Tuesday 1st March 2005
The crew leave today, time for a last sail from Andratx as their plane isn't until 5.15 tonight. Weather is milder than yesterday, only 3-4 inshore and 5-6 gusting 7 in the clear sea! We won't make it back to Palma, so decided to sail out to Dragonera Island and back to Santa Ponca to drop them off for the taxi back to the airport.
We were out from 11am till 3pm and decided not to do the full lap of Dragonera as the sea was forming 4m swells as it passed through the Dragonera passage. I think we made the right decision as we spun round in a temporary lull and surfed the rollers back south through the channel.
Claire cooked a spaghetti bolognese as we sailed into Santa Ponca, averaging 6 - 7 knots and peaking at about 8.5. Still under full sail, the cat felt so solid and under no risk as she tacked back into the bay.
We furled the jib and dropped the main as we came into Santa Ponca bay and motored the last 300 metres, checking the depth as we came in closer to the beach. The cat draws 1.3m and is actually safe to beach as she will sit on the twin keels, as long as you don't hit rocks, so we edged in at 1 knot and stopped in 3m of water just 100m from the beach. We dropped anchor and sat back to enjoy the spaghetti, before ferrying the crew ashore on the tender. Back alone again tonight, for the first time in a while, so decided to do as I'd promised and catch up with the website.