For those of you looking for a new place to go bareboat chartering, I highly recommend the island of Mallorca off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean. We did several things right. Here is a top ten list of rambling thoughts:
1) We did not go during the months of July and August. Because it is Europe’s most popular beach resort destination and it can be hotter than hot. Not a great combination. Instead, we went in early June before any European holidays were in swing. For doing this we were awarded with very friendly people, not burnt out on touristas and fairly quiet, uncrowded places that you could only imagine teeming with the masses. It was in the high 70’s and low 80’s during the day. Thats hovering around 28-30c in centigradespeak.
2) We were not a large flotilla. Only four boats. This was good because some places we anchored were pretty tight on space. It must really be nuts in July/Aug.
3) We made the decision to NOT try a circumnavigation. This tempered our expectations and put us into a much more leisurely mood, sooner. None the less, we found head winds in just about any direction we tried to sail in. This is really a local knowledge place where, at least the week we were there, the wind was generated by the land heating up causing exceptionally local conditions. The farther you went away from the island the less wind there was. And surely at a major point of land the wind blew in two different directions. None the less we had excellent flat water sailing all week in 12-20 knots of wind that began light in the morning and built up to sundown. Anchoring was tricky, but we had pretty sublime nights and made a point of diving our anchors to see if we truly were set. I slept great at anchor almost every night which is uncommon.
4) The food in restaurants and grocery stores was not overpriced ! Grocery stores were the best, resembling the finest European delis you could find in the States. Oh - thats right, we were in Europe ! LOL

By the way - That is Jamon - hanging on the wall. A dry cured spanish ham that you must try before you die ! I would bet it was the Italians who said Spanish food is bland…

5) 10 days would have been much better than 7. In fact we made a pact to never go on a 7 day sailing holiday again. It is too painful. One is just begining to get into the swing of cruising when its time to go home. No fair.
6) Adding land travel days on both the front and back end of the sailing holiday made up for only having a 7 day sailing trip.
7) The food and the ambiance was totally Med. Everything we had ever heard of the Med is true and so we will be tasting Italy, Greece, Turkey and Croatia in future years.
8} SunSail and The Moorings both have fairly small bases here. If one wanted to be adventurous there are some German operators with extensive fleets and service. BestSail and Alboran are two we checked out. We got the opportunity to charter with Voyage on one of their exceptionally fine 440 Catamarans. I would recommend them to anybody !
9) Make sure you have a good and capable dingy set up as it is an important piece of enjoying the charter, like just about anywhere.
10) There are wonderful “hostal” establishments in Palma. You don’t have to pay a kings ransom at a fancy hotel. Unless you want to. We figured we were going to be on the boat, so we really didn’t need a beach resort. Our two most wonderful days spent in Palma before sailing, we stayed at Hostal Regina. Others stayed at Hostal Ritzi which had an excellent location.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS