We spent a very nice time in the Balearic Islands, sailing in Majorca was a pleasure, we saw lots of beautiful sailing boats, winds were just perfect during the day. The island is beautiful and clean and people are very nice. We also had family and friends on board that were delighted with the behaviour of the crew! Positive discipline is working for us! On top of all of this, what a great pleasure it is to be back home, in Spain.
In Porto Cristo we met new friends (Amparo, Julian and Julia), we all celebrated our 5 day passage and kids were able to visit Majorca Safari Zoo. We boarded Belén for a couple of days (Belén was taking care of the kids last year, she is from Majorca and we hope she had good times with us). Kids were very excited to have Belén on board!
Belén had the great idea to visit Cabrera Island (Cabrera is natural reserve, if you are planning to spend a night there you have to book a mooring buoy through the Balearics region website). Unfortunately, we were not able to get a buoy for the night and we only spent the day on the island (Green buoys are free from the morning to 7 pm, then you have to leave). If you are planning to go for the day the easiest and faster is to spent the night anchor in “Es Trenc” from there you can leave early in the morning and visit Cabrera. Extra tip, meat balls on Cabrera bar are excellent! 🙂
“Es Trenc” is a beautiful beach, packed with boats but it is very large. It is a nice place for anchoring on sand (it is forbidden to drop the anchor on posidonia alga). We got the visit of Madariaga family visited us as “Es Trenc”; Madariaga family and my family have been closed for long time ago and this friendship is going generations through generations; it was a pleasure to welcome them on board for a day and share our little adventure with them.
Belén took us through the nice streets of Palma and we spent one night at the Club Nautico del Arenal, the most expensive marina we ever did, located in the less attractive place we have ever been – so, no link to this marina’s website 🙂
Pierre and I were very happy and proud to hear from Belén who had spent a lot of time with the kids in the past that she found the kids were behaving better, specially the boys. All our efforts on building the future generation are starting to pay back! We are now practising positive discipline. I recently read the book. I find a lot of similarities between positive discipline and the agile mindset. Respect is very important and the kids (like a team in agile) are helped to become responsible and involved in setting the limits. Now, we are having calming times and weekly meetings, we are all enjoying and we feel stronger to set up limits positively. Since we started the trip we have noticed that kids are becoming more and more creative, they are building a lot of things: Yago is excited building and testing his own sail boats!
After visiting Palma, we decided to slow down our social life and we got back to the home schooling rhythm. We spent 3 days anchored at Camp de Mars. Camp de Mars is beautiful and we really enjoyed it. There, a motor boat (35′) drift on its anchor when its crew was at the restaurant. We managed to tied the boat to our boat while it was passing by (it was drifting quickly toward the shore) and we saved it! We were very happy to save the boat, even if its captain barely thanked us for that. The more we are into sailing, the more difference we notice with the state of mind on motor yachts. It was a good occasion to meet a new sailing boat from Australia who came to see if Pierre was fine after his swim to catch the motor boat, Clay and his girlfriend Belén (on their Amel yacht called Fly) are very nice and we spent some time discussing about Australia and Europe with them.
From Camp de Mars, we found a good weather window and sailed to Ibiza and we had other overnight crossing. In Ibiza, we spent 3 days anchored in the beautiful bay of Es Torrents, waiting to have a good wind window to cross to Cartagena.
During our crossing from Ibiza to Cartagena, our spinnaker broke loose from the halyard, got torn on a few meters along its luff and finaly felt into the sea. It all happened in less than 30 seconds… but the time we saw what was happening, the sail was already in the sea. We grabbed it as fast as we could to avoid more problems (like the sail wrapped around the keel or rudder). The rest of the passage has been calm(er) and we reached Cartagena the next day. We are now enjoying Cartagena while we wait for the spinnaker to be repaired. We also serviced the main engine (impeller, engine oil, filters, alternator belt and idling speed), the outboard (engine oil change), and the watermaker (engine oil change)… and the usual maintenance jobs (new jib sheets, new main sail sheets, new bobstay, new chain hook, new high visibility line to rescue the anchor, more fresh water pump fun, etc…). We also got some books for the homeschooling delivered to the marina.
Agile For Life 
I love the story of connection you’re telling. I hope you pried open the heart of the motor yacht skipper, even if you didn’t see it in your exchange. Thank you for putting kindness into the world without expectation.
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