The Balearic Islands

29 October 2023 – Mahon, Menorca, Spain

In Cartagena, Jonas and I took a taxi to the nearest movie theatre to see Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour Film. It was very good and we had a great time. The next day, we walked around the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre in the middle of the city. It was rediscovered in 1987 when a building on top of it was being demolished, at which point it was excavated and a museum was established. The amphitheatre was commissioned in the 1st century BCE by the Roman emperor Augustus in order to establish his rule in what was then a Roman colony. The theatre was especially interesting to visit because it is still situated in the middle of a neighbourhood, with apartment buildings directly next to it.

Roman amphitheatre – Cartagena, Spain

View from the stage of the amphitheatre – Cartagena, Spain

While in the city, we hiked to the top of a nearby hill and walked around an abandoned fort from the 1700s.

1700s fort – Cartagena, Spain

We had a great view of Cartagena from the top.

Cartagena, Spain

We have spent the last week in the Balearic Islands, landing at the island of Formentera. It is beautiful in all the places we have been, with white sand beaches and turquoise water, although all the anchorages we have been to were all exposed to the Mediterranean swell. The bay where we stayed on Formentera consisted of a long beach and many boardwalks leading inland, as well as a large saltwater lake with a path going around it. The walking was beautiful but landing the dinghy was a bit difficult due to the ocean swell, and we had to jump out of the dinghy and wade to shore before it got to sucked into the waves breaking on the beach. Sirius had to swim for it at one point, which he was not happy about. On the second day that we stayed there, Jonas and my mom went snorkelling while my dad and I planned to take the paddle board to the beach where we would sit and read. I packaged our books in a waterproof bag and we piled the beach chairs on the paddle board before heading to shore. Unfortunately we had to jump off early again and got soaked, so we didn’t stay very long before we got chilled by the wind on our wet clothes. Luckily the books stayed dry.

We then sailed a few miles to the island of Ibiza, but the anchorage where we had planned to stay had too much swell rolling in despite the wind being offshore, so we sailed a few more miles to the next bay. Festina Lente was still rolling in there, but less so.

Not enough room in the cockpit – Mediterranean Sea

After Ibiza, we sailed eighty-five miles to Mallorca. Something we hadn’t considered was the fact that it is almost winter and there is much less daylight now then in the summer, when we usually go cruising, which is restricting the amount of distance we can cover in daylight. We weren’t sure if we could make it to Cala Mondrago, where we wanted to stay, before the sun set because we couldn’t leave Ibiza before nine o’clock in the morning if we wanted to walk Sirius and exit the harbour in daylight. Luckily for us, there was thirty knots of wind behind us and my dad figured out how to rig up the headsails to go wing on wing by putting the spinnaker pole onto the jib on the windward side and having the genoa to leeward. We ended up going ten knots and getting in well before sunset.

Cala Mondrago is beautiful, with the same white beaches and turquoise water, as well as some trees and dramatic rocky cliffs. Despite the harbour being a bit turbulent, we stayed there for two days.

Cala Mondrago, Mallorca, Spain

We are now heading to Mahon on Menorca, after which we will leave the Balearics and head for Sardinia.