18th June

Well, what an exciting day. Lucinda woke me at 3am. The wind was screaming round the hulls, lightning was blasting nearly overhead, horizontal rain was buffeting us and a confused medley of horns, sirens and thunderclaps rent the air. A small boat was a few feet off our side. When we had gone below she had been 100 metres behind us. We had dragged our anchor, and we weren't the only ones. While I managed the engines Lucinda went forward in her light nightclothes to raise the anchor. She came back to the cockpit soaked and shivering uncontrollably like a demented beaver. I managed to avoid hitting anything in the confusion and we got the anchor down again. One yacht was motoring through the melee and others were relaying heir anchors. Suddenly the wind came at us from the reverse direction and all the boats slewed round to face the other way. After about an hour it settled down and I kept watch for another hour or so. We awoke pretty knackered in the morning to see all the boats around us bobbing tranquilly as though nothing had happened.

We then took he tram into the town of Soller and from there a train to Palma. Soller is completely enclosed by mountains. The train grinds it way up towards the sea and around in a wide arc to face inland. After 15 minutes it enters a tunnel from which it emerges 10 minutes later on the other side of the mountains. Palma was a big tourist town with a cathedral and other historic buildings. We had a quick look round before having a great tapas lunch and heading back. Time for a snooze, supper on the boat and planning for tomorrow's journey.