The Week Becomes a Blur

When you are having fun time flys by and our time with the Taylors did just that ... Blew by.

The place we arrived at in Mallorca was Cala di Calobra and it was beautiful. A pebble beach on one side, a massive rock with tunnels through it meets up with the bay on the other side to make a really nice tourist spot. The tourists arrive at around 11am and leave at around 6pm. So once the tourists are gone it gets really peaceful. 

For our night at Cala de Calobra we were in a pretty good anchorage but we always check the anchor a few times a night. One time I went up on deck and saw Ross lying in the moonlight on the cockpit cushions, so I brushed his hair from his forehead and kissed him ... Then Jim said "Matt?" and I said "Jim?, you're not Ross" and he replied "no, but that was very nice of you anyway." We had a good laugh about it when we retold the story the next day to the rest of the crew.

The next morning in Cala de Colabra, Marina and I rowed ashore and checked out the beach. In the afternoon dozens of tripper boats arrive and the beach goes from being deserted to being impossibly crowded so we used our time together to check out the cool cave that connects the two beaches and the restaurants on the shoreline.

Later in the day Marina and the kids went ashore and tried their hand at cliff jumping. There is a set of abandoned stairs on the rock wall and accessible from the top of the cave exit, so we positioned the dinghy so we could pick up the cliff jumpers, ferry them to the beach, then they'd run up through the cave and do it again.

After Cala de Colabra we sailed to the city of Soller and anchored out in the Harbour, swam, went ashore and the like. Soller is the big city on Mallorca's west side and has a definite charm. Jim treated us all to dinner out on the boardwalk, he and Sol had a paella while Marina and I each had steaks. We shared a very nice bottle of local wine and at the end of the meal the proprietor came and asked what we would like 'on the house' so we had another bottle of wine .. Not really necessary but, it was good. This was followed by some home-made Grappa or Lemoncello ... kind of foggy on that detail. Anyway, we had Ross drive the dinghy back with us in it back to the boat.

We then left for beautiful Cala Portalio and anchored among a number of boats. Lots of swimming and snorkeling. The girls met up with some other kids and Ross and the boys played off the boats for hours.

I had a lot of work to do that week as the deal that took me back to Vancouver was bubbling again. I had written a bunch of stuff that needed to be transmitted back to Vancouver... but there was no internet available. Everybody but Marina and I had swam to the beach ... the time clock keeps ticking, so Marina and I picked up the anchor and tooled around for an hour a mile offshore so I could connect to the Internet and send my  work. I wonder what the others thought as they saw us powering out of the anchorage. We came back and anchored again. Everyone else seemed very happy to see us again as they swam alongside.

Later in the afternoon, Marina and I swam into the beach past a nudist beach full of men sporting the full brazilian hairstyle -- or perhaps more appropriate, no-hair style. We made our way to the restaurant on the other side and then swam back to the boat.

We went in for an adult dinner on the beach and had an expensive but pretty average, and miniature portions, of seafood. Once again Jim hosted the meal, and we motored back to Tara to find the kids watching a movie -- what a surprise. The night was very fitful with rolling waves causing Marina and I to sleep very little. 

We bugged out early and went to hide behind a a breakwater where we could do some food marketing. With Ross and the boys on board, we went through an astonishing amount of food, and we needed to buy food every day. We sent the girls and Jim in to do the marketing and the boys, Ross and I tooled around in the dinghy teaching and examining the boys' ability to drive the dinghy. I had Matthew ... because us Matts need to stick together, and Ross took Andrew. We charted a course through dozens of moored boats and both boys managed the dinghy with flying colours.

Just as we were preparing to leave a 25 foot RIB with a 250hp engine drifted by unable to start. Marina and the girls towed them back to their slip and received 20 euros to buy ice cream and wine as a treat. Nice guys.

After a couple of hours we pulled up the anchor (I had thankfully gotten in a couple hours of sleep to make up for the sleepless night) and headed for another anchorage. We found a beautiful little bay but the wind and waves were up and we had enough of big waves at night, so we rang the marina the next bay up and made a reservation for Port Adriano. This is a burgeoning super-yacht port with spaces for 60 yachts of 25-70 meters. We slipped in beside a couple of 60 foot Sunseekers and made our way to the beach.

One great thing about Porto Adriano is they have a full-service shop that was able to repair our windlass. Somehow in the last month or so the spring inside had broken, and in the process, sheared off the bolt that held it to the worm gear, so I needed to have that drilled out. An hour or two later (plus 60 euros cash) I had my part back with a perfectly extracted screw ... Excellent. Then I put the parts back together ... a little harder do do when the spring is attached, but we now have a fully functional anchor windlass again. After a great night sleep (and another conference call until 1am for me) we left Porto Adriano for Las Illettas where we anchored first on the east side, then inside the harbour as the day trippers left for home. 

We had a great anchorage and we stayed most of the next day. The number of boats anchored in this little bay was nothing short of astonishing ... probably 100 boats came in and anchored. At the height of the mashup, we had 4 or 5 boats within 1 boatlength of ours all anchored. When it was time for us to go, we had to have two boats move because they were both over our anchor chain and anchor. Then we headed to the RCNPalma (Real Club Nautico de Palma) where we filled up with fuel and water and parked for the night. One of the best aspects of RCNP is that the the kids could spend the whole day at the pool, and they certainly took advantage of the opportunity.

We went out for Tapas in Palma to celebrate a fantastic week and Jessie and Michelle's Graduation (both moving on to high school), but got away from the boat very late, like 10:30pm, so we found an Italian restaurant and we had our last dinner together. Again the food was excellent and we had a great time, though Andrew and Matthew were pretty sleepy by the time we made it home.

Our last morning together we got up around 9 and then had the kids spend the day at the pool while we helped Jim and Sol gather up their stuff and prepare to leave for Latvia, where the boys were born. We sat by the pool until 12 and then the two cabs came, boys in one, girls in the other. We had a tearful goodbye, and are looking forward to getting together in Vancouver and having a slide show.