Sailing Ibiza & Mallorca in the Balearics

July & Aug 2020

In the past we have holiday'd in Mallorca, never in Ibiza but we are amazed at how rugged and beautiful both Islands are.

Ibiza is known to be the party island of the Med, however we are lucky to be sailing during the summer of Covid-19.  Most of the anchorages are quiet and the towns are eerily quiet with under 50% of bars and restaurants being opened.  The tourists are not coming this year and who can blame them when the UK holiday makers are being told they have to quarantine for 2 weeks when they return.  Who is able to take 3 wks paid holiday?

The water is crystal clear so swimming is easy and checking the anchor is a bliss in waters like this.  Sant Antoni was the quietest of all with none of the tourists boats going out, although this did make the anchorages better for cruisers like us.

We visited the stunning little village of Portinatx.  With only a couple of bars & hotels, a horseshoe shaped beach and caves to explore, it was truly stunning.

We had a cracking sail to Mallorca (Majorca), it was wonderful.  The Med is not known for it's consistently good wind.  It can either be all-wind or no-wind but we were lucky on this day.  As a cruiser there is nothing more magical than when we turn the engine off and listen to the wind in the sails and the water running and splashing down the hull of the boat.



Mallorca has lots of anchorages and not so many Posidonia police keeping an eye on if you have anchored in the sea-grass.  During our month here we see more boats turning up and transiting to Italy & Turkey.

The waters are still clear and the land still rugged.  What we have noticed is a distinct lack of fish.  We love our snorkelling but we see very little in the way of fish and sea creatures, such as shame as this also means there is a lack of dolphins, explains why we haven't seen any for some time.

We arrive in Mallorca late July and very quickly we realised we are going to have to change our batteries, ALL of them.  We place and order with Mallorca Batteries but the house bank are going to be at least 2 weeks as they are coming from the UK!!

We visit Soller and what a beautiful town it is. There is the new town on the coast that is totally set up to accommodate yachts that do not want to go into the marina and then there is Old Town Soller, which can be reached by either bus or tram, we chose to visit via the tram that turned out to cost almost our daily budget.  Well worth going to visit though as it is so pretty with its narrow roads with high buildings and walkways.

Our return passage was calm enough for us to try out our spinnaker sail for the first time - it was fabulous whilst it lasted as the wind died to nothing and we had to take it down after 45mins.

Onward and upwards, batteries are due soon and we've still got lots to explore in Mallorca 😃.

Sailing Formentera in the Balearics

June 2020

Our overnight passage from just outside the Mar Manor on mainland Spain was uneventful.  We managed a cracking sail for about an hour and half then the wind dropped and we ended up motor sailing the rest of the way.

This was the first overnight sail this year and we decided that Steve would do the 8-12midnight and early morning watch, I would do the midnight to 4am.

We saw Formentera on the horizon about lunch time.  Its always exciting when you see land having been at sea for a while and this was just one night haha!  Our estimated arrival time would be 3pm.  We had been motor sailing at about 4.5knts and by the time we arrived in our anchorage in Cala Seona we had been at sea 18hours.

This is the first Mediterranean island we have sailed to and it was so exciting.  It was a large anchorage with several Spanish flagged boats but due to Covid it was still fairly quiet with foreign boats.

The water was crystal clear and warm, just as we had envisaged. Within minutes we had fish all around the boat, eager to use the shade and await for any food scraps.  

We spent our time working, paddle boarding and just enjoying the amazing views of the sunset.  And then on day three we had a first squall.  The wind whipped up very quickly and we started to drag anchor.

Fortunately we were in the cockpit. Steve ran to the bow to ensure we weren't going to hit any other boat, I turned on the engine and started to go astern slowly.  I looked across the bay and 3 other boats were also dragging.  In just a few seconds it was like someone had stirred up the whole anchorage and left us all swirling in a whirlpool.  We continued to go astern and all of a sudden the wind dropped and with a bit of careful manoeuvring so that we weren't on any other boats scope area we bed our anchor safely into position.  This time Steve actually swam down to ensure it was fully bed-in.  Steve was embarrassed that we had dragged, which we had never experienced.  He blamed himself for not checking the anchor when we arrived 2 days ago and says it was his fault as he knew we were not anchored in tightly.  We learn something every day 🙄.  

On the 5th day we decided to sail to move on and had a very slow sail to Tramontana.  This anchorage was an amazing place with fantastic rock formations above the most awesome cave that we dingy'd over to see.  We are beginning to notice a lot of naked sailors.  It appears to be the norm to walk around your boat completely starkers.  The funny thing is that we have yet to see a UK flagged boat like this.  

We stayed a couple of nights here as we were sheltered from the wind but then at about 7pm we noticed we were one of 4 boats left in the anchorage, which had had about 50 boats in it.  The weather was due to turn but not until the following morning.  However, we decided that we would move on to the other side of the island or Ibiza, wind dependent.  As it was we did sail but only slowly so we anchored in Platja de sea Illetes where we saw many of the boats that had left the same anchorage as us.  It was dark when we arrived at 10pm but we could see the water was clear and calm, we were safe.

Boy, are we glad we anchored up here in Platja de sea Illetes.  It's like we have been transported to the Caribbean.  We were looking over a sandy sliver of land that was being beaten by waves from the west but was beautifully calm on the east.  We decided to go and explore.  It was an amazing place where the water was able to cross over the sandbar, which could be walked through as well.  The sand dunes all along the sandbar were awesome and we stood and watched the waves ferocious & wild on the west but only 50mtrs across the shoreline was like rippling molten silver.  This was true paradise ♡.

Having spent nearly wonderful 2 weeks in Formentera next stop was Ibiza.............