Sails in Spain: Saturday 2 September - Paella and beyond

It took about 12 hours to reach Ibiza, we sail past the high rise hotels and onto the smaller and quieter Formentera.

Javier has lunch planned for us (having assumed the role of fisher and chief cook / restaurant finder) in a beautiful bay at a fantastic restaurant. Seafood paella and fried baby squid for appetizers. Fabulous food.

The boat came with snorkelling gear, and with the water the most amazing clear blue (one day while fishing the depth was 17m and the bottom was very visible) swimming around with the variety of fish was brilliant (starting to run out of adjectives to describe things, will try and get more imaginative).
Fish has become a bit of a constant, whether it swimming with them, eating them or spending hours failing to catch them.
I think one of the most memorable aspects of this trip will be the water. Deep azure blue in the deeper waters, changing dramatically to a bright sky blue in the shallows and soooo clear. Javier tells us it is to do with the type of algae in the water around Formentera that at one stage was common in the Med, but is not very rare thanks to Jacques Cousteau accidentally releasing some nasty toxic algae that killed all the native stuff.
Saturday evening has us anchored in a bay, drinking Spanish and Awaroa wine, eating various meats and cheeses. Very hard to believe only 24 hours has gone by, the rest of the world seems like… well a world away.