Saturday, we took a lay day but it was not a lazy day. We rented a car and drove up the coast a bit to Valldemossa, a well known monestary and the place where Chopin spent the last few years of his life. And on the way there is Deya, a picturesque mountain village. We documented all that on an exceeding large collection of photographs, shooting away on 2 Nikons and 3 iphones. If you ask me, it was all a bit less impressive than the crowds suggested but we checked it off! Then back to the boat to move the boat stern to the dock since they were expecting a large number of additional vessels, given that it was Easter, soon. That turned into an operation of more than an hour given the fresh, athwartships breeze that picked up just for the occasion and the fact that the mooring lines that hold the boat’s bow on one side were too thick and stiff to get them around the port anchor winch (40 mm) and on the other side simply broke! Luckily, on the other side we had put in place a fancy knot to bridge the suspect part of line that later broke so major disasters avoided! But the marina staff declared that we could use the mooring line held together by the fancy knot or they had no place for us. They were working on replacing all the mooring lines “soon”. Needless to say, few other boats showed up but the knot held until the next morning.

Yesterday was just a short motor to what was advertised as the most spectacular cala of all of Mallorca - Cala Calobra. And spectacular it is as you will see in the pictures. It is also popular on a nice Easter Weekend despite the windy mountain roads to get there. We were lucky to get there early to find a good anchoring spot right below the sheer cliffs shown on the cover of our Imray cruising guide. We were also being eyed by a steady stream of tourists being released from busses ashore or being ferried by boat from Soller. All good fun but luckily, come 7 pm, we were by ourselves. The night was a bit rolly - the boat was being driven around by winds from all four corners whistling down the cliffs and at times was sideways to the Northeasterly swell and the many reflections of that off the sheer cliff walls all around us. But it was all worth it waking up in this great place, Rieke declared in the morning. And that it was.

Coming out of Calobra this morning we were greeted by the 1-2 m Northeasterly swells forecast by the Spanish national weather service and no winds. The scenery made up for it - it was again breathtaking. We found our way around Cap Formentor, the NW corner of Mallorca into a nice little cala with only one house ashore and (almost) no swells, Cala Murta. Getting into it was a bit “entertaining” since the picture of the cala in our English guide book was obviously mixed up with the picture of another cala!! So we first went into the wrong one - all fine as our charts were correct and all these calas are very deep without any shallow spots until you get very far in. C. Murta is also deep and narrow. Even with less than the recommended 5 times water depth in anchor chain out, the boat can swing into the sides if the winds were to blow sideways across the cala. So a stern anchor was needed to restrict us from swinging, which was executed perfectly by the paid crew. Drinks were served on time. All good.