However, after another perusal of the weather, indicating strong winds out of the southerly sector, then switching to very strong winds out of the northerly sector later this week, neither of us felt comfortable in the anchorage off Formentera Island. However, in the process of trying to find another anchorage that would be protected from the southerly winds and another, in close proximity to it, to get protection from the northerly winds, since there weren’t any anchorages that offered both, we were suddenly questioning our sanity for even staying a minute longer in the Belearic Islands.
With that, our plans changed. Given that we’d already weighed anchor at around 0800 and had said goodbye to Formentera Island, after first having to extract our anchor from under the party boat in front of us, we diverted to the nearest anchorage off the southern coast of Ibiza Island, dropped the hook, had a nap, woke up and prepared Paw Paw for departure, including completing all the activities on our Pre-Sail Checklist; we were heading to mainland Spain after securing a berth in one of the marinas, delighted to find one that had space for us, even though this meant another overnight sail.
By 1430 we’d weighed anchor for the second time today, but not before we had to extract the anchor from under a rock, which Roy noticed when he went to clean our paddle wheel on the depth sensor, and had set a course for Santa Pola, just south of Alicante. With that, we said goodbye to the Belearic Islands, but, of course, not before getting a final “bounce around” in the wakes of two different megayachts that clearly had intended to remove Paw Paw’s bow rather than go astern of her, regardless of the fact that we were the stand-on vessel in both instances. There wasn’t a lot, if anything, we were going to miss about these islands!
Maybe we’ve become jaded, but “sailing” in the Balearics has been a case of running from one marginal anchorage to another to avoid weather and numpties. We had originally planned on spending a week on Formentera Island to enjoy another “mini holiday”, but it was simply impossible, bordering on hellish actually! The cherry on the cake was that we couldn’t even swim off the back off Paw Paw for fear of being mowed down by some idiot in a speedboat flying through the anchorage or getting stung by jellyfish! It was simply not a place where one could relax on the water!
Had we known what our experience was going to be in the Balearics, aside from rhe fabulous time we had in Port de Pollença, we would have done an overnight from there to mainland Spain instead. Being sleep deprived from bouncing around all night in swell, dealing with wind shifts and dragging yachts and / or listening to raucous crowds, we could just as easily have been sleep deprived from doing our watches anyway.
Around 1710 a distress call was put out to all ships over the VHF radio regarding a vessel flooding and requiring assistance between Mallorca and Ibiza islands; not the kind of incident you want to hear about just before an overnight sail, but it was too far away for us to render assistance regardless. Turns out it was a 24 metre, German flagged yacht, which received assistance, given the hundreds of watercraft in that vicinity and by 1840 the mayday call was cancelled and the situation under control, thankfully.
We, on the other hand, were motor-sailing, reaching 6.9 Kts, given that the winds had backed to the southeast and we’d picked up the southwest setting current. That meant we would need to slow down once we reached the mainland so as not to arrive in the dark or before the marina opened. Regardless, by 1930, we were just 20 NM off the Spanish coastline and on a course to avoid Cape Negri.
Other than that, we had a beautiful full moon to light the way.
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