Putting ourselves back together again.
After the Crossing From Hell (Sardinia to Mallorca), what was needed was a good dose of family, a familiar environment, good food and plenty of it. We spent over a week in the harbor at Porto Pollenҫa, and with my sister Molly and her Mallorquín husband Henry down the road on a finca just outside of Pollenҫa town, I had what I needed to get some equilibrium back. We found a good spot in the remarkably uncrowded harbor at the port and settled in for some easier days of hanging out with Molly, eating out, shopping, and oh yeah, getting things done on the boat.
In addition to spending time on the finca, we found Molly and Henry’s niece and nephew Jessica and Nelson and their kids Maddie and James wonderful companions, too: our first Sunday morning market we spent with them in the town plaza drinking coffee, eating breakfast, and catching up…
Then after climbing to the church above the plaza and perusing the rest of the market, we met them at the port and took them out to Cala en Gossalba on The Fish for a few hours that afternoon.
Nelson is joining us as crew from Gibraltar to Las Palmas and brings not just sailing know how but extraordinary mechanical expertise as well. When our dinghy motor wouldn’t start the day after our excursion, he came down to the port, took it apart enough to diagnose the problem, pulled out the carburetor and then took us over to the fabrication boat yard he works in to rebuild it. Purrs like a very happy kitty now. (The motor, not Nelson.)
Henry had just had major surgery in the hospital in Barcelona and was still in rehab there, and back home for a couple of weeks, Molly was footloose and fancy free. So, in addition to driving us around the first couple of days, she cooked. Specifically, she made one of my heart’s desires and most-missed food from home: pork enchiladas with beautifully hot and flavorful green chile. And her rightly famous chocolate spice cake for dessert. The cake was technically for their dear friend Sébas, who drove to Palma to pick her up when she returned from Barcelona. (Not sure that would normally have warranted a very special cake, but she did tell him she got in at 8 when the ferry was actually due in at 11 – and arrived hours after that.) But Sébas generously shared with all of us, thank god, and it was a joyous evening on the finca, with happy (and eventually very full) bellies and carefree spirits.
We didn’t want to leave Mallorca, so kept finding all sorts of good reasons to stay. We extended our rental car a couple of days to finish the errands that kept coming up. Our SVB order hadn’t arrived yet, so we definitely had to wait for that. We ate out with Molly a few more times, and among other things replaced the lazy jack lines that snapped that second night on the crossing from Sardinia.
Once the SVB order did arrive we had a conundrum. It included our new 6-person life raft, which was very heavy – though not as heavy as the 10-person on the Fish we were replacing. We could probably let gravity get that one into the dinghy and get it to shore, but getting it out was going to be a challenge – and then where would we put it? Where were we going to find someone who wanted a 10-person life raft that was due for testing? Again, thank god for Sébas, who came to the rescue. A fisherman from a long line of Mallorquín fishermen, Sébas motored out in his boat and not only brought our huge SVB box of other boat “necessities” with him, but then took the 10-person raft back to the marina storage area, where someone at some point will either want it or want to try to sell it. If I didn’t already think he was a saint for sharing that cake with us, I would definitely think so after seeing him lift those rafts in and out of his boat. He totally deserved the rest of the cake!
Side Notes:
In anticipation of a big blow, Sébas told us to move closer to the north shore of the bay. PredictWind said it would get into the 40s starting at 5 am and ending just a few hours later. Sure enough, we woke at 5 am to that bone chilling sound of the freight train barrelling down on us with shrieking winds right behind it. We’d already put away anything that can fly off in the wind so we focused on making sure we weren’t dragging into any other boats. This screenshot from Anchor Pro shows how we dragged, reset briefly a couple of times, dragged again, reset again, dragged yet again and finally reset for good. I’ll tellya.
We were also anchored right next to the sea plane take off and landing strip.
And finally, when we could put off our departure no longer, we learned Henry was going to be released from the hospital early. Molly took the ferry to Barcelona again to bring him home, and we spent the day preparing to leave for Ibiza the next afternoon: returned the rental car, provisioned, cleaned, and cooked. They arrived back about 5 am the next morning, and Molly picked us up at 10 and took us back to the finca. Despite being exhausted, they were both in good spirits, and we spent a couple of hours catching up with Henry, drinking coffee, eating the delicious pastries Nelson and Jessica brought, and eventually, howling at the hilarious/occasionally horrifying stories Henry told of growing up in Pollenҫa in the 60s and 70s. (With a blended family of 8 teenaged boys, he had plenty.)
It was hard to leave.
It helped that after leaving Pollenҫa we had one of the more beautiful routes we’ve encountered to date in the Med. We left the bay past the Formentor,
then west along the north coast, dramatic and wild, peeking into Cala Sa Colobra, then Cala Tuent, before heading directly for Ibiza.
It was calm motoring, quiet, unhurried, and reflective. The sun slid into the sea stretched out in front of us, and it was easy to believe again that it would always be like this.
Up next: October 2024 – Part II. (Trying to get out of the Med: Ibiza, Alicante, Cartagena, Málaga, and finally, Gibraltar!)