Rocking and rolling to Soller

It was a cloudy morning after some overnight rain as we prepared Gemini J for onward travel. That meant signing out of the marina by returning our access card for the bathrooms (and getting our deposit back) and filling up with water 💦 – not to forget popping into the bakery for take out and getting rid of the recycling. I also got to say hello to some friendly seagulls whilst on the rubbish drop off.

After stress free preparation I unplugged the electric supply, slipped the lines and we were off. It was all of an hour to our next destination – mooring buoys at the small town of St. Elm – 3,5 nautical miles from Andtrax but what a different world. It is very quiet there and we were just by the rocky shore after picking up a mooring ball first time – thanks to excellent helmsmanship from the Skipper.

We got out the paddle board and dinghy for the first time this trip – most exciting 🙂 There a buoys here because of the protected podeidonia (sea grass) this means that once you’re on the buoy and you jump in for a spot of snorkelling you are in for a treat. There are loads of different types of fish, beautiful swirling grasses, clear water and stunning rock formations. All in all a wonderful experience and then a fabulous sunset to round off the day.

It turned out to be quite a rocky and rolly night on mooring buoy number 13 ! When we woke up it was a little choppier than the previous day but still very beautiful. We sat on deck to have coffee and felt the wind on our cheeks – how exciting perhaps we would be able to sail today ?? Yes, the wind was in the right direction, yes, we were both happy to head out for the day – so off we went. Much less boat preparation since we only had untie the line from the buoy.

Almost as soon as we were out of the buoy field we brought out the genoa sail and it filled with wind 🙂

It was to be a short lived time of optimism since the wind dropped and changed direction about an hour later so it wasn’t to be that we would sail to Soller. The stunning, rugged, northern coastline of Mallorca more than made up for it. Even when the swell started to pick up to over a metre I was still smiling at the beautiful scenery whilst getting bounced around. Luckily it was a fairly short hop and we reached the port in increasing sea conditions at 3pm. As we entered the safe shelter of the harbour the sea state dropped completely, good for our berthing manoeuvres.

We radioed the Ports IB office – no reply, we radioed again numerous times, no reply, we phoned, no reply ! Luckily we knew where the visitors berths were so we went towards them – with still no reply and no-one around we had to handle the mooring ourselves. Skipper Nigel once again brought us into a space perfectly (this time stern to) whilst I clambered about changing lines and then stepped off to secure our spot. We were not entirely sure we were in the right place so I walked to the office to check in – guess what, it was closed !! So we relaxed aboard as best as we could, watching other boats suffer the same issues and helping where we could. Eventually at about 6pm a marinero arrived – yes, we could stay on our berth, no, there was no-one in the office, yes, just bring the papers later or tomorrow morning – no problemo ! And with that our stay in Soller officially began 🙂 The next day would be a rest day since the weather forecast is for storms and that swell we battled is still rolling past the entry to the port.

Time for a walk along the seafront of this wonderful resort with the Victorian train at the heart of it taking tourists back to Palma after a day at the beach.