Mallorca turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment for
us. How they manage to keep 10 million
tourists coming back each year I will never know. Everywhere we went it was crowded (but not as
busy as people would like you to believe), the people rude, the rubbish
unbelievable and the local boat handling atrocious. The number of near misses and hits we took
beggared belief but eventually we opted for the local habit of having our
fenders handy when we anchored and tried to find spots in bays that were not as
attractive to power boaters!
First stop was the bay of Palma and Cala Portals… a nice
enough bay if it hadn’t been for the amount of wash created by passing boats. Every few minutes we were treated to a
tsunami causing anything that wasn’t secured or nailed down to make an attempt
on our lives. Thankfully it’s not
everywhere in the world that you have to keep the hatches battened down while
you are at anchor! Another unique feature of the bay was “Cock Rock”… and so
inspired were we by the parade of posing naked men exhibiting themselves on
said point that Murray penned a wee ditty entitled “Swing low, hairy bollocks”…
Swing low,
Hairy bollocks
Hanging down below the knee
Hairy bollocks
Hanging down below the knee
I looked over the beach and what did I see
A coming for to harass me
A band of naked men a looking out to sea
Oh why do you have to face me?
A coming for to harass me
A band of naked men a looking out to sea
Oh why do you have to face me?
Swing low, Swing low,
Hairy bollocks…..
Hairy bollocks…..
Anyway I digress… as the weather was still pretty iffy we
opted to hang around the Palma bay for a bit and moved around to Palma Nova and
“Shagaluf”. Here we saw a James
Bond-like new water toy which involves a wearing a backpack that fires water
out the bottom causing the user to “fly” around, hopefully in some sort of
direction. In other models the fountain
of water shot out of the bottom of a pair of boots; just as tricky to master as
fair as we could tell. Unfortunately the price tag of 6300€ per day to hire the
gear somewhat put us off. If the
Balearics are suffering a recession we certainly aren’t seeing any sign of it
here. Plenty of mega-mansions, big boy’s
toys and expensive accessories on show so far. (Just as an aside; what’s with
the idea of building out over obviously unstable cliffs and undermined caves
with building materials a child wouldn’t even throw together??)
Magaluf (Shagaluf!)provided endless entertainment for us and
on one morning walk Bramble and I even got involved in a fight (just like on
telly!!) between two tartily dressed girls and some rather over amorous and
somewhat inebriated admirers… who would have thought girls could fight that
dirty??… Bramble was heartily annoyed to have her walk delayed as I refereed
till security arrived! Note to the young
women out there… perhaps it would pay not to display half your ass if you don’t
want some randy bloke to pinch it!
As the high season is now kicking in we decide against Palma
town… we have been before and can’t face being fleeced for marina fees so we
continued slowly anticlockwise towards Porto Colom. First stop the marginal Cala Pi. I say marginal as the favourite thing to do
in the Balearics is put out swimming buoys thereby restricting access to the
shallow water for yachts and boats. As a
result you are sometimes barely in a bay before you have to anchor and you are
certainly not in the most sheltered spots… another reason to sail out of season
or don’t bother coming at all. That
being said, having been mown down several times while swimming by ignorant boat
drivers I do think swimming areas are a necessity here!
Well back to Cala Pi… this has to be on Brambles top ten bays as it turned out to be crawling with tortoises (or is that torti??). She was a seriously happy pup when she found her first one and
after that they were retrieved thick and fast. Thankfully they are fairly amenable and very
hardy so didn’t seem to take offence to being turned upside down, carried about
and generally gummed by an inquisitive jack russell. I think Bramble viewed them as the perfect
packed lunch but, like that tin of corned beef that rolls around the bilge for
years, frustrating as someone had lost the bloody opener!
Just to be clear though, no tortoises were injured during operation” Mobile Cornish Pasty”.
Next stop was Porto Colom.
I would have to say this was one of our favourite spots on Mallorca and
we would have camped out here more but unfortunately in the grasping way of
modern Europe someone in government had decided it was a good idea to fill the
bay up with buoys you had to pay for, thereby reducing your onshore budget for
supporting local businesses. Even at a
cheeky, yes we are 12m more or less, 24€ a night we had to find another option
and fortunately due to our shallow draught we found the perfect anchoring spot
well inside the entrance but out of the mooring field. Thus relived of nightly charges we kicked up
our heels and had drinks on shore followed by a great Chinese meal at Binky’s
place. (The Sichuan chicken was
awesome!)
Binky turned out to be a lovely lady but the stories she told about that locals had us thinking hard. For 15 years she and her husband have been running their restaurant and over that time they have still not made any real friends (despite Binky teaching herself Spanish and English), the kids still shout racist comments at them and locals regularly leave without paying. When we commented on the straight from China décor Binky said she had had to cut back on the niceties and no longer put out the best chopsticks as the locals take them home and when she realised that they were even decanting her top of the line soy sauce during dinner she had really had a meltdown. Unfortunately the downturn in tourist numbers (yes, it is true tourist numbers are down - finally someone admits it!) means she can’t sell the place and return to China as planned. So there they are in P. Colom, with only their 2 year old daughter and ancient Grandfather for company and no end in sight. Just too really rub it in though, despite being born in Spain, they can’t get Spanish citizenship or passports for either of their two children so their 18 month old son is in China being brought up by his other grandparents to improve his options later on. All in all a pretty sad state of affairs and one that made us question our thoughts on overwintering here and reassess the fact that everything here gets locked down at night including tables, chairs and sun loungers!
So on again and a stop in St Elm where the local Poseidon
buoy operator advises us to anchor on the last bit of sand left to avoid being
fined or having to pay the 29€ a night… makes for extra close neighbours but
beats shelling out yet more money.
Apparently a backlash is already starting over this new policy of
pay-as-you go buoys and the result is literally a “buoy-cott” and everywhere we
go most of the buoys are empty and every patch of sand anchored on. We too have to follow this lead as we can’t
afford to keep haemorrhaging money at this rate. Our, for once friendly, buoy-boy tells us
“Spain is fucked” and that he can’t understand this new policy as it is just
pissing everyone off and that foreign boats are leaving in droves. While we were there he had to move on several
super yachts. They were none too happy
and, just as he said, appeared to not just leave the bay but headed away from
the Balearics altogether… and this is the group of monied individuals they say
they are trying to attract. Sadly for
the local economy, the politicians seem to forget that boats can move and super
yachts can be in other parts of the Med the next day if they chose to put pedal
to the metal and, as they are usually owned by people who don’t like being told
what to do, they will do just that if things don’t go their way.
We have just learned that the King of Spain has given back
the 18 million euro yacht the people of the Balearics gave him (??), as a show
of austerity… as it was costing him 20,000€ a week to run so it’s hardly
surprising but really what sort of drugs were the islanders on when they
thought they had that sort of money to flash about on pressies!??
We are planning on heading over to Menorca next so we stock
up on groceries and go into the harbour to fill up the water tanks. As usual the Ports IB staff can’t be more
helpful but we did get involved in a dispute over water ownership. It turns out that the islands harbours are in
state of flux and the government is thinking of turning the running of them
over to the marinas (as they have with the buoys in harbours… ahh haa so that’s
why everyone has to pay now!! – Poseidon weed be buggered!). This is making the marina staff a bit uppity
and the harbour staff anxious… the upshot of all our dealings that day were,
the water was free if the harbour gave it to us or 5€ if the marina got
involved. Diplomatically, or maybe not,
I ended up telling the harbour man I didn’t mind paying 5€ but I would only pay
him and not the git from the marina that kept harassing me… he suggested we
didn’t worry about it and perhaps we would like to move before anyone else got
involved. Sage advice from a very hard
done by man…
Well back to Cala Pi… this has to be on Brambles top ten bays as it turned out to be crawling with tortoises (or is that torti??). She was a seriously happy pup when she found her first one and
Just to be clear though, no tortoises were injured during operation” Mobile Cornish Pasty”.
Further up the coast we anchored off Es Trench; the famous
nudist beach… I think someone should point out that nudity occurs on every
beach now so no point it claiming this fame… before dropping into Sa Rapita
Marina. What a rip off!… very helpful
people… but at 85€ a night (plus 4€ for potable water) to be surged up and down
on the quay all night they can poke it.
The swell was so bad in the visitors section that the guy next to us
snapped his mooring warps and only just avoided serious damage. As it happened this was to be one of only
four nights we would spend on a quay in the two months of so we were in the
Balearics due to high prices and poor facilities – maybe we should have made
more of the experience.
Next stop was Porto Colom.
I would have to say this was one of our favourite spots on Mallorca and
we would have camped out here more but unfortunately in the grasping way of
modern Europe someone in government had decided it was a good idea to fill the
bay up with buoys you had to pay for, thereby reducing your onshore budget for
supporting local businesses. Even at a
cheeky, yes we are 12m more or less, 24€ a night we had to find another option
and fortunately due to our shallow draught we found the perfect anchoring spot
well inside the entrance but out of the mooring field. Thus relived of nightly charges we kicked up
our heels and had drinks on shore followed by a great Chinese meal at Binky’s
place. (The Sichuan chicken was
awesome!) Binky turned out to be a lovely lady but the stories she told about that locals had us thinking hard. For 15 years she and her husband have been running their restaurant and over that time they have still not made any real friends (despite Binky teaching herself Spanish and English), the kids still shout racist comments at them and locals regularly leave without paying. When we commented on the straight from China décor Binky said she had had to cut back on the niceties and no longer put out the best chopsticks as the locals take them home and when she realised that they were even decanting her top of the line soy sauce during dinner she had really had a meltdown. Unfortunately the downturn in tourist numbers (yes, it is true tourist numbers are down - finally someone admits it!) means she can’t sell the place and return to China as planned. So there they are in P. Colom, with only their 2 year old daughter and ancient Grandfather for company and no end in sight. Just too really rub it in though, despite being born in Spain, they can’t get Spanish citizenship or passports for either of their two children so their 18 month old son is in China being brought up by his other grandparents to improve his options later on. All in all a pretty sad state of affairs and one that made us question our thoughts on overwintering here and reassess the fact that everything here gets locked down at night including tables, chairs and sun loungers!
 |
| Behind our dream boat... |
Great story in the local paper about a man trying to buy a
new car. He has about 30,000€ to spend
but works all week so can only visit the car dealers at lunchtime, after work
or at the weekend. Apparently he is now
on month two of trying to convince someone, anyone, to open after hours so he
can view the cars and buy one… hate to say it but this seems pretty
typical. Just try getting anything done
during lunchtime and you will see what we mean…
Next stop Port Adriano… a super yacht marina along the coast
from Palma. We certainly see some super
yachts including the largest sailing yacht in the world… but unfortunately not
up close as Murray would have liked as he was told it would cost him 18€ to
enter the marina in his kayak… not feeling the love at all on this island! We also have our eyes peeled for Steve Jobs
newly launched “Venus” – a mere 100 million euros worth of custom built boy
toy.
Moving on round the coast we stop in Santa Ponsa… yay still
an anchorage, Cala Fornells and a few others before pulling into Andraitx. Great walking to be had and we toy briefly
with the thought of overwintering in Santa Ponsa but at 2600€ it is a 1000€
over prices quoted for Sardinia.
Andraitx also turns out to be studded with buoys now and our
“12m” costs us 28€ a night… getting heartily sick of the attitude towards
yachties and getting into an argument with pompous bus driver over Bramble not
being allowed on the bus doesn’t help either.
Note to self; don’t believe everything the tourist office tells you and
always try and take your dog on the outwards leg of a journey so as to avoid
the 2 hour walk back when the bus driver is a wanker! Still we got the last laugh when we called a
few of the locals bluff on the shark they had to shoot in the bay just before
tourist season. They were very perturbed
to find out we knew all about the tiger shark that had taken up residence in
the bay… not something they wanted to get out!
So on again and a stop in St Elm where the local Poseidon
buoy operator advises us to anchor on the last bit of sand left to avoid being
fined or having to pay the 29€ a night… makes for extra close neighbours but
beats shelling out yet more money.
Apparently a backlash is already starting over this new policy of
pay-as-you go buoys and the result is literally a “buoy-cott” and everywhere we
go most of the buoys are empty and every patch of sand anchored on. We too have to follow this lead as we can’t
afford to keep haemorrhaging money at this rate. Our, for once friendly, buoy-boy tells us
“Spain is fucked” and that he can’t understand this new policy as it is just
pissing everyone off and that foreign boats are leaving in droves. While we were there he had to move on several
super yachts. They were none too happy
and, just as he said, appeared to not just leave the bay but headed away from
the Balearics altogether… and this is the group of monied individuals they say
they are trying to attract. Sadly for
the local economy, the politicians seem to forget that boats can move and super
yachts can be in other parts of the Med the next day if they chose to put pedal
to the metal and, as they are usually owned by people who don’t like being told
what to do, they will do just that if things don’t go their way.
Top tip… there is no such thing as “blue water title” in
Spain so you can walk the entire coastline; so despite us having to go through
gardens, infinity pools, patios, over fences etc, it is illegal to build to the
water’s edge and prevent public access… only final piece of advice we were
given was “just don’t get bitten by the dog”!
This is another section of the island we enjoy. The people are friendlier and the walking is
fantastic. We kayak across to Dragonera
and check out the ex-monk seal caves and get nibbled on by the huge wall
lizards. Finally feel a bit more
relaxed! Sadly later in the season the
beautiful area we walked through was burnt to the ground over the course of
four days after a man emptied his BBQ embers under a hedge…
So on round the coast to Soller… this is another lovely spot
in a fantastic location… and again very popular due to the fact you can still
anchor for free. We take up residence
for a week close behind a Contest 60 – very nice!! Again loads of great walking and we hire a
car for some further afield trips including going to Palma to pick up a new
fridge. This side of the island is much
wilder and yet more welcoming, however it is limited in protected bays and
harbours for gunk hole sailing, so we spent a lot time in anchored in one spot
and make the most of The Ruta de Pedra en Sec, a 170 km walk along a dry stone
wall route through the Tramuntana Mountain Range – very spectacular!
We have just learned that the King of Spain has given back
the 18 million euro yacht the people of the Balearics gave him (??), as a show
of austerity… as it was costing him 20,000€ a week to run so it’s hardly
surprising but really what sort of drugs were the islanders on when they
thought they had that sort of money to flash about on pressies!??
The wind is still fickle and we have several days of
windlessness, then suddenly scorching along in a stiff breeze, followed by dead
calm… most strange…
Pollensa becomes our next long stop… yes another free
anchorage just outside the main harbour.
We really enjoyed the place.
Scruffy enough to be local but some good touristy stuff as well. It is also the fire plane base for the island
so we were treated to some pretty spectacular flying displays each day.
We are planning on heading over to Menorca next so we stock
up on groceries and go into the harbour to fill up the water tanks. As usual the Ports IB staff can’t be more
helpful but we did get involved in a dispute over water ownership. It turns out that the islands harbours are in
state of flux and the government is thinking of turning the running of them
over to the marinas (as they have with the buoys in harbours… ahh haa so that’s
why everyone has to pay now!! – Poseidon weed be buggered!). This is making the marina staff a bit uppity
and the harbour staff anxious… the upshot of all our dealings that day were,
the water was free if the harbour gave it to us or 5€ if the marina got
involved. Diplomatically, or maybe not,
I ended up telling the harbour man I didn’t mind paying 5€ but I would only pay
him and not the git from the marina that kept harassing me… he suggested we
didn’t worry about it and perhaps we would like to move before anyone else got
involved. Sage advice from a very hard
done by man…
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