Welcome to Spain!

Current Location (for Rose): Porto Colom, Mallorca

The last 24 hours have not been the best. We are both getting very tired after two months of pretty well non-stop travelling west and things have only gone from bad to worse today.

We arrived in Menorca briefly for a couple of nights on a mooring buoy in Fornells before making our way here to Porto Colom on Mallorca.

Spain, or at least the Balearics, do not seem to have the same love affair with the internet that the rest of the world does. In one way this is really nice but it is very frustrating when you are trying to source a new dinghy and engine to replace the ones stolen last night.

No Vodafone shops and practically no WiFi anywhere so communication is a bit haphazard to say the least.

So, last night in this very safe place with unlocked dinghies everywhere we motored ashore for a nice paella and a beer or two. When we returned to the dock. NO DINGHY. We searched to no avail so hitched a lift back out Petronella with some Spaniards before spending a frustrated night aboard. This morning we took P off the mooring and onto a floating pontoon we could access the shore from. A further search followed by a visit to the local police to file a report. This sort of occurrence is, apparently, unheard of here, at least until today that is.

Anyway we think we have found replacements at great expense so tomorrow we are off to the capital, Palma, in a hire car to purchase dinghy, engine and SIM card.

We hope to set off for Ibiza to meet up with friend Linda the following day but we have missed the nice moderate southerlies of today with all this messing around. We then have to decide whether to involve our insurers though maybe it is already too late for that?

Today's good points. We can have a proper shower here for the first time since Turkey. The ice cream is excellent. We have drunk my birthday champagne from Kas tonight. We are still talking to each other. Tomorrow is another day.

TOMORROW: We now have a new dinghy and engine and a new Vodafone SIM though would you believe the main Vodafone outlet in Palma had run out of SIM cards! Looks like more motoring to Ibiza but good strong easterlies then towards Gibraltar. Bring it on.