Splashing around in Cala Taulera

Michael was leaving today so while the rest of the crew were still asleep I saw him off, as he headed for the airport.
I was sad to see him go and had hoped he'd stay a few more days as he had done the hard work of getting us to here and the next few days were now going to be fairly relaxing.
I'll be forever grateful to him for his help and advice in the early days of planning the voyage home and for crewing to Menorca.

Alex had told us that Cala Taulera was a lovely place to visit, so despite Paul and I still being tired, we decided a short sail there would be perfect for bedding in the new crew for the sail to Mallorca.
We invited Laura's sister Ann and her husband Jeff to join us for the day.

We left the berth at 11.30 and stopped at the fuel dock to fill up. We were not going to make the same mistake twice!
Strangely we had no problem filling up this time and it turned out we still had about 30 litres left in the tank when we arrived yesterday.

Leaving the dock, we hoisted the sails and had a nice gentle broad reach down the harbour.
I took a back seat as Máirín took the helm as we sailed passed Ille De Rei with its old fever hospital and then past Isla del Lazareto before turning north into Cala Taulera.

We discovered a nice sheltered bay with about six yachts already anchored there but with still plenty of room.
We dropped the sails and prepared to anchor Eureka for the first time.
Eureka has an electrical windlass but as I discovered, it only works then lifting the anchor, it's freefall when dropping it.
Everything went as planned and soon Máirín and Chris were swimming off the stern while the rest of us just just got started on the wine and beer.

We had a lovely salad for lunch washed down with some cerveza and vino as we chatted, swam and lazed around for the afternoon.

We headed back to the berth under genny alone before freshening up and heading for dinner.

Mmmm, this is what sailing is all about.

Distance 5mls. Total 403 mls.Read more