The wind rose on a bit last weekend, so we ended up spending several days in port at Cala d'Or. As places to be stuck go, it was pretty good with plenty of restaurants, friendly marina staff and good facilities. We took ourselves off to the nearby beach one afternoon but to be honest it was overcrowded with mainly German tourists and wasn't any great shakes. Em and Rory joined us on Sunday evening after I'd managed to get 19 towels and assorted bedding washed, dried and sorted from our previous guests. Talk about a Chinese laundry!
We spent the next few days retracing our path along the south coast of Majorca - the wind had turned, making a trip to the north coast impossible. Still, the beach as Es Trenc was as gorgeous as on our previous visit, and we found a fabulous restaurant just set back from the shoreline and worth a return trip. From there it was back to Portals which was much quieter than last time - we've obviously passed peak holiday season, but it didn't seem to have occurred to the shop staff that, with so little trade around, they ought to be pleasant to potential customers! Unless you're a Russian, a hooker or a pimp, you don't get much attention from them (no comments, thank you.)
We returned to Andratx after an afternoon at anchor in Portals Vells, a very pretty inlet with 4 small beaches separated by rocky outcrops. With loads of fish in the very clear, warm water, it was a lovely place for snorkelling. When we were about to leave, the yacht in front of us was performing all sorts of strange manoevres, threatening to reverse into us on several occasions. Eventually we realised that their anchor chain had twisted around ours, and it took some time to extricate ourselves - in fact, Rory dived down and untwisted it, no mean feat.
The sea conditions were some of the best we've experienced during our entire trip, flat calm water, absolutely idyllic. The following day we returned to Portals Vells and dropped anchor again. This time, we were a bit far out and getting moved around by the wake, so we decided to shift position. As the anchor came up, it rammed into its cradle, snapping the metal bridge which holds it in place and then it swung over the side of the bow. We were unable to get it back into place, so with the anchor hanging loose, we tiptoed back to Portals to get it fixed. It wasn't our best day - when we got into port and moored up, the Marineros came and told us they'd put us on the wrong mooring, so we immediately had to move.
With the anchor repaired (we had discovered that it had been wrongly put in place when the cradle was originally assembled) we spent the following afternoon at anchor in Santa Posa before returning to Andraxt. Em and Rory departed on Friday, and once they'd gone, Frank decided to launch himself off the steps to the bridge resulting in a bad bruising to both his back and his pride.
We now have a brief 3 days alone before Tim and Annabelle join us once again. And after 3 months of unbroken sunshine, guess what the meteo is forecasting for their arrival? Batten down the hatches folks, there could be a storm brewing!
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