From Menorca to Mallorca

On Saturday morning we sailed off after morning coffee. This is the town of Fornelles...

...and the watch tower at the entrance to the bay.

There was almost no wind, so we motored along the North coast of Menorca. Almost all of it is very rocky, with couple of calas (bays) every now and then.

Our first stop was Cala de Algaiarens, a beautiful bay with sandy beach and crystal clear water. We swam and had brunch. Of course we weren't alone there, but I can imagine how full it must get in high season.

We sailed off towards West, again along many cliffs, and above we've seen these guys. I'm sure they are birds of pray, but I couldn't figure out which. They have such broad and long wings, vultures maybe?

There are many buildings on top of the rocks that look like some kind of defence towers or watch towers (on the left side of photo).

Finally we sailed to the SW point of Menorca and turned East...

... and after couple of miles dropped the anchor in Cala son Saura. It is a wide bay with turquoise water, there were many boats already anchored there, but we noticed, that they tried to anchor in the sand areas, not the Posidonia gras. There is a strong campaign in all of Balearic island for preservation of Posidonia preries.

Night was calm, although bay was rather wide and open. Next morning we started rather early, well before 9, and sailed towards Mallorca. After a slow start wind picked up and we sailed fast, we even had to reef the sails, although not much wind was forecast.

Wind died when we came close to Mallorca and we motored for the last two hours. Shortly after 3 in the afternoon we were near the entrance to Porocolom...

...we turned around the lighthouse...

... and picked one of the buoys in the lagoon. There is now almost no space for anchoring any more, almost the whole lagoon is full of mooring buoys, but they are not too expensive. But Portocolom is probably the most sheltered port on Mallorca and with the forecast of lots of wind for next couple of days I wanted to be safely moored and to sleep well.

In the afternoon we dinghied to the town, had a long walk and made a reservation for rental car for next day. We wanted to see some of the North and West coast of the island, and with the weather forecast we couldn't do it with the boat.

Next morning we got up early, we wanted to make a good use of the day. Unfortunately a big cloud came from North and it started to rain just as we left Porotcolom. We drove by Manacor, but just drove around a bit and didn't get out of the car.

Next we drove further North and Captain spotted a nice town up on the hill and we made a detour to the town of Ariany. It was a pleasant surprise, no tourists, pretty old buildings, but unfortunately no sun.

Monastery with a beautiful garden, it was all smelling of herbs.

Next we drove to the town of Alcudia, and while we didn't planned to make a stop, we had to when we saw the old city walls.

The old part of town is enclosed in old walls with watch towers...

...it has narrow streets...

...and old houses. It is very charming, although parts of it are rather crowded with tourists.

We drove further NE, the Bay of Pollenca looked pretty windy.

We stopped in Pollenca, made a short walk, and beside some old buildings...

...I was mostly impressed with couple of very old olive trees.

Our next stop was going to be Soller and we took the scenic road through the mountains.

It was really pretty...

...and we stopped several times to enjoy the vies and make some photos.

There are accumulation lakes up there, that are used for electricity production.

I'm not sure if this is the highest peak, but there is an observatory up there, barely visible.

From one of the places we stopped along the road, we could see the wreckage of a car. Maybe from times before they put up a very sturdy fence along the road.

We couldn't find a parking space in Port of Soller, so we drove further to Soller, both Pollenca and Soller towns are couple of miles from the coast, but they both have ports on the coast. We saw the famous wooden tram that drives between the town and the port of Soller, it was packed full with tourists.

We strolled around Soller a bit, and we saw the cathedral...

...and the Bank building.

And Captain got a haircut in a very shabby and dirty hair salon. Then we drove back, made a stop in a supermarket and stocked up a bit. We returned the car and returned to the boat, tired but full of impressions.