Saturday 25 May 2019

We woke up to a grey day and more rain. Poor Laurence is not seeing this area at its best.

Slightly disappointed at not having seen the fabled ospreys, whales, etc, etc, we contemplated asking for our money back before we left, but decided that we would not receive a favourable response.  We prepared and left to be followed soon after by another couple of boats, who were obviously inspired by us braving the cool wet conditions. Just like the Solent at this time of year.

We motored between the islands, and then put the sails up when it was reasonable to do so. There was a good breeze blowing, albeit from exactly where we wanted to head. Over the next few hours the rain came (mostly when Tricia was driving) and left (when it was anyone else).  We were originally heading 30 or 40 degrees away from the ideal course, but there were a series of changes in the wind which eventually meant that we could head roughly in the right direction.  As we approached a headland, where we knew that we would be directly into the wind, we saw a large rain cloud ahead, and decided to bow to the inevitable, and put the sails down and motor from here. The decks had dried and we did not really want to get wet again.

Not the weather we have been experiencing lately 

We had contacted the port at Porto Cristo where we had been last week as we left Cabrera, and they had said that there was currently a space for us, but they could not guarantee to keep it.  So we travelled all day in the hope that there would still be a place when we arrived.  About 30 minutes out, I phoned the harbour again and received assurance that there was still a space for us. This was a relief as there were some strong winds forecast for tomorrow.

We arrived and were directed to a spot a little further into the harbour than we had been last week. We reversed into our spot and passed lines to the marinaro.  As we pulled ourselves the last couple of metres into the spot the boat seemed to stop and not go any further.  A quick check of the depth gauge showed that it read 0.0 and we concluded that we were touching the bottom. Frustratingly we were about 3.7 meters from the quay and our passerelle is about 3 metres.  There were no other spaces available, so we concluded that we would just have to not go ashore last night.  We threw a rope to the marinaro, full him to pull our electricity cable across and plug it in. We could have power but no access to the shore.

Distance covered today	32	nautical miles
Trip distance covered	624	nautical miles
Distance covered 2019	624	nautical miles
Steve (and Tricia)