This bay was a favorite destination of German tourists and you could see them filing ant-like with multi colored inflatable’s like blades of grass over head, as they made their way from the hotels on the hill down to the beach. The bay was backed by pine tree’s and then rocky mountains. The hotel developments were pretty ugly but it was a nice wide bay with a sandy bottom. There was chop from the various tour boats, seadoo’s, and banana boat’s through most of the day.
Scotty was keen to try out a Seabob, and there was a dealer located in the bay we were in. The guy’s went over to the shop ( having to navigate through a cove thick with swimmers), and Scotty rented one for the day. A Seabob is a water scooter that pulls you through, and under, the water. You can adjust speed and power (high-speed = lower battery life), and it has a governor for depth. This one was set to 2.5 meters or so. It didn’t take too long to get comfortable with the hand controls, and Layla buzzed over and towed me back to the big boat. It was a great way to spend the time when it was too rough aboard for boat projects or computer work, and we had a fun few hours diving and porpoising.
At a cost of 11,000 euro to buy one though, we weren’t sure if it was that much fun!
When it calmed down in the evening, we loaded everyone into our dinghy for a trip to shore which would require a beach landing. Back when we cruised Mexico we had a set of wheels that you could deploy, making it easy to run the dinghy up the beach. This dinghy didn’t have those yet, and they hadn’t been needed in the Med thus far. The guys turned us around in the shallows, and we hopped out and walked the last few meters before they slid it up above the water line. After a walk along the beach and brief check on the possibility of dinner ashore (everything was closing, something we hadn’t calculated as usually dinner in Spain happens around 10pm or later), we had a sun setter at the beach shack, and then headed back for dinner aboard. The conditions remained calm and everyone was well rested the next day, which was Wed July18..It was surprising to realize we had left France only 2 weeks ago as it seemed so much longer.
With rare calm water around us, we decided to give the hull, sail drives, and props a good scrub, and knock off the accumulation of small barnacles and green fuzz. It took a couple of hours but it felt good to get it done, and we hoped it would help with boat speed and fuel efficiency. (As a chore, it’s much more fun than vacuuming!). Scotty and Layla were keen to move on as they had a day stay lined up in Marina Alcudia at the northern tip, and wanted to be handily located to get in early the following morning. We had to solidify a booking at a Marina in Sardinia and supply them with a sheaf of documentation, so we stayed put and spent the rest of the day doing paper work. Later the next morning we headed in the same direction and anchored off the marina, in a shallow bay with somewhat sketchy holding. The plan was for Todd to meet up with Scotty in the marina and they would drive a rental van back down to Palma to collect the wayward dishwasher and lounger’s which had finally arrived. In addition, we now needed a new bilge pump and swim step shower hose which had broken, (the latter causing us to note the problem with the former, hey!), and light provisioning. Dallas, a good friend of Scotty and Layla, and was arriving on a 6 pm flight in Palma so it was a full day. We got anchored in 9 feet of water and backed down as usual, getting a satisfying lurch indicating the anchor had dug in (This was the first place we had been where you couldn’t see the bottom). After monitoring our position on the GPS track, it looked good and I buzzed Todd into the marina. En route, the boat in front of us waved us down and indicated the holding was so so (This was done by a kind soul who was a very tanned and topless woman in her late 60’s ). I was planning to stay on the boat all day and get some cleaning done, and monitor the anchor. The bay was very busy due to the many resort hotels ashore, so jet boats, jet ski ‘s small craft, tour boats, and banana boats were out in force, making it pretty rock and rolley again. We did drag a few times, each time resetting thankfully. I lifted the dinghy out at 5 pm after a combination of wind gust and boat wake caused the anchor to drag yet again.
At this point I was preparing my re anchoring strategy as it was an onshore breeze and the water was already pretty thin. The wind died off towards 7.30 pm and the boat stayed put, so when the lads were back with a full van, I launched the dinghy again and retrieved Todd. We went ahead and re anchored out in the bay with more space and a better, sandy bottom. When we retrieved the anchor it was full of a junk pile of plastic, old line, mud, and weed. Our new spot was a vast improvement, and it stayed calm all night making it easy to get the necessary sleep after the busy and stressful day.