Thu 21 Jun

We’ve a couple of old friends sign up over the last few of days … welcome aboard, it’s great to have you with us!

Today started with a little dinghy excursion around the corner. There’s a Cala that’s apparently very famous – Cala Coves – so we wanted to see what all the fuss is about. We rode the dinghy along past some beautiful rock formations, absolutely spectacular. Cala Coves itself is nice, but it was packed full of boats which is typical of all the places with a good reputation. We decided to head back and explore some of the water caves that we saw on the way. One of them we ventured into had something like a window halfway under water, which made the sun shine through and the water look incredibly blue. Looked a bit like a mini version of the blue lagoon in Capri.

Back at the boat we chilled for a bit, and then used our awesome Go Sun solar oven to make lunch. I do have to say this thing is fantastic – simply chop up some food, put the thing in the sun, let it sit there for about an hour and voila you have a meal. All without using any electricity, gas or anything. So cool! We’ve been trying quite consciously to minimise our footprint, and use as few resources as possible without compromising too much comfort. We’re still learning but so far it’s been working pretty well. We’ve also set ourselves a minimal budget of of 30 Euros per day, which includes health insurance, mobile phones, food and water. A few drinks at a beach bar though and it’s all vanished, but if we manage to avoid spending anything for a few days it all evens out.

In terms of water, one tank lasts us about a week (one tank is 160 litres, and we have 2) and we use it for everything but drinking. The solar panels are doing really well and keeping up with our electricity needs. The only annoying thing is that the water maker is still producing somewhat salty water, and without measuring the TDS (basically how much salt is in the water) we can’t really fix it. Not being within easy reach of a marina where we’re having to find another way to source water. It’s a bit cheeky but on the beach there are showers with a tap, so I’ve been doing dinghy runs to fill up all of our water jugs. The locals looked at me a bit strangely when I showed up there for the fourth time, but hey – we’re trying to go cruising on a budget, and there’s free water, so what do you expect! 😉 This afternoon Camilla did a round with the “Zwarte Strepen Cleaner” – and Bini is now definitely the cleanest boat in the Cala. Wouldn’t advise to look at her without sun glasses, might hurt your eyes! Tomorrow morning we’re planning to do another workout on the beach, and then head off to this little island to feed the lizards that supposedly like tomatoes (random), before catching the nice north easterly wind and heading back to Mallorca on Saturday.