The Mediterranean islands From Menorca to Formentera
We explore the Balearic Islands! An insight into two months of tapas, bay hopping, stormy weather and happy reunions.
Buenas tardes muchachos!
Bienvenidos en España! 🥳 A new courtesy flag joins our existing collection. And we'll be staying in Spanish waters for a while, all the way to Cape Verde in fact. First of all, we'll take a closer look at the popular Balearic Islands, let's go!
Menorca, the quiet
Our crossing from Sardinia went really well and we experienced one of our highlights so far: a 9.7kg Bluefin Tuna took a bite! What a joy, what a feast 😍 Our dear friends are leaving us in Mahon, we won't see Mirko for a long time, but Zoe and Ale will be joining us again in a few months!😎 After a few days safely moored in the bay of Mahon, a small horror scenario happens for the first time since our trip: we are shopping in town when we receive a message: another boat in the bay has apparently pulled out our anchor and we have drifted away, our neighbouring boat has tied us to his boat. Excuse me? Fortunately, the damage is relatively minor, a broken stanchion base and a scratched hull. The insurance will pay for the damage, but we no longer feel comfortable in this bay and so we head south of the island the next morning. Kent, a friend of mine from work, joins us in Ciutadella and stays for a week. Together we sail to the north of the island, where we make several stops in beautiful anchorages. In Fornells, we hire two scooters and explore the inland: once again, we crash a village festival and enjoy some delicious food 🥰
A second highlight is our reunion with SY Mica: we got to know Marti & Wulfi during our winter break in Licata and since Malta they have always been a little ahead of us on our route. Now it's finally worked out and we're spending a few cool days as buddy boats ⛵♥
In mid-August, I leave my captain and our boat for a two-week stay in Switzerland. I take my practical sailing exam on Lake Thun and dance wildly at the wedding of my good friend Beccie 😉💃 Meanwhile, the captain has a visit from his friend Marco, and together they set off for the next island.
Mallorca, the stormy one
After a leisurely crossing from Menorca, Thierry and Marco spend a few days in the north of Mallorca. And then it's already over, the men's week. Thierry wants to spend the few days until I return alone at anchor in the bay of Pollenca. The weather forecast predicts bad weather, so he decides to go to the harbour in Alcudia after all. His first single-handed trip! Including a harbour manoeuvre. I'm proud of my captain! 😍 And also very happy that he's in the harbour after all, because a big storm is causing a lot of chaos on the island. After the storm is over, he drops anchor in the bay off Alcudia, where I join him again. It's worth mentioning that a night in the harbour in Mallorca can easily cost 100 Euros for our boat. That makes you think twice.
Back together again, we soon get a visit from my sister, who has no boat experience and quickly gets seasick. So we take it easy and try out our new toy that I brought back from Switzerland: a wingfoil! It seems to us that handling it from the boat is so much easier than handling a kite, so we decided to give it a try. The fun factor is definitely huge, even if we are still a bit clumsy. But now the wind picks up again, which doesn't seem so pleasant for inexperienced stomachs, and we head for the harbour in Pollenca. We stay there for a few days, go on an excursion by car and eat delicious food. For the last two days, we can even go on another boat trip and sleep at anchor, and then unfortunately it's time to say goodbye again ☹
And we slowly say goodbye to Mallorca too, as there is a good weather window to get to Ibiza. We chug leisurely along the north coast, which offers spectacular pictures, and then our island hopping continues.
Ibiza & Formentera, the snobbish one & the wild one
Our first impression of Ibiza is surprisingly green and quiet. We are moored with just three other boats in a bay in the north of the island, where we stay for two nights. We want to take part in a Young Cruisers meeting on the west coast and arrive in the bay a night early. On the day of the meeting, the weather models suddenly disagree and one of them, Arome, predicts an uncomfortable storm. As Arome was the only model that saw the storm coming to Mallorca in its full extent, we were a little worried and decided to look for a harbour. Of course, none of the storm arrives and we are moored in the snobbish marina in Ibiza Town 🥴 What ever, we're there for nothing, but certainly not free of charge. At least it's much easier to do a few boat jobs and pick up our new crew for the next two weeks here.
Together we travel to Formentera, the last Balearic island that is still unknown to us. We are waiting for a good weather window to get to the Spanish mainland. Our crew has a return flight from Malaga, but we don't know whether we'll actually make it there. So we spend a few days anchored in Formentera, and as Murphy would have it, it comes again: this Arome Forecast. Arome is the only one of the four models to predict the end of the world again, but this time we don't let it put us off our stride 🧘♀️ We soon regret this, as the sky breaks over us in the middle of the night and storms us, completely unprotected, right on the nose. Curse you, Arome. Fortunately, it was only uncomfortable and not dangerous.
To round off our Balearic adventure, we meet up with SY Mica one last time, enjoy the Caribbean beach, go wingfoiling and kiting and organise a mini beach party before heading back to Ibiza for one last night. From here we start our two-day crossing to Cartagena on the Spanish mainland.
As we set off towards the mainland, we are also slowly making our way towards the Atlantic. A new chapter is dawning and we are excited to see what lies ahead! 🌬⛵
