Hope's and Howard's Sailing Adventures

As we hadn’t managed to circumnavigate the island, we decided to rent a car on our last day in Mallorca and do it by land instead.  In fact, it gave us another dimension of the place and in many ways was perhaps better than doing it by boat …. but we both agreed that we prefer traveling by sea, especially after the nth roundabout. We headed northwest through Artà that.. Read More

From Cabrera we had a pleasant enough sail with a bit of motoring to Puerto Petro.  The highlight of the passage was being accompanied by several, what we think were, bottlenose dolphins for a while.  One in particular seemed to hang around longer than the others, swimming off and then returning, rolling over to show his lighter colored underbelly as he approached our bow.  The water was so beautifully clear.. Read More

We had our best sail so far this year from Palma to Cabrera, a lovely reach in bright sunshine with one reef in the mainsail and adjusting the genoa to maximize our speed while not stressing us or the boat.  We tend to reduce sail early as it usually results in a much more comfortable ride while barely losing any speed.  We were often doing well over 8 knots so.. Read More

We had good downwind sailing across from Ibiza in the company of an American catamaran, Sweety, with Tony and Shannon onboard whom we were in touch with on VHF.  While we had thought we would make Camp de Mar our first stop, upon reading the guide book and reviews on Captain’s Mate (a great app managed by the Cruising Association), we decided to opt instead for Santa Ponsa, as did.. Read More

Having been in port for over six months, we chose a day to depart when conditions finally calmed down; we didn’t want too much excitement for our first day out.  As it turned out, we had company as many others who had overwintered in Cartagena also chose to depart on Saturday, although several had left the day before.  A gentle motor brought us around Cabo de Palos, the SE tip.. Read More

The wind finally subsided so we plan to depart Cartagena tomorrow morning.  Today was a beautifully sunny day so we were able to pack up the bikes and do the final boat preparations for a departure in the morning.  However, we don’t plan to go very far …. just around the corner to Mar Menor but it should at least allow us to check that all systems are functioning well.. Read More

Yes, we are still in Cartagena, partly because we both came down with colds on our return from the UK and then when we were healthy enough to leave, the weather didn’t cooperate.  It is still quite unsettled here and now a chilly, wet Easter weekend with strong gusty winds about.  We feel we made the right decision to remain here when we saw about 5 beautiful maxi yachts pull.. Read More