Location: Puerto de Sóller
Today’s blog post will defy convention by starting with an explanation of the title, for which we need to fast-forward to the evening squeeze. Taking inspiration from a good friend called Smash (her real name, I was told upon our meeting), “what is your favorite ice cream flavor? But it must be said in a Batman’s voice.” It took us a very long time to get around the cockpit, as every new answer had us gasping with laughter. The punch line came from Asa, who, as it happened, was the very last person to answer. Caught up in getting the voice right, his dark utterance was, “Pomegranate cookie dough…” To his credit, he did pin down Ben Affleck, but we were all very puzzled by this flavor and sat for a moment in silence, trying to picture the contrasting tastes. Somebody finally spoke up with, “where can we try this interesting flavor?” to which Asa replied, “….wait… what did I just say?!” Of course, he’d meant pomegranate sorbet.
Now, the day began for some with a successful time in the galley turning out marvelous french toast. I do wonder at what point Jimmy woke up, though, as, by the time I came through to do wakeups, a massive birthday surprise banner had been strung across the salon ( which also happens to be his and Jac’s bedroom) in his birthday honor. For everybody else, it was a poetic monologue by myself about why I thought this day ought not to be missed! A quick cleanup and record-speed dinghy shuttles took most everyone ashore.
First, we piled into a bus. This bus looked as most do, but what soon became apparent was that the driver was superhuman. The roads leading out of this port’s valleys were clearly not designed for 27-person buses, but this driver had serpentine superpowers and was also fond of speed. Once he’d delivered us to the small town of Deia, a gorgeously quaint Mallorcan village with cobblestone alleys and summer boutiques, we were very ready to give up those wheels for our own two legs. Some opted to further explore the town before beginning their trek, but we soon found the GR221 trailhead and made our way into the wilderness. We enjoyed the colors of wildflowers, the scents of grasses and tree bark, the grit of soil on our hands, and the burn of our leg muscles, by now all foreign experiences. With Anna and Isabelle Wilkes, I got lost and tried to make friends with a passing German couple to get better directions. At one point, they asked what we do, to which we said we sail boats. “So, you are in marketing, yes?”
“No, no, we sail the boat.”
“Ah jah, my brother sells tractors…”
They told us where they were going and that we should follow them to get back on track. They did then proceed in the other direction!
So we made our way along to the actual town of Sller, altogether about a 10km walk. Another beautiful town; we had lunch here at various places. The food was incredible, an authentic Mallorcan paella with locally caught fish, which left most of us ready for a nap. We soon found the beach at the port, and some indeed did take a good beach nap, and others hiked further around to the headland to get a wonderful photograph of Vela nestled into her tiny anchorage spot.
We finally made our way back to the boat by dinghy ride and prepped the boat for an early morning passage start. Cottage pie went down really well and was even better, followed by Jimmy’s birthday ice cream, which led well into the squeeze question previously mentioned.
Now, it is at this point that I will admit that I was not present for any of the shoreside adventures, as it was my turn to keep an eye on Vela, so all of these accounts are indeed secondhand, with many of my own liberties taken in embellishing. After all, why ruin a good story with the truth? I do believe it was indeed a day to write about, a sit-down-with-your-grandkids-around-a-fire-and-spin-this-old-yarn kind of day. We’ve also not laughed this hard at squeeze before!
Mejuffrou Sonneblom, Ek’s lief vir jou.
To Sophie’s family, we’re keeping a close eye on her as she just drank the dishy water…