26^th June 2008.

We thought we’d give you an update of our trip to the Balearics. We left Rota on 22^nd April and visited Gibraltar, Morocco, Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca. We have had a great time so far and the gloomy predictions of some yachting friends don’t seem that accurate!

 I’m sure it is very expensive if you stay in marinas overnight but so far we haven’t spent a night in a marina since leaving Almerimar on 30^th May. We’ve had one night at sea, 6 nights on a free mooring buoy on the Isle of Espalmador and the rest (20 nights) we have safely spent hanging off anchor. Our anchor has dragged a bit twice so we’ve had to re-anchor and we have had 3 rolly uncomfortable nights but apart from that it’s been fine.

As predicted, it is busy with boats of all descriptions, especially in the south and at week ends, but later-on every evening the anchorages thin out as the Spanish go back to their marinas. We’ve had no trouble getting supplies in the dingy – though in our dingy we often get wet. One day we went into a marina (Botafoch in Puerto Ibiza –very, very posh) for the morning to take on fuel, water and supplies and have a coffee in a café and we were only charged €10 for the water -180 gallons of it!!

Of Ibiza, we’ve so far only really covered the west (around Puerto de San Antonio), south (round the Isles of Espalmador and Formentera) and the southeast (around Puerto de Ibiza). The scenery is spectacular and the water so clear – great for diving and snorkelling. In the south it’s a nudist’s paradise. We even joined the crazy tourists and took a mud bath in a smelly, sulphurous, drying-up lagoon and lay naked in the sea to wash it off!! Pictures will follow!! We’ve seen many sailing nudists too but I do worry about all those winches etc., anchoring is difficult enough…!!

Our plan now is to stock up with food again (food is much more expensive than in mainland Spain) and set off - if the winds allow - to the north coast and sail to Mallorca, spending about 4 weeks there before going to Minorca for August.

We hope you are all ok. Keep in touch – we love to get e-mails when we get into shore. We have telephone reception most of the time so texts are good too. Best wishes and lots of love, Dave and Sue xx