With 60 miles to cover and a deadline of 6pm we knew it was going to be an early start. What we didn't count on was not sleeping at all because of swell! The anchorage was extremely well protected from the light (virtually nil) NE wind but during the night the swell appeared from nowhere!

Spending the whole night being rolled violently from side to side was very, very uncomfortable! Even relocating from our aft cabin to the saloon, then the fore cabin just didn't work. We even tried to wedge ourselves into the corners of the berths but it still didn't help. If we'd have known that we were going to be subjected to this, we would have opted to sail directly from Torrevieja overnight to Formentera. On the positive side, we couldn't leave the anchorage fast enough - no problem with an early start today!


leaving mainland Spain

Leaving mainland Spain behind us, the wind appeared to be perfect for a good sail. We sailed for a couple of hours but unfortunately the wind was a little on the light side and our speed was less than we needed to meet the 6pm deadline despite the 6am start so we opted to motor sail the rest of the way.


under full sail

There was no traffic in the traffic separation zone to speak of and very few yachts heading in our direction so we turned on the IPod (it's been a while) and stretched the vocal chords for a few hours. Progress was good and before long the islands of Ibiza came into view along with Formentera.


just chill'in!

As our chosen bay approached there were plenty of available buoys so we motored around for a bit deciding which buoy to take, expecting that at any moment a RIB would turn up with a marinaro to assist with our ropes. A short while later we concluded that we were on our own so we helped ourselves, choosing a buoy marked for yachts up to 15 meters. We arrived with an hour to spare. The marinero turned up shortly afterwards.

As evening approached we couldn't help but notice that several other yachts arrived and tied up to vacant buoys - we needn't have rushed after all (in this bay in early June).

Total distance this season: 613.60 nautical miles