Stormy Ibiza

So after almost 5 weeks in Barcelona, Yemaha is calling us back to herself. Although we were living on Ecstasea in the marina of Port Vell in Barcelona, we were what we considered "land locked". And now we longed to be living back on the sea with all of it's fluidity and motion. So we set sail for the Spanish island of Ibiza once again. After a smooth overnight passage we arrived on the little island of Formentera just south of Ibiza. And there we picked up a mooring ball in Espalmador for a few days to get our sea legs under us.

An aerial view of Formentera and the top of the picture shows the area of Espalmador:

While swimming here in Espalmador we both got our first jelly fish stings of the season. Richard first felt his along his back and neck and then I (willow) got stung on 3 toes of my left foot. You know, it hurts but goes away in a few hours, normally....but my toes hurt and remained red for almost 3 weeks!

After feeling sea worthy once again, we headed north to Ibiza just in time for a stormy night at sea. But we found a new anchorage right outside the port of Santa Eulalia--one of our favorite harbors. It was called Cala Estanyol and we enjoyed it so much we stayed almost a week. We swam and used our new paddle board to go to shore to have happy hour at a little bar called Soul Good. And we just enjoyed lazing around.
One evening we took the dingy into Santa Eulalia for a few provisions and found a new Thai restaurant with the best cocunut soup:

And another evening we went in to go to the Hippy Market at Las Dalias:

A few years ago we were anchored on the north side of Ibiza in Cala Xarracca when a man and woman swam from shore to our boat. They had seen our American flag and since that was a rarity, wanted to say "hi". So we invited them aboard for a wine and conversation. It turned out that they were French IMAX producers and directors named Catherine and Pascal Vuong. We loved them immediately and have had dinner with them every year since. It was right before the U.S. elections and they were concerned about Donald Trump. And we said back then, "No way" will he be elected...
WOW, we now know how wrong we were and have paid the price every since!
They had produced an IMAX movie on Normandy D-Day which is excellent and for the last 3 years have been producing another one on solar energy called Planet Power. It's about the solar powered plane that circled the earth using only energy from the sun. It is just now being released and we highly recommend everyone see it.
They are a bright light, not only in our lives but for everyone living on Mother Earth.  They are conscious beings and we thank them immensely for their important contributions to all of us. And so we were thrilled to get to see them once again and go to one of our favorite places on Ibiza called Atzaro. It is a beautiful resort inland with wonderful outdoor dining. And so we just had to take a selfie of all of us in front of this word:

And we were anchored out just so we could see and celebrate the full moon rise right out of the ocean:

And then because of easterly winds picking up, we had to move to the south side of the island. About half way down another storm kicked up with rain, thunder and lightening so intense that we couldn't see beyond the bow of the boat. And really the safest thing to do was to turn and head out to open sea. It just wasn't safe towards land and other boats as we couldn't see anything. You know, sometimes you just have to go with the flow and it is never a good idea to try to resist the forces of nature...especially the powerful Yemaya. It took several hours for the storm to quiet down to just rain and then we could go back to the south side of the island and out of the wind and waves.
So we landed in Cala Yondel for the night and were rewarded with another lovely full moon rising over the mountain:

The next day we went up the east coast of Ibiza and found a new cove to anchor in called Cala Tarida.
We had 3 fun days here and found some good restaurants to visit in the evenings.
Sunset in Cala Tarida:

One evening we took the tender in to have dinner at a place called Chirin Guito--a great place on the beach:

And this is where Gibit (our dingy) ran away from us...Let me explain:
We took Gibit in to shore and drug her up on the sand as we usually do. Then we went and had a lovely dinner and drinks, watched the sunset with a glass of wine. By then it was dark and we decided to head back to Ecstasea for the night, but...
"Where is Gibit???"
She was not on the beach where we left her, in fact, she was not on the beach at all! And it was pitch black and Ecstasea was anchored a long ways out.
Well, we went back into the restaurant and asked if anyone could help us. But no one had a dingy to take us back in but the owner of Chirin Guito, Rafael said he had a paddle board and would be happy to paddle us back out to our boat, one at a time. Thankful, and having no other choice, said "Hell, Yes"!
So there he went paddling Richard first out to Ecstasea while I sat in the sand wondering where in the hell did Gibit go and what will we do without a dingy??? And after what felt like a really long time, Rafael came paddling back to shore with Richard behind him motoring the dingy.
Come to find out some crew on a big motor yacht saw Gibit on their radar going out to sea and flashed their lights on her to get Richard's attention. What a gift that they were paying attention and rescued Gibit for us. And we will ever be thankful for Rafael's generosity in helping us!
This definitely was a new experience for us and not one we intend to repeat. And as we pondered why Gibit would want to run away from us, we finally figured it out:
She used to be our one and only:

And now there is ItiWit, the paddle board, and she is jealous:

So we intend to give her much attention and appreciate her even more...
After all of that excitement, we headed north again to Cala Xarracca to swim, snorkel, and just be lazy and recuperate.

The Captain enjoying Iti, the new paddle board:

Maybe someday we will stand up which is not so easy for us yet:

And we always go into Ibiza city for dinner and our yearly picture on the wall of old town:

This summer the weather in all of Europe has been challenging and we have really been affected here on the islands. The thunderstorms have been coming with more intensity and frequency in September.  So we decided that we better head back to the mainland when we have a few calm days. With that in mind, we headed back down to Formentera to anchor for a night and then head west to the Spanish mainland. And as we were heading south, the rain and thunderstorms came once again. And Richard called me up from below to look at something.
Well... I was raised in Kansas with Dorothy and Toto, so i have seen and personally know what a tornado looks like. Now Richard says that a tornado over water is called a waterspout, and I don't really care what he calls it, I call it scary!
It certainly got our attention and we tried to figure which way to go to outrun it (as if we could do that in a sailboat-haha). And blessedly it began to dissipate and disappeared back into the clouds.

We could actually see it churning and swirling the water of the ocean:

And with all of this, Ibiza was still wonderful, exciting, and challenging... and we are ever thankful for the learnings of it all. But most of all, thankful to be safe and sound at the end of the day.