Turtles in Our Wake

by Sandra Clayton

  It is only later, when I have mopped and raged, that I remember the people lolling in their small boats, the children fishing and the dog in the dinghy, because after the high-powered motor yacht had shattered our afternoon with its monstrous wash it had been heading straight for them.

  I vow that I will never sail to Palma again. We have done so twice now, and both times have ended up mopping out the saloon, although the damage inflicted by a gale-force hailstorm is as nothing compared to what a selfish man on a powerful motor yacht can do. Nor do I ever want to enter the Réal Club Náutico marina again. We have been here twice now and both times refused water, the first time even though we had already paid for it. Today we tie up on its visitors’ dock for the second time. It is a long marina and its office is at the extreme end of it. It is the hottest part of a very hot afternoon as David sets off on the long walk to ask for a berth. We have two priorities: to get our SSB radio seen to as fast as possible before the seawater ruins it; and to wash our saloon furnishings. The office is closed for lunch until 4pm.

  We had noticed on the way into the marina that there were spaces available on the public dock, but our cruising guide says there are no facilities there. Since we are afraid to use what little water we have remaining in our tank for cleaning until we are sure of its replacement, we wait until four o’clock and then David walks between the long rows of wall-to-wall luxury motor yachts to the office again. We cannot have a berth, the receptionist tells him, without a reservation.

  David explains our situation and asks if the marina will sell us water before we leave so that we can clean up the damage caused by the motor yacht. We cannot have water, she tells him, without a berth.

  He returns from another long walk in the intense heat and approaches the fuel dock which is just opening. Although it sold water last year, this year it doesn’t. A French yachtsman, overhearing, very kindly comes across to tell us that water has recently become available on the public quay from 9am-1pm daily. We thank him very much, leave the marina and tie up at the public quay where I spend that evening and the following day washing, rinsing, and drying.

  The problem with seawater is that it never dries out; the salt continually absorbs moisture from the air so that everything remains clammy and ultimately becomes mouldy. It also rots upholstery foam and carpet backing. I use all the water we still have on board and we fill and refill our tanks next morning before the water gets turned off at 1pm. The man who comes for the overnight fee, plus a small charge for water, speaks no English but observes the entire movable contents of our saloon laid out in the sun to dry on every available inch of deck. He takes no deposit for the water fitting and indicates wordlessly where we can leave it if we go before he returns at 1pm to turn off the water, thereby saving us walking to his office with it. We know his office is miles away, on the other side of the harbour, and we think him very kind.

  Most of the sofa’s fourteen upholstered cushions have been either splashed or saturated, the loose cushions are drenched. All the towels that were washed at Bonaire have been used to mop up books, tapes and radio. To make matters worse, copies of our 8-page newsletter had been printed off. The ink has dissolved in the seawater and contributed to the mess. Nor will we be able to recover our losses, since marine insurance carries a large excess. There would also be our no-claims bonus to lose.

  I can at least work in the shade. David’s priority is our radio so he spends his time in unrelenting heat rushing between people who are said to know where there is a specialist in repairing radios, who turn out not to be when he gets there, but who know somebody who is – and always at opposite ends of the town. When he finally finds the specialist his verdict on our radio is, ‘Kaput,’ and David begins another search, this time to find a replacement.

  His search ends at Palma’s premier department store, El Corte Inglés. Ever the provider, and aware of the absence of food shops near the boat, he also goes around the store’s food hall. Unfortunately, the only fruit and vegetables El Corte Inglés sells is in sealed multi-packs. So along with a new radio, chicken, some divine cake and fresh (filleted!) sardines for dinner he returns with eight lemons, nine heads of garlic, ten kiwi fruit and an armful of leeks.

  Not surprisingly he is weary. The heat is overwhelming and everyone is feeling it. Everywhere we go at present people say it is not usually this hot. And then it occurs to me that the daily temperatures printed in the English newspapers we buy are never as high as those on our own thermometer, despite our being in one of the actual cities quoted. I begin to wonder where these figures come from. I also realise that the electronic displays they have in the streets, whose LED screen tells the time and the temperature alternately, don’t tell the temperature any more, as if they don’t want anybody to know. And with your hair steaming in the heat you ask waspishly where the thermometer that produces the temperatures in the newspapers is actually kept – in the Minister of Tourism’s basement?

  37

  Ibiza

  With the acquisition of a new radio, the contents of our saloon washed and dried and our water tanks full – the last-mentioned being the only thing we actually came to Palma for – we set off for our original destination, Ibiza. It is a bouncy journey, against the wind with a fair chop to the sea, but once tucked into the island’s small bays conditions are perfect for lazing and swimming. At one anchorage, though, the sound of dragging is so strong through the boat that David dives down to our anchor. It is well dug in but the sound persists. It is quite some time before we work out that a full starboard water tank, set in motion by a specific sea state, gives a very convincing impersonation of an anchor dragging.

  We intend to journey on to Ibiza’s capital but a strong south-westerly wind is forecast. It will make the anchorages there uncomfortable, and to stay where we are now is not a good idea either. So, as often happens when cruising, you find yourself going in the opposite direction to the one you intended simply in order to find somewhere sheltered and safe. We choose Cala Charraca and stay there two days, lazing and swimming while waiting for a strong south-westerly which never arrives. We also email our newsletter to family and friends who have computers, and print out again the copies ruined by seawater for those who don’t.

  After a couple of days we decide to resume our journey, only to find that in spite of a new and propitious forecast we are soon chopping into a strong head wind that is not supposed to be there. Nevertheless, we finally arrive at Ibiza Harbour. The Old Town looks lovely up on its hill. As for anchoring, however, the harbour reminds us of London’s M25 motorway on a Friday evening but with a perpetual wash from ferries thrown in.

  However, a narrow strip of land separates the harbour from a large shallow bay called Cala Talamanca. There are a few catamarans already anchored there and we join them. The water is aquamarine as I steer over patches of pale yellow sand and silvery-green weed until David finds a suitably large patch of sand to drop the anchor in.

  We are getting low on fresh foodstuffs by now although we still have five lemons, six heads of garlic and quite a few leeks. We have no desire, on a hot afternoon, to dinghy ashore, walk two miles into town, spend an hour or so gathering supplies and then walk two miles back with them. We have wine, chocolate and coffee for lunch which is quite disgraceful but utter bliss. And an early dinner on the beach, with the water lapping two inches below the edge of the restaurant’s wooden terrace.

  For a Northerner there is something captivating about the Mediterranean’s lack of tide; to be able to build your house or set out your tables so close to water with confidence. There are no guarantees against speed freaks of course and, when one does roar past, a surge of water breaches the restaurant’s terrace at one side and exits at the other. Its passage is diner-friendly, however, running as it does behind the rear tables and across the kitchen’s doorway; requiring the waiters to step over it as they cross the threshold, but missing the diners altogether.

  Next morning we take the dinghy ashore very early and walk th
e two miles into town. The city of Ibiza was founded by the Carthaginians – those same exiles who also fetched up at Tharros and Nora on Sardinia – and who are also thought to have fortified the Ibizan hill known as D’Alt Vila, the Old Town, and to have called both it and the island Ibasim. Ibiza then became a Roman city state and its challenger, Hannibal, is said to have been born on a small island off its west coast. When the Moors came here they called it Yebisah. The Vikings and later Charlemagne looted and pillaged it. The walls enclosing the upper, or old town, were built in the 16th century under Emperor Charles V.

  We climb the hill to the Old Town, wandering through the castle with its wonderful views over the town and bays, and visiting the cathedral with its massive 13th century belfry. The cathedral is blissfully cool after the shimmering heat outside. There is an official sitting at a table against the west wall as you enter. Although perfectly upright he is fast asleep and all the people coming in and going out, as though with a shared thought, tiptoe past the table to avoid disturbing him.

  We lunch on sangria and tapas in the shade of a huge, gnarled old olive tree. Then we shop and post our newly reprinted newsletter. The little yellow metal post box is inside a tobacconist’s shop. Nobody we’d asked was sure where the actual post office was hidden, although somebody said it was a day’s hike out of town.

  We return to a very hot dinghy with our shopping. The wind is rising and there is some cloud. The weed beneath us, once silvery green, is now dark grey and the sandy patches a lurid lime green. It is a little eerie, sometimes, the way the sea’s colours change when the weather does.

  38

  Formentera

  Our next destination, the little island of Formentera, is only eleven miles from Ibiza so it is not surprising that its history is similar. Its name derives from Frumentaria, a reference to the large amount of wheat it supplied to the Roman Empire. It was raided by all the usual suspects plus the Saracens and, ironically, Scandinavians on their way home from a crusade.

  In its modern incarnation the island has a tiny town, a very loud disco and an enormously long, beautiful sandy beach. The latter contains a mud bath, not mentioned in the cruising guide, in which people immerse themselves totally in grey mud and then walk slowly along the beach until it dries, peels and drops off like rotting flesh. It is quite appalling, surrounded as you are by tanned healthy bodies, to be suddenly confronted by something out of Return of the Zombies. Given that the beach is popular for all-night revels, a glimpse of one of these mud bathers after dark would probably unhinge anyone of a nervous disposition. Or even moderately sober.

  The anchorage is gunwale-to-gunwale with yachts. Late afternoon it seems to have achieved saturation point when seven middle-aged Germans on a charter Benetteau roar up between us and another yacht, drop their anchor, ride over it at speed, turn on their radio full blast, take off all their clothes, throw themselves repeatedly overboard, talk at the tops of their voices, and have a lanyard clattering against their mast so loudly it would drive any normal person demented but which they don’t even seem to notice.

  Then a 50-foot gentleman’s motor yacht arrives with eight men on deck dancing sedately in pairs, cheek-to-cheek, to an old-fashioned gramophone while their skipper races about desperately trying to anchor unassisted in a very confined space. This boat’s 1930s dance music cannot compete with the Benetteau’s very loud radio, however, let alone the rave just getting started on the beach.

  After the disco in the town finishes around dawn, dozens of people arrive on the beach and sing, for hours, and what really impresses us is that they know all the words of every song.

  We have the little town largely to ourselves next morning since most people have only recently gone to bed. But when we return to collect our dinghy, the spot on the quay where we had tied it up is now taken by a dive boat. Our dinghy had been untied and left to float away. Fortunately, it has been rescued by a fellow-yachtsman.

  Formentera is undoubtedly a very nice place when it is not so crowded. But this is high season and we are happy to leave.

  Mainland Spain

  39

  Alicante

  We leave the Balearics for mainland Spain on Friday the Thirteenth, destination Alicante. We are up before dawn and set off at first light. It is a very beautiful morning. Layers of soft grey Ibizan mountains recede into a smoky distance, while above them light cloud reflects the red glow of a sun not quite risen. Four and a half hours later we can still look back and see Ibiza, but Formentera is such a low-lying island that it disappeared from sight long ago.

  Around 6pm the wind disappears but we leave the genoa up as a sunshade for the cockpit. It gets dark around nine o’clock. We enter Alicante marina just before midnight and tie up to the fuel dock until the reception staff arrives for work next morning and allocates us a berth. It is a very warm night and we opt for separate bunks so that we can sprawl like beached starfish under an open hatch. David takes port and I take starboard, beside the quay.

  At 4.45am – and remembering to put on some clothing – I go up on deck, point to the alarm clock in my left hand and say, ‘Look Guys,’ to three youths and a girl singing and chatting two feet from my bed. They are doing it very amiably but, after an hour and a half, enough is enough. And why do four young people want to sit around diesel pumps when Alicante has a beautiful promenade? Security, probably, at this time of the morning, but it is none of my business now they have stopped singing next to my bed. And then I feel guilty. It is the difference between holiday-makers with a short time in which to enjoy themselves and people like us. They are young and, unlike us, have only a couple of weeks to enjoy warm Mediterranean nights full of stars. But I have just spent nineteen hours at sea and the Battle of the Lavandaria looms again tomorrow.

  As soon as reception opens at 9am I buy four laundry tokens and rush off with a load, only to find both washing machines already in use. I place my bags on the table as next in line and return to the fuel dock to help David berth Voyager in the finger pontoon he has just been allocated. I don’t know which is worse, a lazy line or finger pontoons with their little pointy ends always sneaking between your fenders and gouging their way into your topsides.

  By the time I get back to the launderette, one of the machines has almost completed its cycle and a newly-arrived Italian woman is plainly expecting to put her washing in it next. I, however, was trained here, by Annie from Humberside, and begin to explain the concept of queuing to her. Given last year’s experience I am going to spend the whole of today in this launderette, but unless I stand my ground I am likely to spend much of tomorrow here as well.

  She protests but I am bigger than she is and finally I spell it out to her in terms she cannot fail to understand. ‘Me primo,’ I say, jabbing my right thumb at my collarbone. ‘You secondus.’ I’ve just got her pacified when the Scotsman whose machine is rightfully mine presses the green button for Start instead of the yellow button to open the door. Its lock slams into place and the machine starts a full wash cycle going again for another hour. In the meantime a Portuguese couple arrives with a huge holdall, the male half of the pair exhibiting every indication that he expects to use the next machine that falls vacant.

  So I decide to soften him up by telling him about my laundry experience with the Portuguese Navy last year when we got chased by a frigate for having my nightie hanging over the side. I’m hooting away at the memory but it’s going down like a lead balloon. On reflection there is a bit of the naval look about him and I remember that Portuguese men from some areas have this macho thing about women and not much of a sense of humour anyway and it is all becoming a bit fraught. An international incident even, with Little England ranged against the combined EU forces of Italy and Portugal. With the prospect of a second day tied to this hot, airless room, however, Little England holds her ground, parleys, outlines the concept of standing in line, negotiates an ethical washing machine policy, entente cordiale is maintained and the man goes away.

  Freed from
his brooding presence, it turns out that the Italian woman comes from a little town on the coast near Rome and her son works for British Telecom. The Portuguese woman teaches literature and the time passes pleasurably as she talks about her favourite authors.

  After they have gone I go and buy a small beer from the restaurant next door and sit in the sunshine. It is at times like this that you miss cigarettes. You can’t leave your laundry and go and do something useful because when you return you will be fifth in line, so you just sit and wait and as one load finishes you throw in the next.

  Meanwhile, David heroically sets off to shop, promising me faithfully he will come back by taxi since El Corte Inglés is quite a long way up into the town and I know he will return with as much as it is possible to carry. He is dressed in old tracksuit bottoms with a broken pocket zip and an elderly T-shirt, the only clean clothes left in his locker as everything else is in bags in the launderette with me. He leaves El Corte Inglés’s air-conditioning with regret, a very large rucksack full to bursting and numerous carrier bags.

  Despite his attire David has received nothing but courtesy from the store’s staff but fails to impress the taxi driver. David indicates the marina on the map to the man, who looks puzzled and mutters in Spanish. David keeps repeating ‘Marina, marina,’ and pointing to its location on the map, and they set off.

  At the waterfront the driver tries to take David past the marina to holiday apartments and David insists he turn into the service road to the marina instead: which he does, at top speed through two busy lanes of traffic. But he then tries to deliver him to the Algerian ferry whose terminal shares the service road with the marina and which is boarding at that moment with lots of people dressed like David and carrying polybags and cardboard boxes.