Old Ibiza town looks lovely from the Marina, not at all like the programmes you see on the TV.
We stayed in Ibiza town for two nights. There were a nice couple on an Ovni called Z13 one side with Tina, John and daughter Niam on board. They were on their way back to the UK having sailed down the canals of France and around the Med for the last year. On the other side was Wendy and Andy on Sallywag sailing in company with Karen and Paul on Rockhopper.
The view of the town of Ibiza from the ferry.
Early on the 5th we left our ‘pea in a pod’ mooring in Ibiza for Cana Cala just eleven miles along the coast. When we arrived we were the only boat to anchor there now why was that? Oh i see.....we have a ferry that goes past regularly and so close we can almost shake hands with the passengers. No nude bathing here.....
You can see the usual resort type hotels and shops that you would expect to find along these warm sandy beaches.
Secluded islands are few and far between but if you look beyond the built up shore line lovely mountains rise up giving lovely backdrops. Not in this pic though....
A trip ashore showed this to be a very tourist part and I saw my first holiday rep in her airline type uniform. Tall slim and blonde with a tan showing her football shirt clad and kiss me quick hat clients the best places to get you’re English breakfast and fish and chips.
I'm now sounding like a snob but we have found that a lot of Brits like to keep it very British when abroad. We prefer to soak up the culture and experience new things. We heard you could go to one bar and watch all the soaps and catch up on the latest football matches.We had to think hard about this one, 'tongue in cheek' however, if it has been showing 'Strictly come dancing' who knows......
Looking out to see at Wild Bird at Anchor
For those heathens amongst you that's the Cornish flag of St Pirens flying, the second this trip, flag one disintegrated about ten months ago, not bad for £4.99.
We decided to move around the coast a little to another anchorage in San Vincente, another holiday resort but not so built up. High cliffs on either side of a white sandy beach with a few smaller hotels looked more inviting.
The wind was good and we managed a sail but had to go between the main land and an island. The wind being northerly and around 20 knots meant we had to sail around the outside of the island and put a tack in. We couldn’t remember the last time we had tacked the boat, would we remember what to do? Well no worries, it went smoothly but I think we were a bit premature and ended up motor sailing for a while so we didn’t end up back where we had started from. We arrived and settled down for peaceful evening at anchor. Rockhopper and Sallywag turned up and anchored a little way off.
We have a mission and that’s to be in Barcelona around the 12th May so we decided to go across to Mallorca early morning.
A 45 mile crossing and an easterly of around 10 knots meant if we wanted to get there sooner rather than later we had to motor sail some of the way. It seemed every time Carol put on the throttle the wind came up, when she turned it down so the wind went down. Rockhopper and Scallywag had the same idea and left early too. We are now all anchored in Santa Ponsa.
We heard from some friends on a another boat, slightly bigger than us that they had paid 137 Euros for one night on the holding pontoon. This is crazy, the marina was almost empty and at those prices will remain that way. We have paid various prices from about 19 Euros to 50 out of season. The season start date varies but some have started their summer rate already.
Barcelona main town marina is 48 Euros, a tad high but this will be a trip we think is worth paying for.
About 5 miles out of crossing to Mallorca we could see these things floating by, on close inspection we realised they were what I think are after looking at a few books ‘Velella vellela’ or by the wind sailor’s or another name for them is the blue bottle. They are an oceanic surface dwelling jelly fish and move about in colonies. This colony was in the billions and we saw them almost right across from Ibiza to Mallorca. I managed to scoop one up for a photo shoot.
Not the most flattering view and i hope he/she doesn't mind but this was looking up the skirt, the picture below shows the sail that sits above the water. This one was about 2 inches across.
I've finished my first three books of, The number 1 Detective agency so thanks Liz I’ll return them next month.
I also read yesterday My cousin Rachel and have been reading what advice Stephen King has to give in his book on writing.
All this reading again has come up for two reasons, one we are at anchor and I have no tinternet and two, my laptop is having a funny turn and wont charge, I'm using 12 volts at the moment and Carols dongle to upload this blog entry.
Bill and Lynn on Fiz have joined us here and will be our sailing companions for our next leg. Tomorrow when we take off for our 120 mile trip to Barcelona. With any luck I will have some wild pictures to upload, I can't wait. Apparently mugging is an issue but I couldn't go without my camera so I'm taking a chance. The last time I left my camera behind because of pick pocket warnings I regretted it so my warning to muggers 'I have a great right hook'.
It's John on Vagabonds Birthday today so HAPPY BIRPDAY JOHN, cheque is in the post.
Comments