Month: August 2024

We arrived at our “winter berth” at Yacht Port Cartagena Spain on 24 August. We finished our summer sailing season with bittersweet memories of the interesting places we visited. I’ll start by talking about the storm that whipped through the Balearic Islands on 14 August. This storm actually started on mainland Spain, dumping record amounts of rain in Madrid (which is historically very dry) and then quickly moving to sea, striking the islands of Ibiza, Mallorca (where we were at the time) and Minorca. This news video gives a very good summary of the strength of the storm, and what it did in some places.

On that same day, we were anchored just East of Palma, at the suburb of Es Fornas – where we had been for the past three weeks. We knew that some windy weather was coming in, but to be frank, we underestimated what was coming – and were not prepared for it. We were well anchored in just 16 feet of sand, with only about 60 feet of chain out – and our very solid, very low (giving a big increase in the scope) snubber. It can be a challenge to anchor in many of these islands, because you have to plant your anchor in sand. If you put the anchor (or chain) on seagrass, not only is it “poor holding”, but you can be fined thousands of euros. To be honest, we needed to be anchored in deeper water, and with more chain out. I made a simple video of the conditions in our anchorage, the day before the storm.

When the storm stuck, our neighbours James Cole and his wife Barbara were anchored close to us (in slightly deeper water, further from shore) on COMPLEXITY. Barbara and Jim were “hunkered down” in the cockpit of their boat – with their engine running to ease the strain on the anchor. Diane and I were also in the cockpit of our boat, observing the clouds moving in. We also started our engine, idling forward, and when the incoming swell reached 1.5m – decided that we should move, as it appeared that we were dragging, and moving dangerously closer towards shore. Normally, picking up the anchor might take 2 or 3 minutes, moving up slowly on the chain, until you are directly over the anchor and then running forward “breaking out the anchor” and picking up the remainder. However, with the incoming swell pushing over 2m at times (in only a depth of 16 feet), Diane could not keep JOANA moving forward in a straight line, but we were zig-zagging over the anchor. There was a lot of strain, a lot of force on the bow of JOANA as the chain tugged from one side to the other. In addition to the cold rain thundering down on me, I had warm ocean water rushing over my feet, at least a foot. We were “hobby-horsing” up and down, as I was desperately trying to get the anchor up, and safely stowed on deck. At some point, three stainless steel bars broke from their welds, and the anchor chain was no longer in the centre, over the roller, but was instead pinned in place against the toe rail on the side. I decided to continue pulling the anchor up, and this is when it was out of the water, and wildly swinging.

We quickly motored away from the beach, dodging other anchored boats and planted the anchor, in deeper water (over 30 feet) where we knew there was sand. I put out 150 feet of chain, and we rode out the rest of the storm in less swell (maybe .7m) and less stressful conditions. Later that day, Barbara and Jim contacted me and offered some unedited video footage – that I later stitched together to illustrate what happened. These are not professional videos, and it is only hastily put together, and it will never accurately depict the conditions we experienced or the stress we felt. Here it is.

Lesson learned – If you can, anchor in deeper water, wherever possible, even 25 feet is much better than 16 feet. There is less developing swell from incoming waves. There are also less bugs and less anchored boats nearby.

A few days after the storm incident, we motor-sailed west to the next island, Ibiza – a well known party and tourist “paradise”. It is very well known for loud and obnoxious tourists who go to discos late into the morning, much to the chagrin of “older” people like us. LOL. We did visit another Lidl (discount supermarket), and loaded up on groceries, but passed on the opportunity to partake in this mini-golf tourist venue. Have a look at this offering: mini-golf for up to 2 hours, bottomless cocktails, beers and soft drink, all you can eat pizza – only 45 euros per person. Nothing there for us. But – check out the “resident” price of only 8 euros per adult. Holy cow!

After a few days, we then sailed even further west and made our first landfall on mainland Spain, Calp. This is what we saw along the coastline.

We are now in our winter berth at Cartagena Spain, and loving it. More posts in the future will cover this phase.

We did enjoy our summer cruising holiday, but we will not miss the lumpy anchorages, nor the inconsiderate power boaters who drive dangerously close to anchored boats blasting by at 18 knots and throwing a 1.5m wave into the peaceful anchorage. No, we do not forgive them, and we will not miss them. We have moved on.

From Mahon, we sailed to our first anchorage on Mallorca at Cala Varques, then Illa Gavina, then S’Estanyol, then to our present location at Es Fornas. We mostly moved to accommodate wind shifts. We stayed at Es Fornas for over three weeks. It was a convenient place to go ashore, get groceries and to visit Palma.

We have been living on “water maker water” for over 15 years. Many people have commented on the health aspects of living with desalinated salt water, which basically contains almost nothing, lacking some essential minerals. We have found that eating a diet that contains fresh fruit and vegetables will easily make up for the lack of minerals. However, it took us years to understand how laundry and dish soaps misbehave. In particular, Diane commented years ago that our washing machine failed to make the clothes clean, and attributed that to our water maker water. So, for many years we have tried to wash clothes using water “from the other tank”, the tank that contains dock or rain water – and not water maker water. This has mostly worked for us, but here in the Med – it doesn’t seem to rain much in the summer. Therefore, we became re-energized in our efforts. We have discovered that by including an inline cartridge (2.5” X 10”), we can re-insert essential minerals back into the water maker product water, as the water flows from the water maker to the tank. This is what the purchased, uninstalled cartridge looks like.

I easily installed it under the floor in the galley area. When living onboard, the cartridge is expected to last about a year. We have already noticed the difference with the dish soap and the laundry.

With our passage from Tunisia to Sardinia nearly three months ago, we had many mainsail track sliders popping out of the track on a downwind passage. The last time this happened was on passage through the South Pacific in 2015. After a quick inspection of the Tides Marine mainsail track, it was apparent that we needed to buy a new one again. After contacting the Florida office, I was put in touch with their office in Palma Mallorca – and that is just one reason that we came here. The Palma office ordered me a replacement track, and Diane and I rented a car to go fetch it. This is the old track (headed to the rubbish bin) laying on the deck.

The old one came down very easily, but the new one was quite a bit stiffer, and both of us worked very hard for several hours to get it up. The job is done now. We should be fine for ten years.

Twice, we have driven in to Palma by renting an e-scooter (125cc equivalent) similar to one of these. It’s quiet, easy to drive, and we used it to buy boat parts at chandleries and visit the downtown area. Downtown Palma is about a 35-40 minutes drive. We’re still “safe” to drive a scooter.

We bought a new 12V air pump! For years, we have been pumping up our dinghy (and chronically under-inflating it) with a manual foot pump. This is fine if the dinghy is on the dock, or even on our foredeck. However, when the dinghy is in the water, it can be a challenge as you try to balance yourself while pumping with one foot. It really also takes two people, a second person to hold the inflation hose against the valve! We stopped in at Decathlon last week and bought this nifty 12V corded pump. It has a pressure gauge, and will turn off when the desired pressure is reached. I connect it to a “large” Lithium portable battery that I bought a few years ago. This is now an easy, one-person job – and nobody needs to do a balance show while pumping up and down!

With one of our trips to Palma, we visited the Cathedral of Santa Maria of Palma (Cathedral of St. Mary of Palma), more commonly referred to as La Seu (a title also used by many other churches).

This is a Gothic Roman Catholic cathedral built by the Crown of Aragón on the site of a Moorish-era mosque. The imposing cathedral is 121 metres long, 40 metres wide and its nave is 44 metres tall. By way of comparison, the height of the central nave reaches 33m in Notre Dame de Paris, 38m in Reims, 42m in Notre-Dame d’Amiens and 48m in Saint-Pierre de Beauvais, the highest of all Gothic cathedrals. It is quite an impressive cathedral.

Cathedral construction was begun by King James I of Aragon in 1229 but only finished in 1601. It sits within the old city of Palma atop the former citadel of the Roman city, between the Royal Palace of La Almudaina and the episcopal palace. It also overlooks the Parc de la Mar and the Mediterranean Sea.

Downtown Palma is beautiful with many green spaces and parks, and we enjoyed strolling around.

A few weeks ago, our friends Kevin and Sandy on SV NOCONA MOON had to fly back to the USA to attend a funeral. We were close enough to Cartagena that they just continued on for the last two days to make their landfall and finalize their flight arrangements. After being here at Palma for a few weeks, we finally reconnected with more circumnavigators – Jim and Barbara on SV COMPLEXITY.

We first met Jim and Barbara when at Pangkor Marina Malaysia in 2017/2018 and then again as they passed through the Red Sea in 2020. Like us, they are slowly moving West on their circumnavigation.

In addition, we were also invited aboard SV SUNDANCE yesterday for evening sundowners. They were sailing together with SV COMPLEXITY and arrived at the anchorage a day later.

We first met Glen and Ola, in Belatong Indonesia in 2017. Like us, they are slowly sailing West, but will likely do their Atlantic crossing this year.

The water and beaches around our anchorage (Es Fornas, in the suburb of S’Arenal) are noticeably clean, possibly thanks to this boat sea water cleaner!

We have enjoyed walking around ashore, picking up groceries and assorted items. The city is very clean, and yes – there are lots of tourists walking about.

Lastly, Diane finally got “her tattoo”. She has wanted to get a tattoo of a little butterfly for a long time. So, a few days ago, she walked into a shop and had one inked onto her ankle. The only immediate downside – is that she can’t go swimming for 7 days! I wonder how the fly-in tourists get around this? They must get their ink the day they fly out?