Things that could go bump in the night - read on!

The Balearic islands consist of Menorca, Mallorca and Ibeza. Known as the home to the rich and famous and the infamous developer the late Christopher Skase who fled authorities in Australia in the late 80's.

After anchoring in Mahon on Menorca Is., we dinghied into town to have a look around. It was Sunday afternoon and there was hardly a soul to be seen. After visiting an information centre, we learned that a weekly ferry sailed to Mallorca from Mahon on Sunday. A quick decision was made that Di would catch this ferry so she could babysit Simon and Noelia's little boy Max (our third grandchild, that Di had not yet seen) while he had his nursery school orientation the following week.

Di spent a few days in Mallorca while Bern remained onboard doing maintenance. Di flew back to Menorca on Thursday and we prepared for an early departure the next morning for the 63nm sail to Mallorca. In the early hours of the morning Bern noticed a catamaran had anchored so close to us that we were in danger of hitting it. After getting the attention of the occupants of the yacht, Bern expressed his concerns only to be told, to put fenders out and just let your insurance Co. handle it!! Bern started the engine and backed back to demonstrate to the skipper that there was indeed a considerable overlap and we would definitely collide. Bern was then accused of having too much chain out (we actually had the minimum for the depth). Clearly we were dealing with someone whose arrogance was only exceeded by his lack of competence, he then proceeded to call me an a...hole, what do you do? He was not going to move. We once heard some good advice for situations like this. SO.... out came the camera and flash, flash, flash, we had evidence in case we had to deal with an insurance company. Surprisingly it worked; they got the message and finally moved.
Early next morning we departed the anchorage in pitch darkness and headed off to Mallorca. We actually had one of our best sails in the Med and managed to sail most of the way there. We decided to pull into Carla D'Or a small inlet on the east coast with a marina. There we were able to meet up with Simon, Noelia and Max before leaving for the 90nm sail to Ibeza. The wind had been blowing a strong SW before we departed and was forecast to moderate and swing to the NW. It's always risky heading out immediately after a blow as the seas are generally still up...and they were! We wanted to go SW so the wind was on the nose and remained there for most of the day, no NW. After bashing to windward for hour after hour, you understand why they say 'gentlemen don't sail to windward". Ladies also don't like sailing to windward, Di disappeared below early on with a seasickness tablet and assumed the foetal prayer position! Fortunately the conditions slowly moderated and 3 m waves went down to 2 m waves then to half metre by the early hours of the morning. We arrived in an anchorage on Ibiza still in the dark and picked our way through a lot of anchored yachts before finally dropping the anchor and crashing. We plan to spend a few days here waiting for another SW blow to pass, then sail to the mainland of Spain.