We next headed to Puerto de Pollensa, which was quite different to where we’d left.  It was a big bay and quite windy that day.  We needed to get water and we’d been advised to tie along where the lift out crane was.  As we hovered, along came the marinero on his bike and directed us to the fuel berth in the marina.  The guy there told us he was too busy and to come back later.  Ian smiled nicely, yes I know, and he changed his mind and directed us to a quay on the other side and told us to wait over there.  As we tied up another marinero arrived on his push bike, connected us to the water and took our €10.  We filled up the tanks, our water carriers, solar bag and whilst this was happening we both had a shower so we would replenish the water we used and also gave the boat a wash over which is a luxury when you’ve been on anchor as you can’t use precious fresh water it has to be salt water.  We don’t have a water maker and you don’t know where the next place will be where you can get water so you have to be careful with it.

The town of Pollensa was a short bus ride.  This is a very historic town with lots of little narrow streets with many of the houses having been built in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.  We climbed the “365 Calvari Steps”, one for every day of the year, which hopefully worked off some of our lunch.  At the top was the Calvario Chapel. and fourteen three-metre-high crosses, evoking the ordeal that, according to Christian tradition, Jesus Christ suffered on the way to his crucifixion on Mount Golgotha.

We took the road route down from the church to the Roman bridge, it is one of the few remaining examples of Roman presence and crosses the Torrente de Sant Jordi.

We watched the last of the various football games here but sadly football wasn’t coming home.  After the England v Croatia game we watched a great band in the main square, which was mainly instrumental and the lead was a guy on a saxophone.

Puerto de Acludia

A short trip around to the next bay, just two and a half hours.  The seabed was a mixture of mud and weed and our revered Rocna would not set.  After three attempts we dropped our Spade over the side and it was fine.  After a few days we thought we’d give the Rocna another go, but to no avail so in went the spade again.  You have to have confidence in your anchor as you don’t want to be drifting!

We met up with some friends from home here who were on holiday, Julian and Ned, their children and some of Ned’s family.  Ian, Julian and a couple of other guys decided to go Go-karting.

Our final day in Majorca, we took the bus to Palma to meet up more of the Cartagena Crew, Garry and June, for a spot of lunch and to wish them Bon Voyage as they are going in a different direction to us for the winter.

We’d enjoyed Majorca but as always time to move on.  A hop across to Menorca before leaving Spain behind and heading to Sardinia.

As well as the Super Yacht Racing at Palma, World Cup fever was taking its grip so we did spend longer in some places than we probably would have just for the fact that some places had better access to watch some of the games.

We headed to Majorca on Friday 15^th June 2018, we had to motor for most of the way as there wasn’t a lot of wind.  We anchored up for the night in the Baha de Arta which is where Cala Millor is.  This is where I had one of my first holidays, when still just a teenager, yes that was a long time ago!

We headed to Palmanova, which is in the next bay to Magaluf.  Palmanova is full of bars and restaurants with all your favourite food from home!  A bit of a novelty for us.  The bay was big and so didn’t get too crowded, but you got the usual jet skis, power boats pulling inflatables, so it could be a bit rolly during the day but settled down fine early evening.  It was easy to get to a reasonably sized supermarket too.

Sunset in Palmanova

Ian and his beloved trolley

We left Palmanova bay to go and watch the start of the racing on the first day.  We were able to get up quite close.  The boats are so big that they start each one two minutes apart.

After the racing we decided to visit a lovely anchorage by the Ille de Torre, unfortunately a lot of other boats had the same idea.  It was the weekend and so is very popular with local day boats too.  At one stage I counted over 50 boats.  Boats are huddled very closely together which was a bit nerve wracking when bringing up your anchor as the boat in front of us found out when the bow sprit was coming towards them.  Ian did ask them if they wanted to move as they were sitting over our chain but they were quite insistent they were staying where they were and it would be OK.  The lady on the back had to grab hold of the bowsprit as it came towards her.  One guy took his dog over to the shore on a lilo which quite amused me.

Doggie travel

A view of the anchorage as we left

We went back to Palmanova after a couple of days as we wanted to watch the England v Panama game.  The local sports bar JJ’s was buzzing and the atmosphere was fantastic, particularly everytime England scored and we won!

The buses are very good on the Island and quite reasonably priced.  We took the bus to Palma and visited the Cathedral and the Palace.  The Cathedral of Santa Maria of Palma has one of the largest rose windows in the world and is known as the “Gothic Eye”.

In a corner of the Cathedral was a contemporary art installation by Miquel Barcelo and it was a modern take on the New Testament parable of Jesus feeding the 5000.

The Palace de l’Almudaina, which is opposite the Cathedral, is the official residence of the King and Queen of Spain although they do not tend to stay there.  It dates back to the 10^th century but was largely demolished by the Christians in the 13^th Century and rebuilt.

There is also Belver Castle in Palma which we decided to visit on a different day, however, we were caught out by the Spanish opening hours again.  Mondays it’s closed even in the busy tourist season of June!  So we had a walk around the old town of Palma instead.  The windmills which date back to the 14^th century can be found overlooking the sea on Barrio es Jonquet, an old fishing district.

When you go along the bay on the bus the boats sitting in the marinas go on and on and there are lots of very big boats.  Apparently there are approx. 3000 berths in the bay.

July 2018