May 2013

We arrived to Palma for the boat show, in which Amante would be hopefully sold. We have this love hate thing with the boat, Neal loves it, and I tolerate it on occasion, like it now and then, and hate it the rest of the time. But I love doing things in the places that Amante can take us. She was stuck to the dock for a week, so I decided to make the most and walk long walks around Palma’s old town, visit some favorite restaurants and make new favorites, and best of all, get another few hikes along the Serra de Tramontana.

Mostly, we sat at the boat show and watched amazing new toy displays, like this one. I call it “Darwin’s Little Helper.”

My niece arrived to stay with us for a month.  The next 2 weeks were spent seeing a little of Palma and Mallorca, while passing a cold/sinus infection back and forth.

 We toured Valledemosa, Soller, and Fornalutx, towns so beautiful I would agree to live in any of them tomorrow. WE took many hikes, leading our niece to comment, “You guys are really in shape! Uncle Neal is like He-man!”

 Our friends Roger and Bea came to visit for a few days, and we hiked a lovely stretch of the GR221 from Soller to Port de Soller. We also went out to eat at some incredible restaurants, which I reviewed on Trip Advisor, under the user name of Runsailwrite.  Between Spain last year and this year, plus New Zealand for a month, I am soon to achieve GOD status on Trip Advisor.

We got one sail day and one overnight anchorage with Rachel. We went to Cabrera, the national park island just off Mallorca. It was cold, but we had a nice 10Km hike to the lighthouse and back. It rained just long enough for us to eat our lunch under the eaves of the lighthouse chapel. Nice views, beautiful rocky coastline open to the south, with nothing to see but Africa, about 60 miles away.

 Rachel went home, and with only a few items left to repair, we left to go sailing. I think of sailing these days as a means to get to more incredible places to go hiking. I’ve had lots of sailing and would like to be done with it, so please please, buy my boat.  To see the Google Earth GPA tracks of the hikes we do, go to this very cool and free website: www.wikiloc.com and search on USER runsailwrite. Click on the author’s name and all my hikes should come up. This link should work: 

http://www.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/user.do?id=575979