Mallorca

We waved goodbye to Ibiza early one morning and made the 9ish hour crossing over to Mallorca arriving just in time for a swim at Cala Portals, famous for its Phoenician Caves which were fun to explore.

Cala Portals, Mallorca

Palma, Mallorca is a yachting mega centre with a massive yachting industry and the biggest yacht chandleries I’ve ever seen – the wallet left a fair bit lighter but we were also able to get a few jobs ticked off on the boat fix and tweak list.

Once again, the guys at Nautitech couldn’t do enough to help us sort out even non boat related items – I’d have to say our experience thus far has been nothing but outstanding with these guys. We were greeted at our marina by the local Nautitech agent who essentially acted like a concierge service for us, saving valuable time by tapping us into their network of trades and suppliers. Seriously, buying a new boat is only part of the transaction – you need to buy from a company that continues to offer great after sales service and to date we would rate Jason & Tony from Ensign and the team at Nautitech a 12 out of 10!!

Palma also would be one of only a few major centres we planned to visit, preferring to stay out of cities and visit smaller places and so Liane was on a mission to bouy the Mallorcan economy at the local shops, which were of course, all having their big end of season Summer Sales suiting us quite nicely.

It’s a dangerous situation when I can’t use the previously well utilised phrase of, “Well you could buy it but will you have enough room in your luggage?” given that we’ve essentially got a shipping container coming home with all sorts of large storage holds….and so shop she did, and actually I must confess to giving it a fair crack myself. I’m not sure why but Zara in Europe is so much cheaper than back home and I’m a sucker for a good deal.

Palma Cathedral

In Palma, we were parked next to another Australian couple on a similar sized catamaran and then a third Aussie couple was next to them. It’s one of the highlights of cruising – the people you meet and it’s always fun to hear the stories and cruising ambitions of others along the way. 

Our marina was only a few hundred metres from the Palma Cathedral which is one of the big tourist highlights.  After a couple of days of shopping & boat fixing we enjoyed being tourists and the cathedral was of course a must. The building is quite remarkable and we are always reminded when in Europe of the influence and power the Catholic church had and to a lesser extent, still has today.

The buildings are quite magnificent and its impressive to see the level of expense and effort they take to make a place that is deemed to be sacred and worthy. That part to me is impressive but there is another piece that I think is a bit sad and like so many things – has been lost in translation over the ages.

My observations (and these are just my observations) are that the Catholic Church has placed a greater weight on its places of worship, its rituals and its hierarchy than the Bible which they base their faith on.

The Bible teaches of a walking, talking everyday relationship with God that He wants to have with all of us – despite what we have or haven’t done for Him, regardless of our background or sexual preference – He loves us all the same and wants to be in relationship first and foremost.

Unfortunately there are many people that feel judged by the church and many others attending church that are yet to experience this unconditional love or to experience the guiding voice of the Holy Spirit in their lives – maybe I’ll write some more about this and what I believe in a separate post one day.

We took the opportunity to enjoy a date night while in Palma – Liane had done some research and booked us in at Michelin starred restaurant, Marc Foshjust a short taxi ride from the marina.  Fabulous food, really creative combinations of flavours, textures and aesthetic and the fit out of the restaurant was beautifully done with lots of greenery making best use of the indoor-outdoor feel to the space the restaurant occupies.  Definitely worth a visit for a special night out. 

One of the many courses on the Marc Fosh degustation menu.

One thing that characterises our travels around Europe is our endless pursuit of gelati – we have been known to have it 3 times in one day on the odd occasion!  You know you’re onto a winner when you have to line up with about 50 other gelati aficionados which is what we did one evening and so it is with personal taste-testing that Team Watson highly recommends Riva Reno Gelateria right near the Palma Cathedral. 

After Palma we enjoyed some nights at anchor and racked up some petrol bills on the outboard with Kye learning to Skurf and picking it up like a boss – it’s all he wants to do now of course.

Kalani has also been keen to learn more of her way around the boat and is proving to be a fantastic addition to the team with Kye & Lani even doing their own night watches now.

Keen to keep moving we began sailing up the NW coast of Mallorca where we would eventually make the fairly short 45 mile crossing over to Menorca.

The NW coast of Mallorca is quite spectacular with its rugged mountains and green hills – I can see why Christopher Skase holed up here to escape the wrath of the Australian people and law – I must keep that in mind if I’m ever trying to escape being deported!!

Due to its ruggedness there are only a few suitable overnight anchorages along this coast and so we arrived fairly late one afternoon into the small port of Sollier which officially takes my prize for fitting the most amount of boats per square metre at anchor. Never a good sign when everyone has their fenders out in an anchorage – lucky our boat is only 16.3 x 8.5 metres – good grief!!

Rather than risking some scrapes on the gelcoat I opted to go with the “no comprende Spanish” approach and anchored pretty much in the middle of the channel leading into the packed marina. We did cop a few looks and some colourful Spanish vernacular from boats navigating the channel with us in the middle of it and so we upped anchor early the next day to move onto the next destination.

The Rugged NW coast of Mallorca

Sollier

Light winds had us motor sailing up and around the coast into Bahia de Pollensa on the NE coast of Mallorca where we anchored off a beautiful headland at Puerto de la Avanzada in front of one of the most spectacular properties I’ve ever seen. 

Always keen to do some property research I discovered the property is now owned by one British Lord Upton and it was used as the property of the main bad guy character (name escapes me) in “The Night Manager” – one of my fave mini-series.

We enjoyed some more swimming, skurfing and chilling out with plans to head east again the next day onward to Menorca.

Incredible property used for Night Manager set. We parked just out the front for the night.