Tue 19 Jun

This morning, as predicted we were woken up at 2am by very strong northerly winds. We got up to check we were still in the same place (which we were) and took a look at the anchor chain. Looking in good shape (and having seen how buried the anchor was the night before) we went back to bed. I also decided to set the anchor alarm which is this great iPhone app which allows you to set the GPS position of the anchor, then set a maximum radius around which you are happy to swing. If you go outside the circle an overly ominous alarm sounds (it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s the same as was used on the Titanic) which has you leaping up on deck in a semi conscious state staring bleary eyed at your neighbours.

Late morning I was sitting up on deck reading when out of the corner of my eye I saw something floating. On looking up I saw it was our neighbours dinghy which had managed to untie itself and make a break for freedom. I called to Tom who before I could say, “put on some pants” was donning his flippers and swimming after it. There was quite a current and he’s a strong swimmer so it was only a few minutes before he’d grabbed a hold of it. But now what? It was too heavy to drag back upstream to our boat so he decided to swim up along side a French boat which was down wind of us. He must have been quite the sight as he wished them a good morning and explained what had happened. In the mean time, with a combination of wild waving and whistling I managed to rouse the other Frenchies whose dinghy it was. Looking very confused at first they soon figured out what was going on, and the guy (who had managed to get dressed) jumped into the water and began swimming towards his compatriots yacht. Once the dinghy was secured Tom came back, the Frenchie collected his getaway and came by to say a big thank you. Karma points +200. Well dome Tom 🙂

This afternoon we went for swim and saw loads of stingrays swimming amongst the rock patches – apparently they’re quite the rarity so we were lucky. Dried off we read for a bit then once the wind dropped we headed to shore and walked along to the neighbouring Cala which was stunning. The pilot book had us believe it was super popular and busy, but just two yachts were in there enjoying their own secret private bay.