We have now arrived in Sardinia, we left Porta Pollensa Mallorca on Wednesday 17th July with the intention of stopping of in Menorca for a few days. On our approach to Menorca we checked on the weather forecast, as the winds although not brilliant for sailing were in our favour,( as in not on the nose), we decided to would head straight to Sardinia. Our last sighting of Spain was as the sun went down, and what a sunset.
Our last few weeks in Spain were spent with Kevin’s daughter Rachel and the two granddaughters Summer and Taylor, once on board they were given strict instructions as to where they could go on the boat when on deck. As you can imagine where two small children are concerned this was challenged on several occasions, but on the whole they stayed within the cockpit area.
Their first night was spent in San Antonio, not one of our favourite places to say the least but it’s a good place to stay if picking people up from the airport. The following day we headed for Carla Basa, a place that had been recommended to us, the bay has beautiful clear waters and a lovely sandy beach, to say it was busy was an understatement. However once ashore the girls were straight in the water followed not long after by their mum and Kevin.
At one point Taylor started to play with the water pistol but she couldn’t quite get the hang of how to fill it, so I lent a helping hand, she then went without any direction from me, Kevin however thinks otherwise and squirted the whole lot of Kevin, he was not amused. She on the other hand thought this was great and was straight back in the water to refill, this time however she started to squirt it as she left the waters edge and managed to get a direct hit on a group of young Spanish teenagers, the surrounding sunbathers thought it hilarious.
The majority of people on the beach were young and trendy, and at one point we were treated to various fashion shows put on by slim leggy girls, Kevin was in his element. Whilst on the beach you can spend a great deal of money without moving of your beach towel as the various venders selling drinks, fruit, clothes, watches etc walk past you.
From Carla Basa we headed north with the intention of completely circumnavigating the island, our next stop was Portinatx, another lovely bay, with a play park, which both girls loved. We stayed there for three nights before heading off to Isla Togamago, there was no beach there so our intention was to stay the one night before heading south the next day. We chose Tagamago as a result of the predicted wind direction overnight so that we would escape the swell, we should have known better, the wind changed direction and so the boat rock and rolled all night, poor Rachel had not experienced this before and so hardly got any sleep as she rolled about the cabin.
One of the days was spent In Evissa Ibiza’s capital, which Rachel wanted to see, we weren’t sure how the girls would fair walking around in the heat and not going to the beach, but they had a great time especially walking up the hill to the old castle, especially in the tunnels where they could shout and hear the echo.
Our next stop was Formentera and Cala Sahona, one of my favourite places, the bay is crystal clear so you cant help but drop your anchor in sand, however it does get busy especially at the weekend but as the bay and the beach are quite big there is plenty of room. Kevin would take us to the beach in the dingy, and Summer would sit in the small blow up dingy left by Isaac, she thought this was great and would wave to all the other boat owners as we went past.
On the way back to San Antonio we stopped off at Cala Tarida, another cala that had been recommended to us, and whilst the area in which we were anchored was lovely and clear the water by the beach was a murky yellow and so we only stayed the one night before going back to Cala Basa which was Rachel’s favourite place.
Our last day with them was spent on the beach, we arrived early to find a nice spot near the waters edge, spread out the beach towels and settled down. The next minute we were surrounded by a hoard of school kids and their teachers for a day out at the beach, the noise was deafening at times and we were a little concerned that Summer and Taylor may end up merging with the group.
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| The latest toy being shown off |
Soon it was time to head back to San Antonio, Rachel took the helm and off we set, she is a natural sailor, obviously takes after her dad.
Some photo's of the girls:
On the morning they left we were up early, this was the first time we had to wake the girls normally it was them waking us. Whilst Kevin took them to the airport I started to get cleaned up. I was really sad to see them go and the boat felt empty without them.
With all the cleaning and washing done we left san Antonia as soon as we could and headed back to Portinatx, where we would head to Mallorca from the following day.
Unfortunately there was no wind the day we made the crossing and so we ended up motoring all the way, Kevin got really bored and started telling some dire jokes to pass the time.
Once back in Mallorca we quickly made our way back to Poto Pollensa, I had had a text from my friend Jill to say her and her husband Kevin would be arriving on the 15th July and so we arranged to spend a day with them before heading off to Menorca. We met them the following day and brought them back to the boat via the dingy Jill looked absolutely terrified but she managed to get in the dingy without falling which she is prone to. On board we had lunch and whiled away the afternoon reminiscing and catching up on the gossip, it was great to be able to show them the boat as they had heard so much about it.
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| Jill and Kevin |
That evening we went out for a meal before we said our goodbyes and they waved us off. The journey to Sardinia took just under three days and we clocked up 306 miles which took us over our first thousand for this year and so we celebrated as before with a steak and some pink Fizz
Since leaving mainland Spain we have mainly anchored overnight and have only been in a marina for three days, that was only due to the bad weather and poor holding in Alcudia bay. The new water maker has made this possible and although expensive it has enabled us to have greater freedom in where we choose to go and so a good investment.
We plan to spend at least a month cruising around Sardina, first impressions, it’s a lovely island with lots of good anchorages, nice sandy beaches and not overly commercialised. However the number of super yachts is far greater than we saw in Spain plus much bigger, and the majority British registered, who said there was a recession on.
We now connect to ships AIS database so for those who are interested you can see our present position on a Marine Tracking web site such as Marine Ttraffic.com, Shipfinder.com or Fleetmon.com
Search for "Miss Lilly" MMSI2350224444 and it should show our position.
Distance Travelled 2012: 2471Nm
Distance Travelled 2013: 1248Nm
Total Distance: 3719Nm
Our Present Position: https://maps.google.it/maps?saddr=41.000112,9.621765&hl=en&sll=41.023557,9.540939&sspn=0.113838,0.264187&mra=mift&mrsp=0&sz=13&t=m&z=13
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