Cala Escondia, Cala Bassa and Cala Xarraca

We left Cala d'Hort to go to Cala Escondida which was a highly recommended anchorage, it was only four miles away so we sailed it. When we arrived it was quite busy but with a lot of day boats and whilst there was loads of room we couldn't get the spot we actually wanted.

It was quite lovely with two restaurants ashore and a couple of places looked like they might be promising places to let us get onshore. The beach however was humming it had little appeal it was so crowded.

We had a nice time swimming and reading but at about 4pm the winds arrived. This is a common thing that at around 4-6pm each evening the wind picked up and roughs up the sea before it all calms down again. It is not a very nice time of day. I was not happy in the anchorage as the winds had clearly shifted to the south and we were completely exposed tot he south. The sensible thing was to go around the corner where full protection was offered. The problem was that these bays are full of eel grass and if you anchor on it you face a fine. Eventually we ended up in Cala Basso, probably the most weed filled bay but with a clear patch in the corner. At first we anchored in a clear spot but only just any change of wind direction and we would drag our chain over the weed. Then a boat on the corner moved so we pulled up the anchor and moved into the corner. It was very tight and there was not much room but we found a space and within 15 minutes it was dark. Then the wind changed and dropped and we started to swing a Linda was very nervous that we had anchored too close to another boat. As it happened it was fine but we did an anchor watch and so we took it in turns to site up all night on watch.

In the morning the Posidonia police were out in force handing out leaflets and checking out everyones chain, most of the boats left. We were feeling a little smug having nabbed the clear patch and so Linda did some more practice in her paddle board.

When she returned I gave her the bad news, in the dark I had been unable to see the chain marks ad we had not laid out enough chain and we were now dragging our anchor. Normally you would pull it up and try again but by this time boats had dropped anchor al around us trying to get into the one small clear spot, it was time to go.

The wind continued to move south in fact there was now an element to west in the wind so we needed to get protection from that direction. This we did by heading off to the top of the island were there is a huge anchorage with lots of free space called Cala Xarraca. We had first tried the small bay on the way I called Bongo Land, because there is a community of hippies who live there and apparently they go down to the beach and night and play bongo's into the small hours. We thought it would be fun but there was no chance the anchorage was completely full.

Cala Xarraca was like somewhere else is was very protected the sea was like glass the waters clear and there looked to be two restaurants ashore but a challenge to get to. We slept well the first night. The next day we tried to go ashore for lunch and I launched the dinghy and although they had a boat channel it really looked like a dropping off place no other boats were pulled up on the shore. We went back to the boat and launched the paddle board and tried again.

The restaurant had space for us and whilst one had to face the car park whilst the other faced the beach it was and interesting "people watching" sort of place. The food was mediocre but the white sangria was the best we had had it was so delicious we drank 2l between us!