Swallow's adventures

On 19/07/17 at 18.30 we waved goodbye to Ula and motored over to Valencia’s fuel berth, filled up with diesel and had our dinner whilst waiting for the wind to change direction as was the prediction on our Windy app. We set off for Ibiza (82 miles away) at 20.00 with a light breeze, enjoying the last of the evening sunshine- it was great to be out there again! The pleasure was short lived as we were against a very uncomfortable swell and I was seasick; this meant that Paul couldn’t take a break and was awake for the whole 16 hours; not the best of passages as we only managed to turn the engine off for an hour half way. At 12.30 the following day Millie welcomed us into Cala Torrent (just South of San Antonio) ; we could tell straight away that this would be another uncomfortable night as we were corkscrewing all over the place, but we were too tired to care. Andrew came and picked us up in his dinghy ( bit of a bumpy ride) and we went over for a cuppa, armed with my homemade madeira cake. Swallow spent the whole night pitching and rolling so we quickly departed the following morning and motored round to Cala Tarida, which wasn’t much better; Millie sailed back over to mainland Spain for a trip home- hopefully we will catch up with them again soon.

A couple of days later, accompanied by Kady who had sailed over from their lovely anchoage at Sardenera on the mainland, we motored down the coast whilst enjoying the beautiful scenery - lime and sandstone cliffs scattered with greenery; we passed the Isla Vedra , which towered over the Isla Vedranell, stunning! We anchored in the western corner of Cala de Port Roig amongst super yachts, whose tenders were the size of Swallow, and sleek motor boats which looked they were straight out of a James Bond movie! We pulled up our dinghy onto the little beach, the only facility here was a very expensive restaurant which obviously catered for the elite, we did stretch to a beer though. To our delight we found a water tap in the carpark; the elation was short-lived as the water was extremely salty. We also spotted a rubbish bin but Paul was kindly asked by the restaurant not to dispose of his rubbish there as there were public bins over in the next bay. So the next day we ventured in the dinghy onto the other beach in the corner; this was lined with disused fishermen’s’huts , some of which had been restored as beach huts. Paul got talking to a Bulgarian guy, Galin, and had a go on his paddleboard; before we knew it we were all piling in to his jeep for a 20 minute drive to Sanit Josep to stock up with supplies; what a lovely man he was- he worked for an Italian family who had a £15 million house overlooking the bay! The anchorage was beautiful and very still, sheltering us from the northerlies; the days were busy with tenders ferrying guests on the super yachts back and forth to the shore and kids enjoying a variety of water toys! Having a shallow draft we were able to be close in to the shore and enjoyed swimming off the back of the boat to keep cool; the starlit evenings were very quiet and we enjoyed listening to the waves lapping on the shore- this is why we do it, idyllic!

On Wed 26 July 2017 we motored ( only 1 k of wind!) down the coast to pass Isla Esplalmador through the Freu Grande; we regret missing out Formentera but the winds just didn’t fit with our schedule- we’ve realised that you could spend months cruising these islands and still not see all of the attractive calas; hopefully one day we will return. This stretch of water was as busy as the Solent; there were lots of ferries crossing to Formentera and most of the motor boats, who were ‘flying’ at us from all angles, were extremely inconsiderate causing massive wash. The sea became very rough and we were punching into swell on a close haul with 10 k of wind- not pleasant! We spent the night in Cala Llonga, which, as the name suggests, is a long narrow bay; we didn’t venture ashore as we were quite far back, since then Locomotion told us that it was their favourite cala. The following day we had a great downwind sail as far as Pta Grossa, we reached 6k on the passage past Isla Tagomago; then the wind died so we motored on up to Portinax, a fantastic anchorage. We spent two nights here, the stillest anchorage so far; the bright blue sea was crystal clear and the glistening sand was golden. Ray cooked us a delicious curry aboard Kady on our first night and we reciprocated the following evening with one of my ‘upcycled’ chillies. There was a shower on the beach so we went ashore armed with our shower gel- bliss! We managed to get some supplies here although the small supermarkets really only catered for the tourists; we did manage to get several 5l bottles of water into the dinghy as we weren’t quite sure when we’d next be able to fill the tanks. Our next passage was to be some 50 miles over to Mallorca. Thanks for the memories Ibiza!