first departure

finally the time arrived to leave gibraltar and start heading towards the canaries so peter and esteban left on october 28 but after two hours had to return to port because of a minor problem with the alternator and battery charger. it was minor because they were close to shore, had they continued like that, they would not have been able to charge the batteries, so of course they turned around. the problem was fixed within the next couple of days but unfortunately there was a bad front coming and they had to stay 10 more days waiting for the weather to give them a chance to depart again. in the meantime they celebrated halloween at the marina, visited sevilla and also spent some days at peter’s house in el rompido, in the south west part of spain.

madrid

a beautiful journey by train across most of spain revealed the most surprising sites: very rural and some very poor places; certainly something not expected of Europe. at the end of the line we arrived in the beautiful city of madrid. because we are now so accustomed to more quiet places, a city this big and busy is a bit overwhelming. our sightseeing here is not the most conventional. we enjoy things like the AC in the hotel room a nice big dry bed, or the nice long showers with the rarity of hot water. and believe it or not what we fancy the most is to go to the movies. all things that are not so common on board. but more than for tourism we came to madrid to renew a passport which not so unbelievable is already full of stamps and also to take my flight back home for a couple of months for now. a short stay with mixed feelings of course.

ibiza

ibiza is in the south of the balearic group and the most western island, very close to mainland spain. we had heard about this island but really did not know much about it. when we arrived we realized that the place is famous for the clubs, the music and the parties. the port of san antonio, where we anchored is not very pretty. it has tall ugly buildings from them 80s and the shops and restaurants are not stylish at all . everything is tailored for the tourist that visits this place which must average around 18 years of age. it is like cancun on spring break. little activity in the day and lots of parties at night. young europeans, mostly british, come here in the summer to party hard. Walking around the streets of san antonio confirmed to us that we are definitely getting old.


besides the craziness of the town, we found the port to be conformable and we enjoyed the company of other sailor friends we met here. in fact this island was particularly special for that. we met wonderful people from spain whom we went with to the famous café del mar bar and had some drinks. We also met a great couple from Ukraine and another from south africa. With all of them we spent some quality time.







we also did the typical touring around by bus this time and discovered some pretty and interesting parts of the town of Ibiza on the other side of the island. at the end we had a wonderful time here; not the typical party time but some more quiet and relaxing one!

valldemosa

after visiting palma on the cost we went up the mountains of the north of mallorca to soller. we actually never made it there but instead visited many other smaller towns and one particularly beautiful called valldemosa; small and quiet! definitely more of our type of place. in this town we saw that the back tire of the scooter had two big lumps. this made us choose smaller roads to get back to porto colom. driving at high speeds in the fast highway would have been very dangerous. we were actually lucky we did not have an accident on the way there. imagine that… having sailed safely through pirate waters and end up in an accident in a motorbike in the highway… rather pathetic. But nothing happened and we had a not so urban route back to port. small towns and countryside views.

palma really has it all: beaches, great ports, big cities and small, historical sites and architecture and even their own language which is not like Spanish; at least we could not understand. thankfully everyone also spoke spanish, so communicating was not a problem at all.

palma

palma is the main city in mallorca. we rented a scooter as usual and planned to visit a small beach town. when we arrived however we were very surprised to see the city was not small at all. it was big, busy, touristy and very developed. pretty of course but not quiet. it also looked very chic with excellent hotels, boutiques and good restaurants all over. the port, we thought was bigger than miami with many terminals for huge cruise ships. the marinas were the most fancy we have seen so far with mega yachts of the type we had only seen in boating magazines; all looked very sophisticated and luxurious and of course mega expensive. we were glad we did not arrive there in puerto seguro. not only it would have probably cost us a fortune, but our boat would have certainly looked like a dingui to the other big bots around.

getting there was in itself funny as we entered a huge 4 lane super fast highway without noticing; so there we were as fast as the little scooter would go, and looking 100% as lost tourists that could not find the small country side roads. so we had a very urban day between the many tourists but enjoying nevertheless the great sites such as the amazing cathedral and the shops and restaurants around.

porto colom

after another 300 miles due west from sardinia we arrived in the balearic islands of spain. we arrived in porto colom in the island of mallorca; an amazing spot full of boats at anchor in a fully protected cala. the bay is very shallow and is full of vessels from huge motor yachts to the typical cruising sailboats to the small lasers from the sailing academy with all the kids every day sailing around us.

on the shore the town has lots of restaurants, some of them super fancy and great stores and everything we could possibly need or want. we were happy to hear spanish on the VHF and also in the marina offices and the weather forecasts. it made us feel like at home. we quickly met our neighbors and were invited to have dinner with them on board their catamaran and with another couple that left from florida as well. it was wonderful, our first night in this port and we already had friends and a wonderful time. after that, every other day and night was similar, exploring the town and the nearby calas by dinghi. we visited the biggest cave so far in the water and as usual walked all around. another great spot!!