August 2023

The social media chat about this group of islands off the east coast of Spain was full of pessimism, painting a picture of anchorages crowded with incompetent and inconsiderate skippers creating conditions ripe for chaos in the event of an unexpected wind shift or squall. Warnings about the posidonia police (sea grass police) patrolling the bays to ensure that no-one’s anchor was disturbing the protected posidonia, were an added complication to finding a place to anchor. Then there is the wind which can blow from all points of the compass and the notorious squalls which can appear quickly and be incredibly fierce. Our experience was a month of comfortable anchorages, some of which were indeed crowded, on beautiful islands which were touristy and very up-market but somehow managed to retain their old-world charm. And we managed to escape the worst effects of one of those notorious squalls.
After our passage from Sardinia, our first landfall in the Balearics was at Cala Teulera, on the island of Minorca. Now this was a crowded anchorage squeezed in between the end of a peninsula on one side and a close lying island on the other. At first pass, we didn’t think we were going to find a spot to anchor. It’s a bit intimidating when you come into a close anchorage like this with everyone watching but we managed to get ourselves settled. Then of course, we in turn were able to enjoy the evening ritual of watching the new boats come in looking for a spot. There is no doubt that there could be chaos in this anchorage with strong and shifting winds making boats swing and drag. Although it wasn’t overly windy while we were there, Phil helped three boats that had dragged over five days. Paseafique held firm though. Cala Teulera is a popular spot for day trippers and unlike many other places, the day boats here pottered in slowly (even the speed boats) and simply enjoyed themselves swimming, chatting, fishing, eating before heading off home at sunset. It was close enough to the main town, Mahon, for us to take the dinghy to explore.

After five days in this delightful anchorage, we decided to move around to Fornell’s Bay on the north coast of Minorca. No problems with space in this large U-shaped bay that’s for sure. Fornells Bay is an absolute hive of wind and person powered on-water activity: dinghy sailing, windsurfing, kayaking, canoeing and snorkelling. It was so much fun to watch, and wonderful to see people enjoying the wind and water.

We had a lovely downwind day sail to our next anchorage, Port de Pollenca on the main Balearic Island, Mallorca. From here we made use of the excellent bus service to visit the town of Pollenca (the town up the hill from Port de Pollenca), Soller and its port (unsurprisingly called Port de Soller), and the capital Palma.

Port de Soller is an anchorage that we thought we might visit and as we had heard that it was another one of those notoriously crowded ones, we decided to do a land trip there to see for ourselves. The drive from Port de Pollenca to Port de Soller (via the mountain town of Soller but more on that later), winds its way along a narrow road through the Tramuntana Mountains and provides magnificent views at every turn. We were unprepared for just how breath taking the scenery would be. We had a look around Port de Soller and agreed that it was very crowded and that we would probably pass it by when the time came to move on from Port de Pollenca (are you keeping up with the ports here?).

We had a great day out in Palma, the capital of Mallorca. The old town is really beautiful, and yes there are lots of tourists, but that does not detract from its charm.

People had highly recommended that we should visit the cathedral, and it certainly did get rave reviews on the internet. Although we had previously decided that we had visited enough churches, we begrudgingly made an exception and, boy oh boy, the Catedral-Basilica de Santa Maria de Majorca was jaw droppingly ornate.

Construction was commenced in the 1200’s and was completed in 1630 but decoration and renovation has continued until now. The famous Spanish architect and designer Gaudi was responsible for some of the upgrades to the interior in the early 1900’s.

After a few hours in there, we stumbled out in the bright sunlight and found our way to the restaurant where we had arranged to meet Phil’s friend, Mal and his partner, for lunch. Phil met Mal when he was solo sailing in Turkey during 2020 while I was stuck in Melbourne due to Australia’s closed border during the covid epidemic. Mal is now living in Palma so it was very exciting for Phil to see him again, and for me to meet him and his lovely partner, Arifey. Arifey has lived in Palma for some time so it was great chatting to her about its history and culture. Interestingly she told us that at one time while the farms on Mallorca were valuable, the seaside holiday houses, that many farming families also owned, were not. Consequently, the sons in the family would inherit the farm and the daughters would often be given the holiday houses. Now of course, these seaside properties are worth much more than the agricultural land!

We did in fact end up in Port de Soller, after moving on from Port de Pollenca, as it was actually less crowded than when we had visited it earlier.

It proved to be a great location from which to explore some more of this beautiful area on Mallorca. A few of our yachtie mates were arriving in the area from other parts of the Med and they all converged on Soller and Port de Soller while we were there. Our friends on Liberte, Liz and Steve, caught the bus from their anchorage in Port de Pollenca to Soller, where we had arranged to meet them for lunch. On the same day our friends on Anthem, Adrian and Marianna, arrived in the Port de Soller anchorage, and all six of us ended up in Soller for lunch. We bid farewell to Liz and Steve, and Adrian, Marianna, Phil and I returned to our boats in Port de Soller. That evening, Jack and Jan on the US flagged Anthem, also arrived in the anchorage and the crew from the two Anthems, and us, had a raucous reunion dinner together that evening. Jack and Jan left for mainland Spain the next day, so it was even sweeter that we got to spend the evening with them.

Soller became wealthy during the 19th century on the back of its citrus growing industry, and there is currently a resurgence of traditional organic farming in the area. There are a number of fairs and festivals orientated around produce like olives, mushrooms, pork, wine and honey. It’s a really beautiful old town, as is one of the nearby villages Fornalutx. I really liked the feeling of this whole part of Mallorca- there seemed to be a real appreciation for its history and traditions.

We headed south on Mallorca to Santa Ponsa, having heard good things about it from another yachtie friend who was anchored there. We enjoyed catching up with Craig in this pretty spot, where we had a narrow escape from one of those notoriously unpredictable squalls that I mentioned earlier. We knew some bad weather was on its way and so moved to nearby Cala Blanca where we thought the protection would be somewhat better. As it turned out, the protection was a lot better, because in Santa Ponsa, the wind came from the wrong direction and caused all sorts of chaos in that anchorage with boats dragging and even one boat getting washed up onto the shore. We saw a video of that boat being re-floated the next day by a group of locals who volunteered to help the owner. In that same storm, a cruise liner broke its mooring lines in Palma on Mallorca and crashed into a container ship! It was windy in our anchorage in Cala Blanca, but it was manageable. We thought at one stage that we might have been dragging a bit, so we re-anchored without a problem. Cala Blanca has some rocky patches covered with a thin layer of sand so that’s probably why we didn’t hold so well in the stronger wind.

We both really wanted to visit Barcelona which we had enjoyed as young backpackers, but it was just too hard to get up there against the wind. So we made another plan to go to Vallencia and became quite enthusiastic about it, but alas the wind gods were not smiling on us, regardless of how many times we checked the forecast. So after surprisingly enjoyable time in the Balearics, it was straight to Gibraltar and La Linea (the Spanish anchorage next to Gibraltar)