Balearic wifi Hunt (Menorca - Majorca)

 

20 Aug 2021 Menorca-Majorca

Both tired from what turned into a little bit of a hairy three day crossing from Sardinia, we dropped anchor just off the resort town of ‘Son Bou’ to wait out the forecast Mistral wind whipping it’s way down from France. Son Bou is dominated by two massive whitewashed tower block hotels. It’s long sweeping beach is heavy with multi-coloured umbrellas and packed full of people. A speedboat towing a banana boat drags gleefully screaming holiday makers around the anchorage. Here, you could believe that Covid had never happened.

After two days, we were both recovered, recharged our batteries and the Mistral had blown itself out. We made the short morning hop along to ‘Cala Galdana’ a beautiful cliff lined oasis.

There’s quite a lot of boats in the compact anchorage - and a lot going on! Where we anchored was the spot used by the local hire company to show people how to drop and re-raise the anchor on their little runabouts. There’s also a constant flow of canoes coming and going - at one point we saw what appeared to be a parent and child canoe safari heading out, they returned later in the afternoon, with children either slumped doing no paddling or in one case, fully asleep as the resigned parent stoically paddled on in the rear. Pedalos added to the mix - made to look like VW beetles with a built in slide for the kids to use... I note ‘for kids to use’ as a group of 4 burly lads in their 20s managed to capsize theirs and couldn’t right it, much to the amusement of the audience they’d accumulated ashore. Add to this, swimmers, windsurfers, and snorkelers there was always something to see! Late afternoon, drunk fishermen arrived shouting colourful language at seemingly random victims (note: moving from Greece to Spain, “putan” seems to have replaced “malaka” as the go to swear word ).

Unrelated to any of that: 31 years ago we tied the knot... to mark the occasion we had a nice dinner out at a recommended restaurant, the food was good, and the service excellent, waited on by a genuinely happy and helpful guy.

Overnight, with the fading shouts of the drunk fisherman came a strong, cupboard rattling swell. So after a poor nights sleep and still no wifi to check weather ....onwards we go!

Next stop Majorca - if it seems we’re dashing: we have various commitments and marinas booked in in Spain coming up in the next few weeks, so we’re keeping to a timetable that has us at the right places at the right times

After a day sail, we arrived in the town of Cala Ratjana mid afternoon. Our first priority here is to hunt for a phone shop to resolve our lack of wifi.

Leaving the tender at the town’s marina we head into town, passing upwards of 50 bars, lots of kebab shops, but sadly no phone shops in sight.

This calls for desperate measures: it’s time to inflict my recently learnt Spanish on the locals:

Me: “Disculpe, Hablas Ingles?”

Local: “No...”

Ok then, you asked for it...

Me: “Donde es una tienda de celular telefono?” (Frantically point at phone...)

...at which point, almost miraculously, they can ‘hablas ingles’ after all!

We eventually tracked one down... close to closing, barely understanding me... and specialising more in Hoover’s and toasters than phones, the bemused looking assistants suggested I come back tomorrow.. not hopeful.

Another feature of Cala Ratjana worth a mention is that it’s a German holiday town: The tourists chatter in German accents, bars proudly advertise their - Bier Gartens in thick Gothic script, menus outside restaurants are in German and black red and yellow flags flap outside of the bars.

Having failed in our mission to secure some wifi, we decide that rather than waiting here another day with another sleepless, swelly night in store, we’d head off at sunset.

We arrived at Caragol at dawn the next morning for a welcome sleep stop on the Southern tip of Majorca, and after a brief but well received nap, we spent the rest of the day heading up the South West coast, bypassing the sprawling mass that is Palma, and no doubt missing out on all the varied delights on offer there.

Not sure what we may have done to anger Neptune, but the boat suffered a day of things going slightly wrong: the main sail jammed in the mast, the shackle holding the outboard motor broke, the swim step smashed in the swell, there was water in the bilge (thankfully not salty), the shallow water alarm kept sounding, the engine making some funny noises in reverse and every time I tried to raise the anchor, the remote control gave me an electric shock!

Despite all these minor mishaps we arrived safely before sunset in the holiday resort of Santa Ponça - tucked behind protective natural rock, the bay is lined with large hotels on one side and Sydney shoreline residences on the other. Despite being a fairly busy anchorage (upwards of 20 boats) the evening and night are peaceful - with one of the hotels playing a Spanish guitar that wafts over the water to us.

Next morning, headed into town, it’s a good spot, reminiscent of Manly for me, with trees behind a wide beach. We found, not one, but two phone shops next door to each other, and after receiving the ‘no acknowledgment’ treatment in one, headed next door to be helped by a smiling lady who thankfully spoke ‘un poco ingles’ and was able to resolve our wifi woes!