Relaxing on the boat at the Real Club Nautica de Palma, the 11 days we spent in Ibiza seem a million miles away.
Our memories of Ibiza include beautiful anchorages, crystal clear waters for swimming, fine food, and some great, if challenging sailing. But also crowds, uncomfortable nights, party music blaring, and sky-high costs in the marinas.
In retrospect, we should have realised August would be a busy month for tourism. The pilot books warn of crowded anchorages and difficulty finding berths in marinas. In fact, it proved almost impossible to get into any marina at all in the entire time we were in Ibiza. We managed just one night in St Eulalia, a marina on the east coast reputed to be the easiest to get into and the cheapest. If it is indeed the cheapest, I dread to think what the others cost, as our one night, booked over a week in advance (in the worst, most isolated spot in the marina) cost close to €200. Later in our stay, when our windlass failed (it turned out to be a blown fuse), we tried to enter another marina but were flat out refused, despite pleading that we had no choice as we could not anchor.
Lack of marinas did help our anchoring skills, as we anchored for 10 of the 11 nights on the island, 8 of them consecutively. We sailed clockwise and anti-clockwise, searching for the most sheltered spots. In all we visited 7 anchorages – Cala Sahona on the small island of Formentera, Calla Blanca, Puerto de san Miquel, Puerto de San Antoni, Calla Tolida, Port Roig, and Ses Salines. At some of these places we stayed aboard, and at others took our little dinghy ashore. So all good practice – apart from learning how to fix the anchor, we learnt plenty about the capacity of the boat’s batteries, the value of the solar panels and the water maker, and the reserves of gas for cooking. Thankfully, Merryn proved more than capable, and we were still in good form for the sail to Mallorca on the 14th, where we made landfall at the Real Club Nautic in Palma (which has a swimming pool!). More on Palma and Mallorca in the next blog…