Santa Eulària des Riu

We had arranged to be up and on deck at 05.00 for a departure at 05.30 and most of us made it with one important exception, keep reading!

I started the engine, letting it warm up for a while as a gentle wake up call. Then with a well co-ordinated crew, we slipped the warps and squeezed our way out of the tightly packed berth and headed out along the buoyed channel shortly after dawn, leaving a still sleeping Andratx behind.

There was little or no wind at that hour of the morning so I set the engine at an economical speed at 2500 rpm, giving us six knots and set a course for the island of Ibiza, forty seven miles away.

There is a fire down below !!

About an hour after we departed, one of the crew thought they smelt burning from down below.
I immediately jumped out from behind the wheel, stuck my nose into the companion way and smelt what I thought was electrical wire overheating. Maybe we had an engine fire?

I swung my legs down into the companionway in an attempt to get below and narrowly missed Máirín's head as she moved out from the galley to see what was causing the commotion on deck.
That was now two of us that just had the life scared out of us !!

Máirín had woken and got up unknown to the rest of us, soon after we left our berth.
It turned out that the smell of fire was Mairín making toast on the grill of the cooker. The grill had never been used before so the smells of it heating up for the first time were similar to the insulation on electrical wire burning.

She then innocently asked, if anyone would like toast!

We rolled around the deck laughing with poor Máirín getting a good old slagging over the whole episode of the toast and the sleeping in.
Once over the shock, I retired to my berth to try to catch up on my sleep.

We were going to have a passage of about eleven hours, hence the early start so that we’d be tied up by late afternoon, in time to have a look around Ibiza town before dinner.

By the time I came back on deck in the late morning, we were over halfway to our destination and the Island of Ibiza could be clearly seen ahead of us.
By this stage we were sailing along in light winds doing 3.5 knots on a close reach with a relaxed crew ATP’ing (Adopt Tanning Position) on the foredeck.

Chris our communications director had been in touch with various marinas in Ibiza town but the cheapest berth was €114 a night!
Feck that, we only wanted a loan of a berth, not to buy it outright!
Disappointedly we began looking for a berth elsewhere.

As we were approaching Santa Eularia at the time, we decided to check there.
They did have a berth available at their marina, two nights for the price of one in Ibiza Town and there was even a bus service that would take us the seven miles into Ibiza town. Perfect!
We tied up at the reception berth and by 16.30 the paper work had been completed and we were tied up at our berth.

Following the use of the lovely showers in Andratx we must have still been fairly clean as our priorities had changed.
It was the bar and not the showers was first on the agenda for most of the crew.

Santa Eularia marina turned out to be a very nice and slightly upmarket place with bars and restaurants on the quays surrounding the marina.
After a relaxing few hours chilling out, we put on the glad rags and headed into the town and found a nice restaurant overlooking the beach for dinner and as it was a lovely warm calm evening, we dined outside.

After dinner we strolled around the town and as we wandered slowly back to the marina, we found many of the bars and restaurants were still full of life.
Santa Eularia appeared a very nice place and I was looking forward to exploring it tomorrow but first we had to have another drink before putting our heads down.

Leg 6 - 53 mls. Total 588 mls.Read more