Thursday 13 June 2019

We have spent the day at anchor in Cala Algayerens. The wind was due to blow from the east today, and then will swing around to the west tomorrow. So, we are tucked into the eastern side of the bay and sheltered by some modest cliffs.

We have watched and joked about our neighbours in the large motor yacht / small ship all day.  It has the air of a James Bond film about it, housing some criminal despot. I am sure they are really nice people in reality, but we have let our imaginations run wild.  It also seemed that they were playing a game of Russian dolls with their various craft.  The ship is accompanied by a large local launch, which seems to be there to provide security patrols or take the guests to more distant spots.  During the day they also launched a smaller rib which they went to the beach in.  After that 2 jet skis appeared for the guests on board to play with.  We were treated to a wonderful head on view of the boat and the bigger two of its support vessels as we both swung back and forth.  At night the vessel is a thing to see.  It is lit like a Christmas tree.  The very top-level flying bridge is flooded with red light, to preserve the crew’s night vision.  The passenger levels give off white light and there are further lights below the water line, giving a luminescence to the water.  The look is completed by the vessels name being picked out in what looks like purple neon light.  It is hard to make out a normal anchor light, but it would be very difficult to say that you did not see the boat.

To try to get some exercise we pumped up our tender, launched it and fitted the outboard, before heading to the beach.  We had carefully checked where there were swimming buoys and where there seemed to be a boat channel that we could use.  As soon as we had landed and lifted the tender clear of the water, a lifeguard coming hurrying up to us, and said that we were not permitted to land the tender on the beach.  He spoke somewhere between assertively and aggressively, and very fast in Spanish. We were getting the gist of what he said but not all of the detail. On reflection later I think that he was saying that we would have to leave the tender at a buoy in the channel and either swim or wade ashore from there, but this was not clear at the time.  So reluctantly we gave up on our idea of a nice walk along the beach, and headed back to Equinox.  At least we had had the exercise of pumping up the tender.  Later we watched while the rib from the James Bond boat went, and dropped someone off, and then retreated before the lifeguard could get to them.

Distance covered today	0	nautical miles
Trip distance covered	857	nautical miles
Distance covered 2019	857	nautical miles
Steve (and Tricia)