Tag Archives | Nordhavn

Roberta always says that her favorite word in the world is, “Serendipity.” It means an unexpected happy event.

And, that describes our day yesterday…

We woke up at 6am, at anchor at Formentera. We knew bad weather was coming and that we were going to be moving somewhere better protected from the swell.

Step one was to look at the weather services. Reports tend to be updated every six hours so we wanted the latest information. I looked at the reports before Roberta and said to her, “We’re in deep doo-doo. There are no safe places anywhere. Expect a miserable five days.” Roberta thought I was being overly dramatic and did her own analysis. Minutes later she said, “What do we do?”

We were suffering from Roll-Fatigue. I don’t know if that’s really a disease, as I just made it up. But… it was certainly dragging us down. We were tired of trying to sleep while hanging onto the sides of the bed. Some of it was just being unlucky with the weather, and some of it is Ibiza. There aren’t, or more likely, we didn’t find, well-protected anchorages. We were looking at nearly a week of being hunkered down waiting for a storm to pass with constant rolling.

“Maybe we should go back to Mallorca?,” I suggested.

“What good would that do? It’s going to be rolly there too,” came the response.

“Not if we go into port.”

“We don’t have a slip until September 1st and it’s too early to call the marina.”

“We could go into a port here on Ibiza”

“Nah. If we’re going into port, I’d rather try for Mallorca.”

“OK. Let’s go.”

“But, it is 70 miles, and the wind is from the East. It will be a messy ride.”

“OK. It will be a messy ride. Let’s go.”

So, at 6am, in the dark, we put up the tender, pulled in the flopper stoppers, and headed to sea with no clear destination in mind other than “Mallorca.”

When people talk about the cost of boats, I always ask them what waterfront homes cost. Pick anywhere; Miami, San Diego, Hong Kong, Hawaii, Mallorca, etc. Waterfront homes are not cheap. And, now, imagine there was a portable one? If you are in the mood to be elsewhere, what if you could just move your home? What premium would that command? Well ..that’s what we were doing. We wanted a change of landscape, and in minutes had our home back on the road.

I still have 1,400 gallons of fuel on board, so I decided to experiment with kicking the boat into high gear. We always cruise at about 8.5 knots, because it is very fuel efficient. At that speed I burn around 9 gallons an hour. Kicking it up to 9.5 knots costs eats WAY more fuel — closer to 15 gallons an hour. But… why not? I had the fuel, so .. I wasted some fuel.

To our surprise, the sea was dead calm. We have not had a rough ride this year! We’ve spent some rough days and nights at anchor, but every run we’ve made has been on glassy seas.

At 9am I phoned Port Adriano, a superyacht marina in Mallorca (www.portadriano.com) and asked if they could take me. At first the answer was no, but then after a bit of pleading space opened up! We were not only going to Mallorca we were going to an amazing place.

Port Adriano, Mallorca, Spain

Wow! What an amazing marina! We have seen a lot of marinas, and the initial impression may not be as good after we’ve been here a few days, but .. .my first impression is that this is the best marina we have ever been to. There are a large number of excellent restaurants, and shops, and a market — all literally behind our boat. I have 150 amp electric service to the boat (seriously!), wired internet, etc. At one point Roberta and I talked about staying in a fancy hotel for a few days to spoil ourselves. That talk is long gone. This is better. We had a fantastic Italian meal at a restaurant overlooking the back of the boat while watching a variety show that the marina puts on each night (comedians, singers, dancers, etc)

We had a good seat for the show (that’s Sans Souci in the background) — but, given that there are two levels of restaurants behind us, I won’t be putting water in the hot tub. The girls are enough of a show for the diners.

Entertainment at the back of Sans Souci – a great show! We are the shortest boat on this side of the marina, but also the tallest (except for the sail boat masts). But, we seem to collect lots of picture takers who think we are much bigger than we are. What we lack on longitude we make up for on latitude

The boats on the dock light up at night creating a show for all the tourists, who are dining at the restaurants in front. We didn’t light Sans Souci because it needs a good cleaning. We’re cleaning today, and tonight we’ll turn on the lights.

Last night was incredible, and this morning I didn’t want to get out of bed, it felt so good. A very serendipitous day!

After nearly three months on the boat, with the past couple of months almost entirely at anchor – it felt SO good this morning to feel civilized for a change. Here you see Roberta with her Café Latte Macchiato. (This is one of the many cafes right in front of our boat.)

We’ll now rent a car and explore Mallorca for a few days — so, no more blog entries for a bit.

Next up — GSSR reunion, sometime in the next week!

Thank you!
Ken and Roberta Williams (along with our crew-dogs; Toundra and Keeley)
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci

PS – I just received this blog entry from an acquaintance now cruising in Greece. The last part of the article talks about what life has been like cruising in Greece during these times of financial instability there. I found it interesting and if you’ve been following the situation there you will to!

Click here to read it -> http://whereisleeze.blogspot.com.es/

Roberta always says that her favorite word in the world is, “Serendipity.” It means an unexpected happy event.

And, that describes our day yesterday…

We woke up at 6am, at anchor at Formentera. We knew bad weather was coming and that we were going to be moving somewhere better protected from the swell.

Step one was to look at the weather services. Reports tend to be updated every six hours so we wanted the latest information. I looked at the reports before Roberta and said to her, “We’re in deep doo-doo. There are no safe places anywhere. Expect a miserable five days.” Roberta thought I was being overly dramatic and did her own analysis. Minutes later she said, “What do we do?”

We were suffering from Roll-Fatigue. I don’t know if that’s really a disease, as I just made it up. But… it was certainly dragging us down. We were tired of trying to sleep while hanging onto the sides of the bed. Some of it was just being unlucky with the weather, and some of it is Ibiza. There aren’t, or more likely, we didn’t find, well-protected anchorages. We were looking at nearly a week of being hunkered down waiting for a storm to pass with constant rolling.

“Maybe we should go back to Mallorca?,” I suggested.

“What good would that do? It’s going to be rolly there too,” came the response.

“Not if we go into port.”

“We don’t have a slip until September 1st and it’s too early to call the marina.”

“We could go into a port here on Ibiza”

“Nah. If we’re going into port, I’d rather try for Mallorca.”

“OK. Let’s go.”

“But, it is 70 miles, and the wind is from the East. It will be a messy ride.”

“OK. It will be a messy ride. Let’s go.”

So, at 6am, in the dark, we put up the tender, pulled in the flopper stoppers, and headed to sea with no clear destination in mind other than “Mallorca.”

When people talk about the cost of boats, I always ask them what waterfront homes cost. Pick anywhere; Miami, San Diego, Hong Kong, Hawaii, Mallorca, etc. Waterfront homes are not cheap. And, now, imagine there was a portable one? If you are in the mood to be elsewhere, what if you could just move your home? What premium would that command? Well ..that’s what we were doing. We wanted a change of landscape, and in minutes had our home back on the road.

I still have 1,400 gallons of fuel on board, so I decided to experiment with kicking the boat into high gear. We always cruise at about 8.5 knots, because it is very fuel efficient. At that speed I burn around 9 gallons an hour. Kicking it up to 9.5 knots costs eats WAY more fuel — closer to 15 gallons an hour. But… why not? I had the fuel, so .. I wasted some fuel.

To our surprise, the sea was dead calm. We have not had a rough ride this year! We’ve spent some rough days and nights at anchor, but every run we’ve made has been on glassy seas.

At 9am I phoned Port Adriano, a superyacht marina in Mallorca (www.portadriano.com) and asked if they could take me. At first the answer was no, but then after a bit of pleading space opened up! We were not only going to Mallorca we were going to an amazing place.

Port Adriano, Mallorca, Spain

Wow! What an amazing marina! We have seen a lot of marinas, and the initial impression may not be as good after we’ve been here a few days, but .. .my first impression is that this is the best marina we have ever been to. There are a large number of excellent restaurants, and shops, and a market — all literally behind our boat. I have 150 amp electric service to the boat (seriously!), wired internet, etc. At one point Roberta and I talked about staying in a fancy hotel for a few days to spoil ourselves. That talk is long gone. This is better. We had a fantastic Italian meal at a restaurant overlooking the back of the boat while watching a variety show that the marina puts on each night (comedians, singers, dancers, etc)

We had a good seat for the show (that’s Sans Souci in the background) — but, given that there are two levels of restaurants behind us, I won’t be putting water in the hot tub. The girls are enough of a show for the diners.

Entertainment at the back of Sans Souci – a great show! We are the shortest boat on this side of the marina, but also the tallest (except for the sail boat masts). But, we seem to collect lots of picture takers who think we are much bigger than we are. What we lack on longitude we make up for on latitude

The boats on the dock light up at night creating a show for all the tourists, who are dining at the restaurants in front. We didn’t light Sans Souci because it needs a good cleaning. We’re cleaning today, and tonight we’ll turn on the lights.

Last night was incredible, and this morning I didn’t want to get out of bed, it felt so good. A very serendipitous day!

After nearly three months on the boat, with the past couple of months almost entirely at anchor – it felt SO good this morning to feel civilized for a change. Here you see Roberta with her Café Latte Macchiato. (This is one of the many cafes right in front of our boat.)

We’ll now rent a car and explore Mallorca for a few days — so, no more blog entries for a bit.

Next up — GSSR reunion, sometime in the next week!

Thank you!
Ken and Roberta Williams (along with our crew-dogs; Toundra and Keeley)
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci

PS – I just received this blog entry from an acquaintance now cruising in Greece. The last part of the article talks about what life has been like cruising in Greece during these times of financial instability there. I found it interesting and if you’ve been following the situation there you will to!

Click here to read it -> http://whereisleeze.blogspot.com.es/

Our goal this morning was to shift from our anchorage on the island of Ibiza to another anchorage on the island of Formentera.

The two-sided beach at Formentera stretches for miles.

It would be a fairly short ride, only about 9 miles, so I didn’t want to hassle putting the tender onto the bow. I wanted to pull it behind the boat.

My tow rope frazzled a couple days ago and I hacked together something I thought would work, but then wanted to add a second line to it. I figured that if my primary line broke I’d still have the backup and wouldn’t lose the tender.

Sans Souci’s tender. Ken had to dive in to attach a tow rope.

The tow hooks for the tender are beneath it, so I’d need to dive into the water. With 82 degree water, diving in is a good thing, not a chore.

At 9am this morning I went to the stern of the boat to dive in and when I looked down the entire tender was surrounded by small, about 6” long, jellyfish!

Jellyfish !!!!!

That quickly scuttled all thoughts of swimming. I remembered a sign on the beach that warned about the jellyfish and said not to go into the water if they were visible. 

We hadn’t seen them the prior day, so I decided to relax for 30 minutes and see if they disappeared. When I returned they were gone. I dived into the water, and within a minute had the backup line attached to the tow hooks.

Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain on the back of my hand. Crap! I knew immediately I had been bit. I did my best imitation of a surfer who has just been surprised by a shark and was out of the water in seconds. Standing on the swim step I looked back at the tender, and there it was. A bright red jelly fish.

The bite didn’t hurt too bad. It felt like a bee sting, although the sore area of my hand was a bit larger. I immediately remembered a French movie I watched a decade ago, Les Mesduses, in which the plot centers around a young lady who murders a not-very-nice boat captain by pushing him overboard into a bunch of jellyfish, where he is stung to death.

I was pretty sure I was going to live, so I went to take a shower and then headed up to my computer where I googled jellyfish bites. The first thing I read was, “Don’t put the sting into fresh water.” Oops. Too late.

The pain subsided and didn’t slow us down from departure, but… I’m in no hurry to dive back into jellyfish.  

Roberta and I have a bit of history with the island of Formentera.

Prior to owning our current boat we owned a Nordhavn 62, which made TWO trips to Europe.

The first was in about 1998 when we shipped the boat across the Atlantic on a freighter. We cruised the south of France for a couple of summers and even bought a boat slip near Monaco. At that time we did visit Formentera but we were much earlier in our boating careers and had a Captain from France come with us. He dropped anchor almost exactly where we are today and we enjoyed a lovely sunny day. I was a relative newbie to boating at the time and remember questioning why he anchored us so far from the beach. He explained that should anything go wrong we’d be safer in deeper water.

That night it turned ugly. We were hit by a huge squall that lasted for hours. We had sustained winds of 50 knots with gusts to 65 knots. There were perhaps a hundred boats around us and dozens of boats were blown onto the beach.  We were up all night standing watch and using the boat’s engines to push against the wind.

Luckily, our anchor held.

Then, in 2004 we heard about a cross-Atlantic Nordhavn Rally. Roberta and I wanted more experience in boating and decided to ship our boat back across the Atlantic to Florida, only to drive it back to France and put it in its own boat slip.

We learned a huge amount on that trip, and my book about the trip has become a bit of a boating classic:

Crossing an Ocean Under Power

Roberta’s parents were with us during the final weeks of that run and continued cruising with us after the rally.

Roberta and I remembered Formentera and remembered our anchorage here, and how great it was prior to the big wind. We asked Roberta’s parents, who had been on the boat during our prior trip to Formentera if they wanted to return and they said, “Sure!”.

At that time Formentera was considered much more remote than it is today. I remember it as kind of a hippy hangout. It was known for having a liberal dress code. I remember how big around Roberta’s mom’s eyes got as we were approaching and passed a boat with a naked young man standing proudly on the stern of his boat.

Nova Heuer (Roberta’s mom),  Roberta, and John Heuer (her dad). Here they are painting our Sans Souci logo onto the dock in Horta, Portugal. It’s a tradition for boats crossing the Atlantic.

We had perfect weather for our time anchored at Formentera, and to our surprise Roberta’s mom (who would have been around 75 at the time) took Roberta aside and said, “Could you guys go away for about an hour?” She wanted to talk Roberta’s dad into going skinny dipping! Being good kids, Roberta and I cruised around for an hour on the tender, making a garbage run to the beach.

This is our first return to Formentera in over a decade.

Even back then Formentera was popular, but apparently its popularity has exploded, and not in a good way. Whereas we used to anchor anywhere, we were directed to a place by a young lady on a tender as we approached.

Boats are not allowed to anchor on the seaweed (Posidonia) so she was  directing traffic to legal places to park. The first 100 yards back from the beach was roped off as a swimming area, followed by about a hundred yards of four rows of boats, and then the seaweed behind us. We thought she put us too tight to other boats, but then even more boats were placed around us. A 120’ boat placed next to us almost hit us, causing them to pull anchor and depart completely. A similar sized boat took their place minutes later.

There are more boats here than  I’ve ever seen in my life.

This was nothing like our prior visits! The hippy outpost had become tourist-central, and even the liberal dress code had mostly disappeared. A bit of the old Formentera still exists, but not much. Perhaps there is somewhere else on the island that is still fairly remote, but not where we are.

There are the stacked rocks in many places along the beach. I’m not sure what their significance is.

The beach at Formentera

Roberta and I tendered for a mile in either direction and there are at least four rows of boats, all anchored closer to each other than we would ever imagine possible. It reminded me of the old days of drive in movies! Some people were swimming, but not many. One person told me that there have been jellyfish problems here.

Tooooo many boats. Anchoring is much too dense and each time we thought another boat couldn’t arrive, it did.

Toundra, in her life jacket riding along with us through all the boats.

Boats were anchored on  each side of us so close that at times we almost touched

Each dot is a boat, and this is only a sampling of all the boats that were at the beach. We’ve seen a lot of things, but nothing like this.

The bottom line… We’re not that excited about being in a “boat parking lot” so we’ll probably leave tomorrow morning. If we come back we’ll try another part of the island.

I grabbed a 3d picture of our location, but our boat was moving too much, so it didn’t turn out well, but you can view it by clicking here

Thank you!
Ken and Roberta Williams (and, Toundra and Keeley)
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci

Our goal this morning was to shift from our anchorage on the island of Ibiza to another anchorage on the island of Formentera.

The two-sided beach at Formentera stretches for miles.

It would be a fairly short ride, only about 9 miles, so I didn’t want to hassle putting the tender onto the bow. I wanted to pull it behind the boat.

My tow rope frazzled a couple days ago and I hacked together something I thought would work, but then wanted to add a second line to it. I figured that if my primary line broke I’d still have the backup and wouldn’t lose the tender.

Sans Souci’s tender. Ken had to dive in to attach a tow rope.

The tow hooks for the tender are beneath it, so I’d need to dive into the water. With 82 degree water, diving in is a good thing, not a chore.

At 9am this morning I went to the stern of the boat to dive in and when I looked down the entire tender was surrounded by small, about 6” long, jellyfish!

Jellyfish !!!!!

That quickly scuttled all thoughts of swimming. I remembered a sign on the beach that warned about the jellyfish and said not to go into the water if they were visible. 

We hadn’t seen them the prior day, so I decided to relax for 30 minutes and see if they disappeared. When I returned they were gone. I dived into the water, and within a minute had the backup line attached to the tow hooks.

Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain on the back of my hand. Crap! I knew immediately I had been bit. I did my best imitation of a surfer who has just been surprised by a shark and was out of the water in seconds. Standing on the swim step I looked back at the tender, and there it was. A bright red jelly fish.

The bite didn’t hurt too bad. It felt like a bee sting, although the sore area of my hand was a bit larger. I immediately remembered a French movie I watched a decade ago, Les Mesduses, in which the plot centers around a young lady who murders a not-very-nice boat captain by pushing him overboard into a bunch of jellyfish, where he is stung to death.

I was pretty sure I was going to live, so I went to take a shower and then headed up to my computer where I googled jellyfish bites. The first thing I read was, “Don’t put the sting into fresh water.” Oops. Too late.

The pain subsided and didn’t slow us down from departure, but… I’m in no hurry to dive back into jellyfish.  

Roberta and I have a bit of history with the island of Formentera.

Prior to owning our current boat we owned a Nordhavn 62, which made TWO trips to Europe.

The first was in about 1998 when we shipped the boat across the Atlantic on a freighter. We cruised the south of France for a couple of summers and even bought a boat slip near Monaco. At that time we did visit Formentera but we were much earlier in our boating careers and had a Captain from France come with us. He dropped anchor almost exactly where we are today and we enjoyed a lovely sunny day. I was a relative newbie to boating at the time and remember questioning why he anchored us so far from the beach. He explained that should anything go wrong we’d be safer in deeper water.

That night it turned ugly. We were hit by a huge squall that lasted for hours. We had sustained winds of 50 knots with gusts to 65 knots. There were perhaps a hundred boats around us and dozens of boats were blown onto the beach.  We were up all night standing watch and using the boat’s engines to push against the wind.

Luckily, our anchor held.

Then, in 2004 we heard about a cross-Atlantic Nordhavn Rally. Roberta and I wanted more experience in boating and decided to ship our boat back across the Atlantic to Florida, only to drive it back to France and put it in its own boat slip.

We learned a huge amount on that trip, and my book about the trip has become a bit of a boating classic:

Crossing an Ocean Under Power

Roberta’s parents were with us during the final weeks of that run and continued cruising with us after the rally.

Roberta and I remembered Formentera and remembered our anchorage here, and how great it was prior to the big wind. We asked Roberta’s parents, who had been on the boat during our prior trip to Formentera if they wanted to return and they said, “Sure!”.

At that time Formentera was considered much more remote than it is today. I remember it as kind of a hippy hangout. It was known for having a liberal dress code. I remember how big around Roberta’s mom’s eyes got as we were approaching and passed a boat with a naked young man standing proudly on the stern of his boat.

Nova Heuer (Roberta’s mom),  Roberta, and John Heuer (her dad). Here they are painting our Sans Souci logo onto the dock in Horta, Portugal. It’s a tradition for boats crossing the Atlantic.

We had perfect weather for our time anchored at Formentera, and to our surprise Roberta’s mom (who would have been around 75 at the time) took Roberta aside and said, “Could you guys go away for about an hour?” She wanted to talk Roberta’s dad into going skinny dipping! Being good kids, Roberta and I cruised around for an hour on the tender, making a garbage run to the beach.

This is our first return to Formentera in over a decade.

Even back then Formentera was popular, but apparently its popularity has exploded, and not in a good way. Whereas we used to anchor anywhere, we were directed to a place by a young lady on a tender as we approached.

Boats are not allowed to anchor on the seaweed (Posidonia) so she was  directing traffic to legal places to park. The first 100 yards back from the beach was roped off as a swimming area, followed by about a hundred yards of four rows of boats, and then the seaweed behind us. We thought she put us too tight to other boats, but then even more boats were placed around us. A 120’ boat placed next to us almost hit us, causing them to pull anchor and depart completely. A similar sized boat took their place minutes later.

There are more boats here than  I’ve ever seen in my life.

This was nothing like our prior visits! The hippy outpost had become tourist-central, and even the liberal dress code had mostly disappeared. A bit of the old Formentera still exists, but not much. Perhaps there is somewhere else on the island that is still fairly remote, but not where we are.

There are the stacked rocks in many places along the beach. I’m not sure what their significance is.

The beach at Formentera

Roberta and I tendered for a mile in either direction and there are at least four rows of boats, all anchored closer to each other than we would ever imagine possible. It reminded me of the old days of drive in movies! Some people were swimming, but not many. One person told me that there have been jellyfish problems here.

Tooooo many boats. Anchoring is much too dense and each time we thought another boat couldn’t arrive, it did.

Toundra, in her life jacket riding along with us through all the boats.

Boats were anchored on  each side of us so close that at times we almost touched

Each dot is a boat, and this is only a sampling of all the boats that were at the beach. We’ve seen a lot of things, but nothing like this.

The bottom line… We’re not that excited about being in a “boat parking lot” so we’ll probably leave tomorrow morning. If we come back we’ll try another part of the island.

I grabbed a 3d picture of our location, but our boat was moving too much, so it didn’t turn out well, but you can view it by clicking here

Thank you!
Ken and Roberta Williams (and, Toundra and Keeley)
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci

Our goal this morning was to shift from our anchorage on the island of Ibiza to another anchorage on the island of Formentera.

The two-sided beach at Formentera stretches for miles.

It would be a fairly short ride, only about 9 miles, so I didn’t want to hassle putting the tender onto the bow. I wanted to pull it behind the boat.

My tow rope frazzled a couple days ago and I hacked together something I thought would work, but then wanted to add a second line to it. I figured that if my primary line broke I’d still have the backup and wouldn’t lose the tender.

Sans Souci’s tender. Ken had to dive in to attach a tow rope.

The tow hooks for the tender are beneath it, so I’d need to dive into the water. With 82 degree water, diving in is a good thing, not a chore.

At 9am this morning I went to the stern of the boat to dive in and when I looked down the entire tender was surrounded by small, about 6” long, jellyfish!

Jellyfish !!!!!

That quickly scuttled all thoughts of swimming. I remembered a sign on the beach that warned about the jellyfish and said not to go into the water if they were visible. 

We hadn’t seen them the prior day, so I decided to relax for 30 minutes and see if they disappeared. When I returned they were gone. I dived into the water, and within a minute had the backup line attached to the tow hooks.

Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain on the back of my hand. Crap! I knew immediately I had been bit. I did my best imitation of a surfer who has just been surprised by a shark and was out of the water in seconds. Standing on the swim step I looked back at the tender, and there it was. A bright red jelly fish.

The bite didn’t hurt too bad. It felt like a bee sting, although the sore area of my hand was a bit larger. I immediately remembered a French movie I watched a decade ago, Les Mesduses, in which the plot centers around a young lady who murders a not-very-nice boat captain by pushing him overboard into a bunch of jellyfish, where he is stung to death.

I was pretty sure I was going to live, so I went to take a shower and then headed up to my computer where I googled jellyfish bites. The first thing I read was, “Don’t put the sting into fresh water.” Oops. Too late.

The pain subsided and didn’t slow us down from departure, but… I’m in no hurry to dive back into jellyfish.  

Roberta and I have a bit of history with the island of Formentera.

Prior to owning our current boat we owned a Nordhavn 62, which made TWO trips to Europe.

The first was in about 1998 when we shipped the boat across the Atlantic on a freighter. We cruised the south of France for a couple of summers and even bought a boat slip near Monaco. At that time we did visit Formentera but we were much earlier in our boating careers and had a Captain from France come with us. He dropped anchor almost exactly where we are today and we enjoyed a lovely sunny day. I was a relative newbie to boating at the time and remember questioning why he anchored us so far from the beach. He explained that should anything go wrong we’d be safer in deeper water.

That night it turned ugly. We were hit by a huge squall that lasted for hours. We had sustained winds of 50 knots with gusts to 65 knots. There were perhaps a hundred boats around us and dozens of boats were blown onto the beach.  We were up all night standing watch and using the boat’s engines to push against the wind.

Luckily, our anchor held.

Then, in 2004 we heard about a cross-Atlantic Nordhavn Rally. Roberta and I wanted more experience in boating and decided to ship our boat back across the Atlantic to Florida, only to drive it back to France and put it in its own boat slip.

We learned a huge amount on that trip, and my book about the trip has become a bit of a boating classic:

Crossing an Ocean Under Power

Roberta’s parents were with us during the final weeks of that run and continued cruising with us after the rally.

Roberta and I remembered Formentera and remembered our anchorage here, and how great it was prior to the big wind. We asked Roberta’s parents, who had been on the boat during our prior trip to Formentera if they wanted to return and they said, “Sure!”.

At that time Formentera was considered much more remote than it is today. I remember it as kind of a hippy hangout. It was known for having a liberal dress code. I remember how big around Roberta’s mom’s eyes got as we were approaching and passed a boat with a naked young man standing proudly on the stern of his boat.

Nova Heuer (Roberta’s mom),  Roberta, and John Heuer (her dad). Here they are painting our Sans Souci logo onto the dock in Horta, Portugal. It’s a tradition for boats crossing the Atlantic.

We had perfect weather for our time anchored at Formentera, and to our surprise Roberta’s mom (who would have been around 75 at the time) took Roberta aside and said, “Could you guys go away for about an hour?” She wanted to talk Roberta’s dad into going skinny dipping! Being good kids, Roberta and I cruised around for an hour on the tender, making a garbage run to the beach.

This is our first return to Formentera in over a decade.

Even back then Formentera was popular, but apparently its popularity has exploded, and not in a good way. Whereas we used to anchor anywhere, we were directed to a place by a young lady on a tender as we approached.

Boats are not allowed to anchor on the seaweed (Posidonia) so she was  directing traffic to legal places to park. The first 100 yards back from the beach was roped off as a swimming area, followed by about a hundred yards of four rows of boats, and then the seaweed behind us. We thought she put us too tight to other boats, but then even more boats were placed around us. A 120’ boat placed next to us almost hit us, causing them to pull anchor and depart completely. A similar sized boat took their place minutes later.

There are more boats here than  I’ve ever seen in my life.

This was nothing like our prior visits! The hippy outpost had become tourist-central, and even the liberal dress code had mostly disappeared. A bit of the old Formentera still exists, but not much. Perhaps there is somewhere else on the island that is still fairly remote, but not where we are.

There are the stacked rocks in many places along the beach. I’m not sure what their significance is.

The beach at Formentera

Roberta and I tendered for a mile in either direction and there are at least four rows of boats, all anchored closer to each other than we would ever imagine possible. It reminded me of the old days of drive in movies! Some people were swimming, but not many. One person told me that there have been jellyfish problems here.

Tooooo many boats. Anchoring is much too dense and each time we thought another boat couldn’t arrive, it did.

Toundra, in her life jacket riding along with us through all the boats.

Boats were anchored on  each side of us so close that at times we almost touched

Each dot is a boat, and this is only a sampling of all the boats that were at the beach. We’ve seen a lot of things, but nothing like this.

The bottom line… We’re not that excited about being in a “boat parking lot” so we’ll probably leave tomorrow morning. If we come back we’ll try another part of the island.

I grabbed a 3d picture of our location, but our boat was moving too much, so it didn’t turn out well, but you can view it by clicking here

Thank you!
Ken and Roberta Williams (and, Toundra and Keeley)
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci

We had planned several days in San Antonio, but the weather has been dictating our schedule, and yesterday morning the weather charts were telling us that it was time to move.

One very nice thing about Ibiza is that it is small and surrounded by anchorages in every direction. In two hours we ran from the east end of the island to the southern part of the island, passing many anchorages along the way.

This is the first we’ve ever cruised where we’ve spent more time studying swell (wave) height than wind speed. There really hasn’t been much wind, and in fact the absence of wind has been part of the problem. With no wind to keep the boat pointed a particular direction we are at the mercy of the swell turning the boat sideways, making the effect very noticeable inside the boat.

On Sans Souci we refuse to let the bad weather slow us down. In adversity there can often be opportunity.

We had read in the cruising guides that Cala Jondal (a bay on the south end of Ibiza) is so popular that finding a spot to anchor can be impossible. From Google Earth we could see that there was a huge amount of sand to drop the anchor on, and given the weather we felt confident we’d find a place.

Our plan was a success! We dropped anchor in 31 foot depth on the prettiest sand we could ever imagine. It doesn’t come through in these pictures, but when I was swimming behind the boat, and put on a mask/snorkel and looked under the water, I was blown away. I had virtually unlimited visibility and could see the bottom which consisted of what looked like carefully groomed sand stretching out in every direction.

It’s a little off the subject, and I have no pictures – but, I should mention why I was swimming. Something happened that could have been a serious problem…

After we dropped anchor I happened to be on the back deck of the boat and looked down at the tender, which was tied behind the boat. We had just towed it a little over twenty miles, and only one of the two lines that form the towing harness was attached. The other was missing. The line that was still attached was shredded. It looked like a big ball of cotton candy! As did the last couple of feet of the thicker tow line connecting the tender to the boat.

The towing harness was as good as it gets, and I’ve towed the tender over one thousand miles on it. I see it every day and had no indication it was falling apart.

I am now certain I know what happened. There were thimbles (metal sleeves) inside loops at the end of all the lines. One of the thimbles broke free, probably bent from frequent use, and acted like a sharp metal edge, like a razor blade, to destroy the lines. I spent over a half hour in the water with lines, shackles, wire ties, etc trying to piece together a towing harness that would be good enough for short trips on calm water. The days of being able to tow in virtually any sea conditions are over until I can have a new towing harness made.

Cala Jondal

I’ve explained in prior blog entries that I always target having a clear 450 foot circle around the boat with no other boats in it, but usually have to settle for 300 feet. Unfortunately, other boats have no such sentiment. We dropped with 300’ of space around us, but by the evening there were four boats within 300 ‘ of us, and two little sailboats that were within 100’. Given that it was a night without wind, the boats were randomly spinning and moving in all directions. I expected at any moment to hear the crash of another boat banging against our boat. Given that we anchored first, and are the larger boat, I figured it is a bigger problem for them than us.

See those clouds? Unfortunately, so do I. They have been following us around since Mallorca. The only good news is that the boat gets a free wash job every day.

One sure clue that you are now in Ibiza is that you see Paris Hilton’s name on a poster

Dance lessons, a live DJ, and just behind the DJ five huge televisions. That’s for lunch on an ugly rainy afternoon. I bet it gets really crazy when the sun is out! But, will we be able to squeeze into the anchorage?

I wish that I had been bolder with the camera earlier in the day when the sun made a brief appearance. But… somehow taking pictures around the beach felt creepy. It would have been nice to show some of the bathing suits and cover-ups. My sense is that a lot of money gets spent on these things, despite their not being much cloth involved.

To save you needing to play, “Where’s Waldo?” I have indicated where Sans Souci is in this photo.

Following is a video which you MUST watch. It shows how much fun can be had on a gloomy afternoon.

Some of you may have wondered with all the bad weather if we’ve been having fun. I suspect this video will clarify that topic in your minds.

At the end of the video you’ll see an interesting looking dock. The swell is too rough for an ordinary dock, so I assumed we’d be stuck on the boat. However, we noticed a tender going back and forth to the boats so I suspected he was a water taxi, but to get his attention I had to chase him down with our tender. (Later I discovered that he monitors channel 77 on the VHF.)  To get us to shore, instead of a normal dock, he has a wood cradle. As he approaches the dock he sticks his nose into a V formed by vertical posts, and this keeps the tender stable long enough for guests to get on or off.

http://www.kensblog.com/aspx/vimeoplayer.aspx?vimeo=136705847

That’s it for today!
Ken and Roberta Williams (and, Keeley and Toundra)
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci

We had planned several days in San Antonio, but the weather has been dictating our schedule, and yesterday morning the weather charts were telling us that it was time to move.

One very nice thing about Ibiza is that it is small and surrounded by anchorages in every direction. In two hours we ran from the east end of the island to the southern part of the island, passing many anchorages along the way.

This is the first we’ve ever cruised where we’ve spent more time studying swell (wave) height than wind speed. There really hasn’t been much wind, and in fact the absence of wind has been part of the problem. With no wind to keep the boat pointed a particular direction we are at the mercy of the swell turning the boat sideways, making the effect very noticeable inside the boat.

On Sans Souci we refuse to let the bad weather slow us down. In adversity there can often be opportunity.

We had read in the cruising guides that Cala Jondal (a bay on the south end of Ibiza) is so popular that finding a spot to anchor can be impossible. From Google Earth we could see that there was a huge amount of sand to drop the anchor on, and given the weather we felt confident we’d find a place.

Our plan was a success! We dropped anchor in 31 foot depth on the prettiest sand we could ever imagine. It doesn’t come through in these pictures, but when I was swimming behind the boat, and put on a mask/snorkel and looked under the water, I was blown away. I had virtually unlimited visibility and could see the bottom which consisted of what looked like carefully groomed sand stretching out in every direction.

It’s a little off the subject, and I have no pictures – but, I should mention why I was swimming. Something happened that could have been a serious problem…

After we dropped anchor I happened to be on the back deck of the boat and looked down at the tender, which was tied behind the boat. We had just towed it a little over twenty miles, and only one of the two lines that form the towing harness was attached. The other was missing. The line that was still attached was shredded. It looked like a big ball of cotton candy! As did the last couple of feet of the thicker tow line connecting the tender to the boat.

The towing harness was as good as it gets, and I’ve towed the tender over one thousand miles on it. I see it every day and had no indication it was falling apart.

I am now certain I know what happened. There were thimbles (metal sleeves) inside loops at the end of all the lines. One of the thimbles broke free, probably bent from frequent use, and acted like a sharp metal edge, like a razor blade, to destroy the lines. I spent over a half hour in the water with lines, shackles, wire ties, etc trying to piece together a towing harness that would be good enough for short trips on calm water. The days of being able to tow in virtually any sea conditions are over until I can have a new towing harness made.

Cala Jondal

I’ve explained in prior blog entries that I always target having a clear 450 foot circle around the boat with no other boats in it, but usually have to settle for 300 feet. Unfortunately, other boats have no such sentiment. We dropped with 300’ of space around us, but by the evening there were four boats within 300 ‘ of us, and two little sailboats that were within 100’. Given that it was a night without wind, the boats were randomly spinning and moving in all directions. I expected at any moment to hear the crash of another boat banging against our boat. Given that we anchored first, and are the larger boat, I figured it is a bigger problem for them than us.

See those clouds? Unfortunately, so do I. They have been following us around since Mallorca. The only good news is that the boat gets a free wash job every day.

One sure clue that you are now in Ibiza is that you see Paris Hilton’s name on a poster

Dance lessons, a live DJ, and just behind the DJ five huge televisions. That’s for lunch on an ugly rainy afternoon. I bet it gets really crazy when the sun is out! But, will we be able to squeeze into the anchorage?

I wish that I had been bolder with the camera earlier in the day when the sun made a brief appearance. But… somehow taking pictures around the beach felt creepy. It would have been nice to show some of the bathing suits and cover-ups. My sense is that a lot of money gets spent on these things, despite their not being much cloth involved.

To save you needing to play, “Where’s Waldo?” I have indicated where Sans Souci is in this photo.

Following is a video which you MUST watch. It shows how much fun can be had on a gloomy afternoon.

Some of you may have wondered with all the bad weather if we’ve been having fun. I suspect this video will clarify that topic in your minds.

At the end of the video you’ll see an interesting looking dock. The swell is too rough for an ordinary dock, so I assumed we’d be stuck on the boat. However, we noticed a tender going back and forth to the boats so I suspected he was a water taxi, but to get his attention I had to chase him down with our tender. (Later I discovered that he monitors channel 77 on the VHF.)  To get us to shore, instead of a normal dock, he has a wood cradle. As he approaches the dock he sticks his nose into a V formed by vertical posts, and this keeps the tender stable long enough for guests to get on or off.

http://www.kensblog.com/aspx/vimeoplayer.aspx?vimeo=136705847

That’s it for today!
Ken and Roberta Williams (and, Keeley and Toundra)
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci

We had planned several days in San Antonio, but the weather has been dictating our schedule, and yesterday morning the weather charts were telling us that it was time to move.

One very nice thing about Ibiza is that it is small and surrounded by anchorages in every direction. In two hours we ran from the east end of the island to the southern part of the island, passing many anchorages along the way.

This is the first we’ve ever cruised where we’ve spent more time studying swell (wave) height than wind speed. There really hasn’t been much wind, and in fact the absence of wind has been part of the problem. With no wind to keep the boat pointed a particular direction we are at the mercy of the swell turning the boat sideways, making the effect very noticeable inside the boat.

On Sans Souci we refuse to let the bad weather slow us down. In adversity there can often be opportunity.

We had read in the cruising guides that Cala Jondal (a bay on the south end of Ibiza) is so popular that finding a spot to anchor can be impossible. From Google Earth we could see that there was a huge amount of sand to drop the anchor on, and given the weather we felt confident we’d find a place.

Our plan was a success! We dropped anchor in 31 foot depth on the prettiest sand we could ever imagine. It doesn’t come through in these pictures, but when I was swimming behind the boat, and put on a mask/snorkel and looked under the water, I was blown away. I had virtually unlimited visibility and could see the bottom which consisted of what looked like carefully groomed sand stretching out in every direction.

It’s a little off the subject, and I have no pictures – but, I should mention why I was swimming. Something happened that could have been a serious problem…

After we dropped anchor I happened to be on the back deck of the boat and looked down at the tender, which was tied behind the boat. We had just towed it a little over twenty miles, and only one of the two lines that form the towing harness was attached. The other was missing. The line that was still attached was shredded. It looked like a big ball of cotton candy! As did the last couple of feet of the thicker tow line connecting the tender to the boat.

The towing harness was as good as it gets, and I’ve towed the tender over one thousand miles on it. I see it every day and had no indication it was falling apart.

I am now certain I know what happened. There were thimbles (metal sleeves) inside loops at the end of all the lines. One of the thimbles broke free, probably bent from frequent use, and acted like a sharp metal edge, like a razor blade, to destroy the lines. I spent over a half hour in the water with lines, shackles, wire ties, etc trying to piece together a towing harness that would be good enough for short trips on calm water. The days of being able to tow in virtually any sea conditions are over until I can have a new towing harness made.

Cala Jondal

I’ve explained in prior blog entries that I always target having a clear 450 foot circle around the boat with no other boats in it, but usually have to settle for 300 feet. Unfortunately, other boats have no such sentiment. We dropped with 300’ of space around us, but by the evening there were four boats within 300 ‘ of us, and two little sailboats that were within 100’. Given that it was a night without wind, the boats were randomly spinning and moving in all directions. I expected at any moment to hear the crash of another boat banging against our boat. Given that we anchored first, and are the larger boat, I figured it is a bigger problem for them than us.

See those clouds? Unfortunately, so do I. They have been following us around since Mallorca. The only good news is that the boat gets a free wash job every day.

One sure clue that you are now in Ibiza is that you see Paris Hilton’s name on a poster

Dance lessons, a live DJ, and just behind the DJ five huge televisions. That’s for lunch on an ugly rainy afternoon. I bet it gets really crazy when the sun is out! But, will we be able to squeeze into the anchorage?

I wish that I had been bolder with the camera earlier in the day when the sun made a brief appearance. But… somehow taking pictures around the beach felt creepy. It would have been nice to show some of the bathing suits and cover-ups. My sense is that a lot of money gets spent on these things, despite their not being much cloth involved.

To save you needing to play, “Where’s Waldo?” I have indicated where Sans Souci is in this photo.

Following is a video which you MUST watch. It shows how much fun can be had on a gloomy afternoon.

Some of you may have wondered with all the bad weather if we’ve been having fun. I suspect this video will clarify that topic in your minds.

At the end of the video you’ll see an interesting looking dock. The swell is too rough for an ordinary dock, so I assumed we’d be stuck on the boat. However, we noticed a tender going back and forth to the boats so I suspected he was a water taxi, but to get his attention I had to chase him down with our tender. (Later I discovered that he monitors channel 77 on the VHF.)  To get us to shore, instead of a normal dock, he has a wood cradle. As he approaches the dock he sticks his nose into a V formed by vertical posts, and this keeps the tender stable long enough for guests to get on or off.

http://www.kensblog.com/aspx/vimeoplayer.aspx?vimeo=136705847

That’s it for today!
Ken and Roberta Williams (and, Keeley and Toundra)
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci