Thursday 9 May 2019

It was with some relief that we woke in the same place, the anchor having held.

Santa Eulalia looks to be a lovely town, from our view, but we decided to move on. The wind was building, from the west, after breakfast, so we would have a nice angle to sail south, towards Ibiza town.

We did have a superb sail all morning, in a F4 / 5, but, when I was on the helm, it seemed that every time a big gust came in Steve was down below. He jumped up quickly each time to adjust the sails so we were not overpowered.

We arrived in Cala Talamanca, which is immediately north of Ibiza town harbour,at lunch time. There were lots of boats at anchor there, but still plenty of space, as it is a wide bay.

We set ourselves ready for a great spot and then our frustrations started. For about three hours we tried to lay the anchor. We must have dropped it at last 8 and possibly 10 times, but it would not bite amongst the sea-grass and weed on the bottom. We tried so carefully to find the patches of sand, but to no avail. Steve, in the middle of all this, went snorkelling to to see if the anchor had dug in, to find it just lying of it’s side. He then changed the anchor to our reserve one, which is a completely different shape, but that wouldn’t bite either. You can understand that, having dragged to anchor two nights ago, we were even more concerned than usual to make sure we were secured.

We gave up and made our way back 5 miles north to Cala Llonga, a very narrow cala, which would be nicely sheltered. Here, there larger areas of sand on the seabed and we laid the anchor first time with no bother. What a relief. We understand it’s really crowded here in high season, so having lots of room, with only three other boats at anchor is just fine. Next to us is the Dutch boat, with the young couple and baby, who we saw in Sant Antoni. In the evening, they transferred the baby, in a Moses basket, to their dinghy, and went ashore, presumably to eat. I suspect that young baby is set for having lots of wonderful adventures in his or her life.

In the breeze we were swinging a lot, and as darkness fell, we anxiously watched our track for any signs of dragging. We couldn’t be completely sure, so we decided we would keep watch during the night. Steve sat up until 1:00 am. We agreed that we were fine then, but I couldn’t sleep anyway, so sat up until 3:00.

We’ve joked that we have created a new piece of art by colouring in patches on the screen with our boat track, making a pretty picture!

Distance covered today	18	nautical miles
Trip distance covered	367	nautical miles
Distance covered 2019	367	nautical miles
Tricia (and Steve)