Salines de S'Avall

After a very lazy start and a morning swim (during which Nicky discovered the few patches of sand in Cala Ferrera – we had had to anchor on weed the previous day), we set off south, bound for Salines de S’Avall on the southeast coast of Mallorca. Monday 7 August had dawned clear and very still and the wind didn’t pick up enough to sail until a couple of hours into the 20nm passage. When it did come, it was a good sea breeze – about 13 knots – so we had a reasonably fast sail for the last half of the journey.

Salines de S’Avall is part of a very large sandy bay, the Ensenada de la Rápita. Being high season, by the time we arrived there were plenty of yachts in the more popular northern part of the bay (very popular due to the large expanse of sand for anchoring and the extremely clear water there), including one with an impressive water slide as one of its ‘toys’.

However, since the wind was forecast to come round to the southeast or south in the evening and night, we headed for the southern part of the bay, Salines de S’Avall. This area is quite shallow a remarkable distance out but we found ourselves a suitable sand patch for the anchor and dug it in well in anticipation of the evening’s forecast breeze…….. and then we settled down for the afternoon: Charlotte to the serious business of holiday tanning; Nicky and me to catching up with the blog and some admin from home and then to giving the hull a good scrub. With the water temperature up at about 29ºC, it is no hardship to get into the sea to scrub but the rate at which the weed are trying to grow on the hull makes it feel like a never-ending task. It’s a tough life!

Salines de S'Avall, Mallorca, Spain