Back to San Antonio from Binirras... ( some photos)
SV Eleonora
Michael A. Andronov
Tue 29 Jun 2021 09:01
38:58.360N 001:17.645W 0809UTC June 28th… The real indication that your life on board came into ‘groove’ — I think — is the moment when you can not say anymore what day of the week today… without looking into the calendar… The time is passing by, you are living in the rhythm of your boat and your voyage… Oh, the famous phrase we like all repeating so often — ‘ the time is flying…’ — is still true. Nice few hours in the morning, watching the Sun rise, noon, some afternoon heat and falling down evening, the Sun set, and… night sky full of stars… You are getting into that motion so deeply that you even do not need the watches… But at the same time, as you accept all said above — the time starts to ‘slow down’… The days seems to pass by without no particular actions, deeds… But one moment, when you are consulting the calendar to figure out what day of the week is today… you would be surprised how intensive and full of events your life has begun… My surprise today — we are a few hours short as we left Almerimar a month ago! Only a month? Wait… yes… It is a month… But it feels as it has been a completely different life long, long, long time ago… We are still near by — about 300 nm away… Still in Spain… and never the less — in completely different time space… The magic of sailing — a few night passages, day sailing, meeting with friends, nights in new ports and calls… sun sets beyond the ocean horizon, swimming … No idea what is the full list of ingredients of that magical recipe… But we are in the different time and space… No, you do not need to spend the whole month to feel it…. It is difficult to me to realise, that it has been only a week as I’ve gone sailing ‘ to explore the North West part of Ibiza Island’, and then spent the whole week in Cala Binirras, on anchor, within a small bay, surrounded by the stiff mountains… A few days of rocky weather, with fierce and refreshing thunderstorm and rain, a few days of nice weather, meeting some interesting people … Cala Binirras… A small bay, surrounded with couple of hotels on its Northern and Eastern parts, stiff mountain on the South… A bit to the West, just after the South ridge drops into the sea… a small island. A private property. With the very nice villa/mension/palace/sommer house — you may name it in accordance with your taste…  The northern side of rocky cliff — is covered with stairs… Periodically, the tourists appear on those stairs, going up and down… From the board of my boat — seems like the stairs are leading completely nowhere… finishing just infront of the massive metal door in the wall…   Some electrical cables are running from the top, between and under the rocks, from the transformation station on the top of the hill…    Private island, with a huge palace covered by trees… Remarkably enough — there is artificially build connection between that island and the ‘main land’… The road, leading to that connection — is a narrow one way serpentine, on which rare small cars are signalling, as they approaching… The palace/house has been definitely built with some machinery… How they manage to get it in… not clear…  Clean water, small modern touristic centre… ‘ A… boring… what is so spectacular about it ? ‘, you may ask… I incline to agree with you — yes, it is just another touristic centre… which I’ve seen a lot in different places… The nature around… well, there is nothing spectacular here too…. But after travelling for a while, I’ve started to look onto those places from different angle… In my theory, you may estimate the prosperity and the future of the island by just 3 things — — how do they get the power ? — how do they get the fresh water ? — how do they deal with sewage ? Frankly, I do not have the simple answers to those questions. I understand that with the modern technologies nearly everything is possible… One one side, there are no lakes, rivers, or other natural water reservoirs on the island. The weather pattern — does not provide a lot of rainy days to pick up the water… The mountains — especially on the ’northern’ part of the Island — may be not high… but enough to make the task of building any kind of communication and infrastructure a good challenge… ‘C’omon! ‘ — you would say… ‘ With modern technologies’…. That is true. There are modern technologies in desalination, power energy generation, searching for underground water, and digging… even to cut through the mountains, if needed… But according to the documents, even with all those modern technologies, today — the island is struggling with generating enough fresh water, electricity… Overusing the underground water reserves — produced ecological challenges…. Waste treatment centres… Etc, etc, etc…. That is today… the 21 century… ( You may easily check with Google more details on the subject… ) At the same time — the islands, both Ibiza and Formentera, have the thousand years of history of human occupation… Add this time frame, and ask yourself the question — how the above questions were solved, say, in 5th century, 10th, 15th…. The answers may be really interesting… ;-) Days on the boat… I was thinking for a long time to connect the AIS transmitter with the onboard PC chart plotter…. But I’ve been lazy… But finally, the time arrived to solve that challenge… ;-)    I’ve been pleasantly surprised that I still remember something from my past life… managed to make some ’surgery’ on electronics even with those broken tools… The reward — I can see the ships on my PC now! So, opening/starting the next month…. M. Phone, whatsapp, & text: +1(514)609-5645 |