More Calas and Ports April 3 - 13,  2001 In my last log, I indicated we were arriving at Cala Gran, the northern most of three calas in this opening for Puerto de Cala Llonga, and Marina Cala D’Or. It was an attractive cala with limestone rock side walls and a sandy beach at the end, and we were the only boat at anchor. Nice! But! We went over to Cala Llonga, after checking out Cala d’Or in Sprite. Marina Cala d’Or is a modern, expensive resort development that we walked around in search of a laundry. After we dropped off our bag of clothes we returned to Veleda, feeling uncomfortable in staying at anchor as we read signs prohibiting anchoring because of a seaweed infestation they were trying to limit. We had not noticed the signs when we initially anchored, but while skirting the shoreline in Sprite we saw them in all the calas, including Cala Gran where we were anchored. So, we left at 1840 to go 2 miles up to Cala Mitjana, reputed to be one of the most attractive anchorages in Mallorca, which it was, before dark. This Cala (39 23.3N, 003 14.8E) had two boats already there, but we anchored outside of them on a single anchor. We just had room to swing, so we left it at the one anchor. The cala itself was beautiful, with purple flowered vines draped over the limestone cliffs, groomed gardens above the small cliffs, statuary overlooking the cove (my favourite was the red winged horse), and private bath houses set in manicured lawns fronting on the small sandy beach, with a boat house on one side. Unfortunately, the swell coming in from the southeast ricocheted up the cala, causing a perpetual uncomfortable surge. I dinghied around the three calas in the morning, noting that the other two were attractive, but too narrow or exposed to offer good overnight anchoring. We left at noon hour for the 3 mile trip up to Porto Colom, the best natural harbour in Mallorca, which it was. We moored on Buoy #12 in the town mooring area. A couple of anchorages in other parts of the harbour were indicated in the Balearics Pilot, but as it was a windy day, and the other areas looked exposed or in danger of fouling existing mooring buoys, we decided to play it safe. Besides, this was a port that was managed by the "Comunitat Autonoma", the local autonomous community, and our experience with them is that they have very economical standard mooring fees. The fees for Veleda were only about 500 pesetas ($4.00 Cdn) a day, based on square metres of the vessel. This also included a dinghy friendly landing, and free showers. There are 14 of these ports around Mallorca and Menorca providing standard fees for very economical moorings, at buoys or bows-on at transient moles. We found Porto Colom a very convenient place with laundromats, good grocery stores, and a pleasant small town atmosphere. We rented a car for a day to go to Palma to pick up Gilles. We wanted to pick it up at 1500 and return at 1500 next day, but their policy was 0800 to 0800. However, we eventually found an accommodating dealer who went along with our request. Rental cars are economical, in the 4000 to 4500 pesetas ($32 to $35 Cdn) a day, no insurance mentioned, no walk around beforehand, and little gas left in the tank. "Bring it back empty" was the direction. No worry about miscellaneous scratches, cash or credit card paid when taking it out, and just a wave and thank you when returning it. Very casual. We used the car to go in to Palma to pay for our transmission work, get some boat supplies, and have a lovely supper at an Indian restaurant, the Ranguli, in the evening. Next day we went in to pick Gilles up at the airport and do some grocery shopping at the big Carrefour store near the airport. He was supposed to have arrived at 11:10. The plane was delayed until 12:45, but he did not come out until 14:05; his luggage was lost. However, we still got the car back shortly after 1500. We met a couple of other liveaboards in Porto Colom, and had them over one night for a drink. Porto Colom is named, possibly, for Christopher Columbus who is reported to have been born in Felanitx, the town nearby for which Porto Colom is the harbour. It was reminiscent of the large liveaboard community in Boot Harbour in Marathon in the Florida Keys. Not as crowded as Boot Harbour, but a similar feel of boaters living on board and working in the local community to stay afloat. The Club Nautico was not much help for anything (showers, information, weather). We have not had warm fuzzies from any of the Club Nauticos so far. Unless you are a paying visitor, they do not extend any courtesy to transient cruisers. We stayed there for six days, going up 10 miles to Porto Cristo April 9, and staying alongside on the transient mole, as we were not happy with the holding off the town breakwater, complicated with swinging currents and wash from tour boats. Porto Cristo is a tourist town. I took Gilles to the Drach caves, an interesting set of caves with a large lake inside a cavern where over 300 people were accommodated to watch a few rowboats go past and listen to a symphony of organ, pipe, and violin music. Big business! We left on the 11th, not having seen any port office open to pay in the two and a half days we were there. However, their showers weren’t open either. Judy and I had actually visited Porto Cristo a couple of weeks earlier when we rented the car for a weekend in Palma. We drove out that way to see Talayot ruins, the Hams caves, and the aquarium in Porto Cristo.  We went up the coast another 7 miles to Cala Bona, to the port authority town docks. The entrance was narrow, about 30 metres wide, made hazardous by a surge in the shallow waters of the approach. The transient mole was 75 metres across from the entrance, and other better protected but shallower cambers further inside. The 11th was our anniversary so we went to a nice Thai restaurant for supper.  However, the next day, Murphy’s Law was at work, and a northeast wind was blowing directly into the narrow entrance, with increasing swells. This direction was the only narrow 20 degree sector that faced the open sea, and in to the large wide Bahia de Arta the full gale descended, working up 3 metre swells across the shallow waters at the entrance. We were clocking 40 to 50 knot winds with gusts over 60. Our starboard stern mooring block gave way and was pulled directly beneath our stern, not giving us any tension out from the dock. Our port stern line was OK, but caused us to ease to port a few feet to where our keel started grounding in shallows! (The wind and surge were coming from our starboard quarter.) We doubled up our bow lines to shore, and extended additional port and starboard stern lines across the camber to the bow of a tour boat (with the permission and assistance of the owner who was down checking its safety). Our starboard bow line snapped. It was a good thing we had doubled it up, otherwise we would have been right on the shallows a few feet to our port. It was a most uncomfortable, anxiety ridden day and night, the worst since Norway a year ago. By morning it had eased off, and we left early, in case the bad winds returned, and went another 8 miles up to Cala Ratjada for Good Friday. Next log