Porto Colom, Mallorca.

Not much to write home about, except I had a great sail from Santa Ponca to Porto Colom, which I think was a good 60 Nm and I arrived here at 18:00 two days ago.

Then we had strong wind and thunder, as well as dirty rain (again). I was at anchor and as the wind increased to 28 kn, I felt it better to move away from the mooring blogs. They have in June put mooring blogs almost everywhere in the bay and would be charging me EUR 52/day, which is a negative correlation with what I pay while at anchor; read EUR nil.

The trouble is that there is hardly any anchoring space left, for the poor sailors. In any case I moved in the strong wind and anchored on the far E side of the bay, where the holding, in my opinion, is not great and I had to re-anchor three times. And again this morning I re-anchored three times to get a better position.

I have polished for two days above the decks and still have the toe rail glass fibre to do and the SS list around the yacht; as well as the cockpit. It is a big job and I wonder how many hours I have spend on it. But the result is good.

When the wind calmed a bit I went to the supermarket and the bank, which was badly needed. Still need to go once more, if time permits. Impossible to get the mobile Spanish phone (Orange) recharged in this town, so I have lid up the Luxembourg number.

Each year on 16 July Porto Colom celebrate their Saint for the fishers. The party consist of making a procession of the fishing boats, all tied together, proceeded by the Church Staff. Some play music and sign and most boats are dressed up and its participants dressed for the occasion. They start at the inside of the harbour and sail slowly out to the exit, where I was anchored, and then round the last yachts before returning back to the harbour, for the fire works and some partying. At the end they all come zooming at full speed and it is impressive to see all these boats come pass New Dawn at full speed; it felt like I was in the middle of a storm with waves splashing on my decks. But it was fun. In fact, Chris and I was also in Port Colom on that same day in 2004 and it was the same show.

The weather in the Golf of Lion, is a total mess, with NNW winds of 35-45 kn and one system after the other coming across. At least  the next 2-3 days I have to stay put. Then I hope for a window that can get me to Menorca's S coast and then wait there till the next storm will pass. But then there seems to be a gab, which seems to have no wind in it for my passage. But by end week it will blow again like mad. So can I make it in between, and with the risk that Auto will not work, is a big question for me at the moment. We shall see. But it is, as usual, very unpredictable, as well as dangerous to cross the Golf of Lion.