Having arrived after a 30+ hour trip from Sant Carles we got onto Pollenca we anchored in Puerto Cocodrilo de Bonaire a few meters from the beach in about 5 Mtrs of water all looked good for a calm night at anchor. Whilst it was relatively calm there was a constant small swell coming in from the open sea and we found ourselves rolling from side to side with the water in the tank under our berth slapping from side to side this caused us a disturbed sleep for most of the night. By 08:00am the rolling stopped and we spent a leisurely morning catching up on e-mails and writing blogs. After lunch we decided to try and find a more peaceful anchorage. We decided to slowly move around the edge of the bay. In doing so we found ourselves aground as the keel just touched an isolated rock. We motored off without any assistance but struck out further into the bay to avoid grounding again.
We had read that the bay near porto Pollencia was now all buoys and that no anchoring was allowed however on arriving in the bay we were surprisingly pleased to see other boats anchored so with only 0.9Mtrs under the keel we anchored outside of most of the other boats not risking going in too shallow. Pete dived on the Anchor to check it was fully dug in but on returning to the boat discovered that we had rope around the prop. Fortunately it was not tightly wound and he was able to untangle it by diving on the prop. We have no Idea when we picked it up.

We noticed our friends Robbie & Jacks on Spring dawn anchored further in but as it was now early evening we decided to leave them alone tonight and call on them tomorrow. The next day whilst pumping up the dinghy Robbie came over in their dinghy and invited us aboard there boat for dinner that night and said they were going ashore late morning and if we wanted to meet them ashore they would show us around.

Porto Pollencia is a bustling holiday location with small marina and it seems to cater predominately for British tourists and all businesses spoke English really well as a result. We found the chancellery & ferriteria and were able to get supplies. That night we dined on Spring dawn and had a very pleasant evening before a dinghy ride in the dark back to our boat (must remember to take a torch next time!)
we explored both Alcudia & Pollenca towns by bus leaving Argonauta swinging on her hook for the day this was after watching the mornings entertainment provided curtsy of the Spanish armed forces. Puerto Pollencia is one of the base for the air-forces fire-fighting sea planes and at 09:45 each morning they started up the planes than supported by a safety boat the trundled into the water then took off across the bay spray flying they then carried out exercises flying low over the water and scooping up sea water filling the tanks before dropping in in a big cloud of spray and then repeating the whole procedure over again. A great spectacle if you could stand the noise and we had excellent front row seats from the anchorage.

Jackie Explored all three of the markets, surprisingly spending very little. Result!

After five days at anchorage our battery levels were getting a little low so we decided to use the generator to charge them up. This was the first time we’ve needed to do this though we did remove the generator service it and give it a major overall and test before we left we never needed to use it in anger last year. First was the problem of starting it. having not been run for nearly a year it didn’t want to start. Spark plugs removed & cleaned, new fuel and dint of us both pulling on the start cord with significant amounts of associated swearing, finally got it to start. Hooray! It ran for about 10 mins before we noticed a burning smell and smoke coming out of the locker it is in! Frantically switching it off we discovered the water feed pipe into the Exhaust manifold had melted! We had never run it this long before. Just enough to check it worked then switched it off again. The previous owner had fitted all the pipe work and we had till then had no reason to doubt it was correct. On reviewing the problem we determined that we needed to pump water into the manifold both the cool the exhaust and to quieten the engine. Pete went ashore to look for suitable pipe. First attempt was too small and would not fit the second worked quite well and using the wash down pump we managed to run the generator for two hours and top up the big 575AmpHr house bank battery. We now need to source a permanent pump that runs off the generators 240v supply as opposed to draining the house banks 12v supply while charging it but we had a temporary solution for now. If we keep frequently starting the generator we should not have problems starting it again.

Finally it came time to leave and head onto Menorca. This was only a 28 mile trip however we had got settled in the bay and it was a bit of a wrench to say goodbye to Mallorca and move on.