Wednesday 22 May 2019

We had a very peaceful night at anchor in Porto Petro attached to a buoy. In fact the weather was too benign. Normally when you are attached to a buoy, there is some wind and this keeps the various lines under some sort of tension. Last night there was no wind at all, which meant that the boat and the mooring buoy drifted together, and I was woken several times during the night by the sound of the buoy hitting the hull. Our cabin is in the bows of Equinox, so the noise is very close. I contemplated getting out of bed to try to stop it, but there is nothing you can do.

Once day was properly broken, we went through the checklist and got going before breakfast, as we have said before, a mooring buoy is the easiest departure, you just let it go. There are no other mooring lines or fenders to deal with. The water was so clear they we had a great view of the three concrete blocks that the buoy was attached to.

We started off with no wind at all, and motored for the morning. At around lunchtime we saw enough wind to put the sails up and gain some sort of drive from the wind. By early afternoon, the engine was off and we were sailing properly. The wind freshened as the day wore on, and by the time we entered the Bay of Palma, we were moving along very nicely, with clean wind and flat water. As it was our friend Dave’s last day, he spent the majority of the time at the helm, and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself, racing with another boat.

We were heading back to Palma for a crew change, Dave and Sue are heading home tomorrow, and another friend is joining us. We entered Palma harbour just as a cruise liner was leaving, we were comfortably in front of her, but others pushed their luck a bit to get past as she nosed out. We refuelled and then were assigned to a berth in a completely different part of the marina to where we were last week. It is less convenient, but has a much better view of the super-yachts berthed here.

It's my birthday soon, if anyone is short of an idea for a present, one of these will be fine...

Our berth is next to a boat with a French family. The parents speak good English, and I suspect from their accents that the mother has studied in America. They are taking 6 months to sail from La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast of France, to Greece, with their 3 children, twins and another ages 9 and 6. It must be a great experience for the children, but challenging for the parents. After we arrived they headed off to the hyper market in their tender. The shop is near the entrance to the harbour, and they said that it was easier to transport the provisions in the tender than to carry them.  Certainly not you average supermarket trip.

Distance covered today	19	nautical miles
Trip distance covered	563	nautical miles
Distance covered 2019	563	nautical miles
Steve (and Tricia)