August 3 - 8

It's been a very relaxing week, with a lot of reading and resting plus going out for a sail to watch the King's Cup Yacht racing, swimming off the boat and eating on board most of the time. As Sandy and Elizabeth were leaving early Tuesday morning they wanted to spend Monday just relaxing on the boat and we cooked their last Mallorcan dinner on board - roast baby lamb etc plus poached cherries and ice cream for dessert.

I also had a massage one day, which required driving to Llubi (pronounced yu-bee), a lovely old village in the centre of the island where the masseur works in a room at a very large organic food store.

Nearby is a "degustation" store and restaurant , which means they specialise in local products. We learned that 90 % of the olive trees on the island are at least 500 years old and many of them are at least a thousand years old. There are some special driving and walking tours to visit some of the most interesting olive groves so we would like to do that before we leave. We also have a booklet about vineyards to visit but such touring is more likely to happen in September when it's not as hot every day.

Friday night we were ready to dine out again so we went to Tahini, an up-market Japanese restaurant in the ritzy marine area of Porto Portals. We have noticed the front entrance on previous occasions but had no idea that such a fabulous classy restaurant was hidden inside. There is an indoor area but we were fortunate to sit in one of the bamboo garden terraces branching off from that, with all black decor set off perfectly against the green of the garden. Each plate we shared looked like a picture post card to advertise fresh food and everything was delicious - warm shrimp salad made with rocket, mixed sashimi platter decorated with tiny pansy flowers, tempura of prawns and vegetables and yakitori chicken pieces on little skewers plus dessert of mint sorbet and mango sorbet. Our wine was an Italian Pinot Grigio which wasn't dry enough to match the food but we enjoyed our starter cocktails; we both had a caiprarhini, Greg's being the traditional rum and lime juice over ice and mine was made with gin and cumquats.

We finished the night with a wander along the waterfront, noticing that all of the restaurants were packed and the glamorous shops were still doing a brisk business close to midnight - no sign of a recession there.

Today is another relaxing day with dinner on board - I have never before seen such tiny round bone lamb chops! No wonder they taste so sweet.
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