Our voyage has started well and we are now in Palma Majorca, at the south end of the island, anchored in front of the cathedral beside the main marina.
On the first day of the trip, we had winds from the north at 12 to 15 knots until they dropped off to 5 knots in the afternoon, and picked up again to 20 to 25 knots during the night and held at around 20 knots most of the next day. Since we were heading due south, I set a course of between 150 and 160 degrees true wind angle, which gave us a boat speed of 12 to 14 knots, with surfs up to 17 knots. We used the main and Code-D in the light winds, and the main and jib in the stronger conditions. Wildling did fine, and felt very comfortable, although there was quite a bit of motion in the short, steep Mediterranean swells.
Once we got level with the passage in between Minorca and Majorca, we turned east and followed the north coast of Majorca and then went down the east coast until we arrived at the anchorage in La Rapita on the south coast. We had a very peaceful night in the anchorage and then sailed over to Palma today.
We have my parents (Meg and Greg) along with us this trip. They have been enjoying it very much, although Meg was a bit seasick in the 2.5m seas we encountered at times on the passage. She’s feeling fine now, so hopefully our next leg to Ibiza will be OK for her.
The only problem we encountered during the passage was that we tore our sailbag from one end to the other when we raised the mainsail on the second day. The reason was that the lazy jacks were set too tight on the port side, and when the mainsail loaded up as we bore off onto our heading after it was raised, it stressed the bag to the point of ripping it in half. It’s frustrating, because we didn’t need to adjust the jacks when we were sailing on our last trip, and they are not rigged to be easily adjusted. I’ll have to ask Outremer to add some cleats on the mast so we can adjust the lazy-jack tension so this doesn’t happen in the future, or maybe we need a stronger sailbag, or maybe both.
In the meantime, I disconnected the port lazy-jack lines from the torn sailbag and reconnected them to the frame under the boom, and we are lashing the mainsail to the boom with ties when it’s lowered.
We’re planning on staying in Palma tonight and tomorrow, then sailing to Ibiza (about 70 miles) during the night tomorrow night.
We’ve had a very difficult time finding Internet access here in Spain. I’ve been spoiled by the great access in France, so I didn’t expect it to be so difficult. We are picking up an open WiFi hotspot using the WiFi booster system on Widling tonight, because the Vodaphone SIM card I bought in Palma today isn’t working. Hopefully I can get it sorted out tomorrow so I can post some photos when I do the next update.