We set off up the coast on Monday morning, but the swell created from the previous nights winds had not abated and the trip was not one of our more pleasant sails. We had marked a few Calas to check out but it soon became clear that this was a non- starter with the swell, so we aborted and headed for Porto Cristo intending to anchor in the approaches. When we arrived the anchoring area was small and crowded and the tourist boats were flying past at speed creating huge wash in their wakes, it didn’t look fun. The harbour authority throughout much of the Balearic is called ‘Ports IB’ and you are supposed to register on line and book berths on line. We had tried to do this but the site wouldn’t recognise our measurements so we had never tried to berth on one of the public quays as we thought we were too big. In the circumstances, as there was space we radioed Ports IB and were told to go onto the space right on the quay by the office. It’s a nice berth right next to the facilities which are clean and good and the price is only E33 per night for us (including electricity and water). The Harbour Master explained that the website will not recognise the measurement of Cats so you can’t book but it’s OK if there is space. We cooked smoked salmon and asparagus pasta in butter sauce on board last night which went down well with a spot of red.
The main attraction here are the Caves of ‘Las Cuevas del Drach’ so we visited the 10.00 hrs first tour this morning. The ‘tites and mites’ are stunning, when you consider how many thousands of years it must have taken to create this cave system. There is a reasonable size underground lake in the caves and part of the tour is a short concert of classical music played by musicians sitting in a boat being rowed around the lake. Well worth a visit.

Photo: The harbor in Porto Cristo, Splice’s dark blue sail bag can be seen at the far end of the left-hand row of yachts- next to the tourist cat.