As we were running out of time to have works done, Joost Graafmans, a friend of Holly and Robert’s delivered Sea Cloud from Valencia to Palma so works could be started before we arrived. After hearing of Joost’s experience as a captain of some seriously big boats, we realised just how lucky we were so lucky to have him looking after Sea Cloud.We returned to Mundimar to find Sea Cloud looking great and ready to have her mast with its new standing rigging put back in.

We headed back to Real Club Nautico Palma where we would spend the next week working on the boat and seeing what we could of Palma and Mallorca. Our spot at RCNP was on the new “Oyster” dock (full of very large Oyster yachts) right in front of the clubhouse, where we had access to the pool (never used) café (used very often) and very pleasant restaurant.

It was also a short walk into Palma’s wonderful old town. Joost, Gaby and their delightful son, Oscar introduced us to Saint Christina, an area close to the marina, with some good local restaurants and a daily market. We had one day to explore the north of the island by car, the hill town of Soller

and Port Soller nearby.

The coastal road through the delightful towns of Deia

and then though the hills to Valledermosa was spectacular.

Back in Palma it was a week of full on work, with John Dodd, the local Lewmar whiz installing our new more powerful windlass and Rodrigo and the team from Pro-Rigging tweaking our new rigging.

We made sure we had a few afternoons off to explore lovely Palma

Born

Palma Cathedral

Ian was fascinated by the displays of the ham -Emily would not have so impressed.

After a test sail and more tweaking of the rig, we sailed off into the sunset towards Gibraltar, unfortunately once again bypassing many of the places we had intended to visit.

We achieved a lot in a week, but with more works to be done, we felt the pressure to move directly to Gibraltar.