Mallorca 2010
Written by ⊳ Laura A. Wilson
05.06.2010 Saturday
Leaving Frankfurt around 11:30 am, Ingo and I arrived in the small bustling airport of the Spanish island, Palma de Mallorca, Saturday around 2:00pm. Mostly full of German speaking people, I understood immediately upon arrival why Mallorca is jokingly considered Germany’s 17th Bundesland. After a short taxi ride from the airport to the end of the enormous pier in Palma de Mallorca, we met and greeted the 7 crew members from our companion boat at the harbor coffee shop, who informed us they were waiting there until repairs being made to their sailboat were finished. We proceeded from there a short distance to where our 45 ft Sun Charter sailboat, Flamenco, awaited us. Our six crew members warmly greeted us – Guido, Michael, Stephan, Stephan, Dennis and Marina. They had taken a 3am flight from Munich and were in surprisingly good shape, had been very industrious and already shopped (at ⊳ Mercat Santa Catalina), unpacked the supplies and organized the boat, made Sangria and were just finishing lunch when we arrived.
After setting up our room and squeezing things into extremely small spaces in our micro V-shaped bedroom compartment, safe from falling out or getting tossed around, I discovered our ceiling window was just large enough to also be a door, or escape route, to the deck above. We came back up and sat with the crew, talking and enjoying a couple of Sangrias, delicious goat cheese, spicy salami, and fresh bread. Later Guido, our Captain, gave us an introduction to the boat, where all the food and supplies were stored, how to operate the sinks and toilets (very important), a quick guide of the boat’s equipment, and use of the safety belts, etc. Since the other boat had a few problems that still needed to be fixed, it was decided we were going to wait until the Sunday to start sailing.
So, Ingo and I decided to explore. We drank our first cortados at the pier coffee shop, which were delicious, and walked briefly downtown, though beautifully designed and landscaped market spaces and tall, narrow and sometimes colorful alleys. There was a temporary book market set up that we browsed through while eating ices, and then slowly made our way back to the boat just as dinner was being served. Guido made a fantastic Spanish chicken and veggie stew, which we ate with fresh bread and a Temperatillo Roja wine. There was a beautiful golden light at sunset, illuminating the boats in the harbor and surrounding landscape in a warm glow and reflecting the water ripples gently against the side of the boat and pier. After cleaning up, we drank coffees, beer and wine, talked and repeatedly listened enthusiastically to what became the theme song for our trip, Das Narrenschiff by Reinhard Mey. From this song, I learned about the ⊳ Klabautermann, a spirit from German folklore that lives on ships at sea, usually a helpful spirit on boats, which is only seen if the boat is doomed to sink. This led to hearing about the Bilgenschwein, that lives in the hull of the boat and makes noises below deck but is never seen.
The seven members of the other boat came over and were happy about our cold beer (as their refrigerator wasn’t cool yet), wine and peanuts. Someone had a guitar and a large repertory of English and German songs, which most of were able to sing along to for quite a while, until we started falling off one by one to go to sleep.
06.06.2010 Sunday
Woke at 7am to the making of coffee and rustling in the cabin – you can hear every movement and sound in the cabins. Forget privacy. Took a shower in the harbor at Palma. Yummy breakfast of fresh fruit and yogurt, bread, a variety of cheeses, ham, nutella, coffee, juice.
Got ready, securing all hanging and loose items in the boat. We first tried practicing backing the boat into the harbor stall a few times and were all assigned tasks for this routine, which we kept for the trips entirety. After a toast to our health and a successful and healthy trip with glasses of port, we motored out of the harbor of Palma de Mallorca around 09:00. We practiced ‘man overboard’ maneuvers, all of us taking turns steering and picking up the buoy thrown overboard. By that time the wind had started to pick up, so we were able to turn off the motor and prepare to sail.
With round of Miguel Especial and ‘Der Narrenschiff’ playing at full volume, we were finally sailing around the southern side of Mallorca. After an hour or so, I started to feel the effects of the water movements combined with the beer. It was ok for the morning, but unfortunately I started feeling pretty ill ... and lost most of the afternoon to seasickness, sleeping under deck until we arrived at our destination around 5 pm. I don’t know how sailors do it – for me drinking and sailing don’t mix well, but of course I’m a novice. Obviously for others two wrongs can make a right.
At 17:15 Port Cabrera, we anchored in the port of a beautiful nature preserve off the south east end of Mallorca. Twenty six boats, anchored and attached to buoys, were sprinkled in the large protected cove. You need a secured reservation in advance to stay here overnight.
The four youngest of our crew, Stephan, Stephan, Dennis and Marina, took the motor boat to land, but had problems with the motor and didn’t quite make it there. They had to employ the help of another boat to tow them back. Ingo, Michael and I collaborated with Guido, an amazing and experience Italian chef among many other talents, making our delicious dinner for that evening:
Starter: Buffalo Mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, oil, vinegar, salt & pepper
Main Dish: Tuna Steak with Bay Leaves and Lemon, Fried Rosemary Potatoes, Salad, and Rioja Rose
At dinner, we watched a large rainstorm in the distance pass us to the north from the safety of the cove. A light rain fell for a while, but the sky cleared up and there was a perfect view of the stars in the crystal clear night.
07.06.2010, Monday
Woke late at 8 am. Breakfast of eggs, proscuito, cheese, bread, yogurt, fruit, coffee and OJ. Earlier Stephan, Guido and others went for a morning swim and were greeted with the unwanted handshakes from small jellyfish. Both Stephan and Guido had welts on their arms and Guido had a welt on his foot, both seemed to be ok. During breakfast, we played with a seagull, who liked our dinghy and wanted to rest there. We’d pull the rope of the dinghy to make him jump up and land in the water, so he wouldn’t use our little boat as his toilet. However, he would playfully jump up back on and this back and forth between boat, pulling the rope, water, boat, etc., went on for a while.
The other boat crew wanted to stay longer to explore the nature preserve on land, so we had time to clean out the boat, write, read, and casually lay in the sun. Quite a pleasant place to sit and enjoy. Swimming by our boat in the dark prussian blue fourteen meter deep water were lots of bright blue fish and small jelly fish.
Around 10 or 10:30, we started sailing from Port Cabrera for several hours back to Mallorca. We spotted three separate groups of dolphins, one off in the distance, one group running perpendicular to us, which swam under our boat and reemerged on the other side, and later one group swam parallel to us. Two Spanish military planes circled the sky for the first two hours of our journey, flying low and near us a few times.
Sailing was smooth and fast, not so many choppy waves as the day before. The landscape from Cabrera has quite a number of low and wide sweeping sculpted expanses of outcropped islands. Remarkable is the blue of the sky on a clear day. It starts as a pure cerulean blue at the horizon, changing to a light ultramarine blue with ephemeral dreamy stratus and stratocumulus clouds around the horizon and only a few cumulus clouds higher up. We had clear skies and bright sun all day.
We stopped in the bay of Cala Llombards, where we anchored the boats for 1,5 hours. The wind and waves were coming strong from the east making the boat move side to side like a rocking chair. I thought it would be a good idea to be on solid ground for a while, after the 4 hours of sailing in the morning, and asked to be motored to the beach. The waters are crystal clear here. I took a swim and regained my balance lying still on the warm soft sand. There were many topless sunbathers at this spot, as well as families with children building sand castles, and digging and experimenting with water. Later Guido and Ingo picked me up and made a few posed shots at the beach before returning to the boat. There were gigantic houses on the cliffs surround the cove in this amazing setting.
We decided not to sail, but to motor the boat to Porto Petro. The geological structure of the island is impressive. Long sandwiched layers of smoothed stone stretch horizontally along the exposed cliffs for kilometers and gradually curving down and up from the sea. There are fallen boulders far below the island cliff edges, where stone and water meet, which Ingo said “looks like Giants played dice with the stones” about the way they were stacked and had fallen. All along the circumference of the island, beautiful villas and houses on cliffs with huge vertical drops overlook the sea.
We arrived around 18:30 in Porto Petro. After cleaning and securing the boat, we were off to eat dinner around 19:30 at La Caracola Paseo Port, s/n 07691 Portopetro, Santanyi, Mallorca, Tel: 971 657 013. It is a popular local restaurant with impeccable service and a delicious menu.
We were very hungry after no lunch, except for a few crackers and water. Ingo, fluent in Spanish,
ordered an abundant variety of appetizers and paella for all of us:
Gambas Ajillo – prawns with garlic
Pulpo Gallega – octopus ‘Gallega”
Pulpo Cebella – octopus with onions
Champinones Ajillo – Mushrooms with garlic
Tumbet – typical Mallorca vegetables
Frito Malorquin – liver, potatoes, vegetables
Calamar Romana – fried squid rings
Paella Ciega – paella without bones and shells – meat, fish, rice
Later came back, showered and had drinks on the deck. The other boat, docked beside us started another round of songs with guitar and singing, with many songs and lyrics made up which made for many good laughs.
08.06.2010, Tuesday
Late start from port around 10:30. Hit the hull on rocks going out of the harbor. Motored majority of the way. Went to a small ‘secret’ bay that had a small public beach. Lots of jellyfish swimming there. Tragically looked like another boat had recently let it’s trash and wastewater out in the normally crystal clear water moments before we arrived. It did dissipate within a few hours while we were there. Many of us took the dinghy to the beach for a swim. I later swam back to the boat. We thought about anchoring there for the evening, but weather and a wind shift caused us to decide to go to the safety of a port for the evening.
Went to Porto Christo, where there were beautifully landscaped terraced cliffs, large modern and classic villas, and where the best showers from any port we visited were located. Guido made a salad and a delicious goulash stew. Afterwards he and Michael surprised us by personally serving us cortados and ices from the harbor restaurant. Several of us walked around the town of Porto Christo, where at 22:00, there were still open markets and restaurants, and very nice people. After three days sailing, everything is still moving, even when on land.
09.06.2010, Wednesday
Had an early start out of the port at 09:15. Overcast and grey all day. Water color changed from the ideal turquoises to cobalt and ultramarine. Long day of intensive sailing for 10 hours. Great dinner at amazing restaurant Ca'n Pep, Avenida Miramar, 30 (Sa Ràpita), Campos, Islas Baleares 07639
10.06.2010, Thursday
10:30 start. Only 25 miles. Walked through city and saw Ballermann. El Arenal was a nice Yacht club – went for a swim and slept by the pool. Had pasta for Dinner. Guido, Michael, Stephan, Stephan, Dennis and Marina went out to party in the city. Ingo and I looked at the boats in the harbour.
11.06.2010, Friday
Michael and Guido found a typical Tapas Bar in Santa Catalina: Cafeteria Restaurante Sa Ronda, Avenida Argentina, 37 - Bajos Palma de Mallorca.
FLAMENCO: Michael, Guido, Dennis, Laura, Stephan, Stephan, Ingo, Marina
ALL OF ME: Rudolf, Oliver, Wilhelm, Thilo, Josef, Josef, Bernhard