9th June 2021
Port de Pollença, Mallorca
We live in a connected world where people travel with ease*. Sometimes this connected world can make you feel remote and damage your mental health by giving you a feeling of FOMO. Other times this interconnected world, even in these Covid restricted times, can enable us to take friends from superyachts to a super yacht, share our transient lifestyle in idyllic locations and go on bonkers non-touristy adventures.
With our location leaking out through Marinetraffic, Facebook and Instagram and with the superyacht season kicking off we had a feeling that the paths of some of our rockstar sailor friends would be crossing ours. Some were taking knarly trips around the med on IMOCA’s while others were racing about at breakneck speeds on Superyachts where grand piano’s adorned the saloons.
This is how, after Paul and Helena had finished hurtling about Sardinia on an 86ft catamaran superyacht and delivering it back to Palma, found themselves in an anonymous car park, next to a bus station awaiting our imminent arrival. This was quite a comedown from their champagne and oyster lifestyle, but we were now about to take them from superyachts onto a super yacht; Ruffian.
As Paul and Helena clamoured on board, we were in for the most classic of Ruffian evenings. The sun set over the cliffs that surrounded us and the water turned milky flat showing our anchor and chain snaking around us. The wine flowed, dinner was consumed, friendships rekindled and smiles grew larger and larger as stories of yachting daring-do filled our quiet world.
With all these stories flying around Iain outlined a plan so we’d have more stories to tell. Without the restraining influence of Fiona he thought that scaling the highest steepest peak, at dawn, and without a path to follow, was simply his best ever idea ever.
The alarm chimed at 5.30 and the 3 intrepid adventures started the long uphill romp. Iain was wrong in his assumption that there was no path, there was, but within yards it had given way to boulders, grasses hiding cavernous drops and bushes waiting to cut our shins. With no path to follow the ‘sensible’ consensus was to ‘go up’ and chase the mountain goats.
The walking quickly turned to a scramble and the scramble quickly turned into a full on ‘sketchy as f*ck’ climb (apparently this is a technical climbing term). The further we went the steeper it got and the dodgier it became, but to calm our worries Paul pushed ahead and then issued calming advice; ‘Fear is you friend’.
With this salient piece of advice ringing in his ears Iain soldiered on but his water bottle had given up. Out the side of his bag it fell and our intrepid explorers watched it bounce down the sheer drop, off the hard rocks and finally explode in plume of mist. Knowing this could be our heads we made one final big push we were suddenly on the top. Far below us the bay opened up, the suns new rays kissed the tips of the ridges and not a breath of wind disturbed the silence. This was an adventure that stories could be told from.
We now had the simple task of heading down and like the best walks we decided not to retrace our steps. Copying the mountain goats, who’d now scattered, we scooted around near hidden drops that would send us to our doom and leapt from rock to rock knowing that down was good.
Skirting houses and we finally emerged from the bush and felt like victorious age-old explorers. Our little adventure was much more than scaling some random hill, we’d made story with great friends that would last a lifetime.
* When we use the word ‘ease’ we actually mean navigating the nightmare Covid 19 regulations where you need a valid PCR tests, travel with a specified profession and fill out endless online forms which want to know what you had for breakfast and your inside leg measurement!
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