Grand Slam: Wednesday 6th April – Marina Cala D’or

Cabrera was a great place. We spent two nights there, had some great walks and Rob saw 5 all time new birds including Auduains Gull and a Bee eater. Rob and Anna however had to leave for an early flight Wednesday so on Tuesday we headed back to Majorca to find a marina to drop them off. As the next part of trip is over to Sardinia, we decided it would be best to find a marina on the east coast of Majorca and have a couple of days there.

A rare pic of an even rarer Auduains Gull that came and sat at the back of the boat on Cabrera. You can even see his green legs!!

From the pilot book, Marina Cala D’or in Cala Longa looked to be the most attractive with promises of reasonable depths (unlike many marinas here). We sailed a bit of the way but once away from Cabrera, the clouds built up, it got quite cold and we ended up motoring into 15knts of cold wind. The sun managed to put in an appearance once we got to the marina – we radioed and they said they had space and were met by the marinier who told us to go right to the end of the river (er...Cala)! Now – the pilot book shows not a lot of water right down the end but that is where he took us, past hundreds of the obligatory motor boats. It did however open out into an area with a visitors pontoon and lots of big sailing boats. Grand Slam was dwarfed by all the other 50 footers. Depth up the cala was around 3 metres with 2.5 metres the shallowest.

Prices are going up by the day and although this is a really nice marina with great showers, it came at a price of 66 Euro per day. We’ve decided to stay for 3 nights and then come back to pick Martin up on Sunday. Loads of restaurants and bars serving every imaginable type of food at not too bad prices. We tried the local delicacy last night – roast suckling pig. Very nice!

We spoke to Trevor from Kishorn on the phone and he is somewhere near Magalouf in Palma bay and had been offered a marina berth for 64 Euro a night. His response was “oh really” – an “in” joke which I must tell you sometime.

Now I know I keep going on about high costs but we went into the local “club nautical” to see what it was like. Very nice modern building overlooking the marina. The plebs can go in and eat but to use any of the facilities (swimming pool, sauna, internet(!!) etc), one has to join the club. Membership was 20 Euro per day or 7,500 Euros for 3 years. Family membership was 600 Euro per month. It wasn’t very busy!!! There must be some rich people about.

Reading all this text must be boring so I thought I would catch up on some pictures.

Here is Bogey helming the boat into Cartagena. He really was on the helm - honest.

Bogey also caught up with his mum (that’s Lesley) when we got to Ibiza.

We’ve also heard from China Blue who are now 3.5 light years behind us so not sure they will make it to Majorca before we leave. Sounded like they had a lot of wind at times but have been doing shorter hops than us.

So it has been a lazy day today after seeing Rob and Anna off at 8.00am (along with one set of our boat keys!!!) ....duh!!! A bit more sleep, off to the washing machine to wash the ever increasing pile of dirty stuff, then to the posh sailing club for a late lunch and then off to the tourist dis-information office which of course was shut because it was after 2pm (and not opening again until tomorrow at 8.30am when there is bound to be a queue of tourists waiting at the door). What a great country! The guy in the chandlers was moaning about business being slack but then he tells me they are open between 9am and 12 noon and then again between 5pm and 7pm. Great business model!!

One final topic for today, seen as we are moaning about the Spanish is the number of Germans around here...... and they are all on charter boats. They seem totally incapable of parking their Bavaria 47’s even when the space to get into is twice the size of their boat. I did mention the war once but I think I got away with it. We recognised at least two of the crews from people in the bar in Cabrera. Doubtless there will be more comment on our Germanic friends in the next post.