Sorry, no entry for the 1st of the month, so no pinch & a punch! Noise levels at San Antonio were really reasonable.... only heard Kids Club at one hotel & what sounded like Bingo at another???? (We couldn’t imagine Bingo being played at this party place on Ibiza but who knows!). We did put a stern anchor out at 8pm & we believe it was well worth the effort. Even though this anchorage is well protected from the swell & wind coming from the northeast it still wrapped around the headland & made it quiet uncomfortable.
Friday we headed south in search of a decent place to anchor with no swell. We had a great sail around Isla Vedra & along the southern coast. After a couple of hours we noticed lightning & heavy rain in the distance & ducked into Cala de Port Roig for shelter. This is a lovely little anchorage with great protection. We anchored & took a line ashore. We waited a couple of hours, had some lunch & caught up on some bookwork etc. Much to our surprise, later in the afternoon swell began entering the bay & lots of rocking took place on other yachts. We were reasonable with our line ashore so were happy to stay the night.
Saturday a quick look in the fridge confirmed we needed groceries. As the wind direction wouldn’t allow us to head to Ibiza town, we headed to Puerto de Sabina on Formentera instead. We had a top sail across from Ibiza until a Force 5 wind hit with driving rain & we were racing for nearest cover with every other boat in the vicinity. We attached to a mooring buoy in Puerto El Espalmador for an hour, had lunch, & waited for the rain to stop. Then we continued our lovely sail down to Puerto de Sabina. We anchored off a small rocky beach to the north of the marinas & took the tender into grab some groceries. There are two supermarkets here near the marina & a number of small cafes etc right behind the marina. We had a quick walk around, grabbed some food & then back to Pannikin. Later on in the afternoon we moved Pannikin further north along the beach to get out of the wind chop & the boat wash. We had a glorious sunset with the super yacht Prince Abdulaziz (Google it!) anchored nearby. This was our last sunset in the Balearics as we head to the Spanish mainland tomorrow.
We left Formentera at 7am on Sunday with less wind than predicted. We had a very slow sail for a couple of hours, then hoisted the spinnaker & things looked a whole lot brighter! We had run for about 5 hours & then the wind died completely. A slow motor then until 7pm when we arrived in a small anchorage called El Rinconet just north of the town Moraira. It’s a top little spot with well to do houses lining the hills around it & a nice little beach. We had a swim, beers & pizza for dinner & that was that!
Monday we headed south with no wind which is really frustrating. We motored for 2 hours then sat becalmed off Benidorm while we had lunch & waited for some wind. Benidorm is huge – never seen so many high rise buildings ever. Finally had some light wind & we sailed to Puerto de San Juan. This is a pretty ordinary looking anchorage, but we had a good night with not too much rolling. We are expecting some Force 5 winds straight on our nose starting Friday and getting stronger over the weekend, so we need to get to Almerimar by Thursday. We will be having some very big days.... & hoping that the winds will be kind to us.