Ibiza – 27 January 2008

We have been in Ibiza just over a week – in a marina in Santa Eulalia on the east coast for the last 7 nights. During which time we have had winds of up to Force 10 around the vicinity and between 25 – 45 knots in the marina. It was particularly bad on Friday through to Sunday with little sleep Friday night when it was at it’s worst – up and down readjusting fenders etc.

Fortunately we were in the lee of the Island – as you would do anyway – and the west coast received majority of the damage with 15 yachts and motor boats coming adrift onto the beach and another 5 sinking. We knew it was not good but managed to see some newspapers (in Spanish) yesterday and saw for ourselves that in fact Spain has experience quite a bit of devastation. It seems we were spared in this vicinity – thank goodness!

This has been a great place to stopover though – everything here in the way of provisioning and lovely bars and restaurants. It has a nice feel but can’t imagine what it would be like summer – it would attract and does attract heaps of visitors! We found a fabulous little café and bar where we had lunch one day – food was superb and in fact the best meal we have had for a long time ashore!

We have not ventured very far from the boat though as we didn’t want to leave AC unattended in the high winds!

It has been over 2 weeks since we left Malta so it certainly has been a slow journey west across the Mediterranean, however the upside it that we are within 380 miles of our next destination. As you can imagine we haven’t even considered tempting to push on from here – just watching the weather to wait for our opportunity which presents itself today! We want to try to get as close to mainland as possible and travelled down the coast. The forecast is North west going to west tomorrow which is not great but the wind is somewhat lighter so hopefully we will be able to motor as well. The forecast for the next two days is a variation of west, south west but all low in wind strength – so here’s hoping!

We want to get to Sotogrande (north of Gibraltar) and sort this knocking issue we have so the sooner we get there the sooner we can get on our way to the Canaries.

Will keep you posted.

Love The Jolly Rogers