Saturday July 25. In the morning we enjoyed buying and tasting food at the market, which meant we could have a feast of local goodies for lunch, including a range of the best Spanish Jamon (ham) and a rose of course. It was another perfect day so we decided to do the same as the locals - go to the beach. We had experienced Palma Nova from the boat but had never driven there; it has a lovely wide sandy beach and the water was refreshing but at 28 C we could stay floating and swimming for ages. The Mediterranean Sea is very salty because it is comparatively shallow so Sandy claims that it was the first time she has ever floated without someone to support her. We had a wonderfully relaxing afternoon and left the beach at about 6.00 pm even though we could have stayed much longer as it was such a superb evening and certainly still warm enough for swimming. Showers and pre-dinner drinks and nibbles satisfied our needs however and we were so comfortable lounging in the cockpit that we decided to eat at on board. Dinner was grilled quail with salad plus strawberries and ice cream.
Sunday was another warm and sunny day with a pleasant breeze so we motor-sailed to Palma Nova and dropped anchor for the day. More swimming, relaxing, reading, snoozing and lunch was our typical spread of Spanish jamons, salad, cheese, baguette and fruit with a bottle of wine.
We were settled in back at the marina by about 8.00 pm and at 9.00 headed off to the old town part of Palma for dinner at Forn. We ate upstairs where each level has several cosy rooms and nooks. For first course Liz and I had excellent gazpacho soup, Greg had lamb kebabs and Sandy had salad; main courses were tuna sushi on a bed of caramelised onions with asparagus for Greg, 7-hour slow cooked lamb for Liz, monk fish for Sandy and roast suckling pig for me. The very good red wine was from the Sio vineyard, Mallorca. We shared the dessert of strawberries filled with creme caramel. One of the owners stopped us at the bar as we were leaving to give each of us a shooter glass of a cocktail made with Brazilian white rum and ice cream, mixed in a soda syphon to make it foamy. We remember having it last year in our favourite restaurant in Porto Rotondo, Sardinia, where the owner called it a Snowball.
As we were wandering back to the car at about midnight we noted that the clothing shops in the restaurant area were just closing - a true sign of lifestyle in Spain, and our new guests have quickly slipped into the late night pattern.
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