Mallorca, July 28 - August 5, 2015

Tom Whitelaw arrived from London late at night on July 27 and his Melbourne friends Richard Eva, Chloe Near and Andrew Mitchell arrived on the 28th, but only Richard and Tom stayed on the boat. Tom has moved to London and hopes to start work soon, so he wanted to make the most of a summer break while he could.

For the first afternoon in Mallorca for any of the group I took them to the beach at Puerto Portals, one of the many beaches close to Palma. Although that beach is always crowded in the summer we managed to find a spot near the water, to be a little cooler, and swimming was easy because the water deepens close to the shore. It's one of the best nearby beaches because it's much larger than many others, the water is usually clear blue and there are a couple of good bars.

To get a sense of part of the old town of Palma we ate out that night at Umbo, choosing many of our favourites such as chicken and pistachio croquettes, sea bass ceviche with avocado and passion fruit juice, mini Spanish tortilla with aioli, crispy shrimps, grilled baby scallops, crispy potato cornets filled with sashimi salmon and roe, chicken drumsticks and dessert of golden eggs (an egg shaped chocolate filled with chocolate mousse). Because Umbo is in such a central location we could then wander round some of the paved alleyways of the old town and look around the incredible Abaca Bar before heading back to the marina. As would be the pattern for the next few nights, Greg and I left the discovery of late night Spanish life to the younger members of the group.

On Wednesday we all went out on the boat for the day, anchoring off Palmanova for swimming and lunch, which is really the best experience of all in this very hot weather.

The next two days were very hectic for the Gang of Four because they hired a car and drove to a huge variety of places around the island on both the North-west and South-east coasts, plus burned the candle at both ends with their additional night life. On the Friday night Greg and I joined them at a new tapas restaurant they had searched out online, el Neo, at Carrer de la Boteria, 8, in the Llotja area of Palma. The food was absolutely fabulous, with a fusion of different cuisines, and by the time we left we realised that the first two levels of cocktail bar were really buzzing. We definitely wanted to return soon! The shelled and crumbed prawns were served with a small glass of Bloody Mary and some of the other dishes I remember were duck meatballs with gnocchi, Tandoori chicken in small pasties, tataki tuna, prawn cerviche and pork wontons with Thai spices.

Andrew and Chloe left for London on Saturday so they missed out on our next feast - lunch at Santa Catalina market. The market was packed with locals around each of the dining stalls so it's obviously been a very successful enterprise to expand the idea that began long ago with about three places selling the traditional tapas and pintxos. We started with Iberican jamon and local cheeses on special crackers that cleanse the palate after the jamon, plus a glass of sparkling rose.

Then we bought a kilo of langoustines which were grilled with lemon juice and herbs at the dining stall opposite the fish monger. After three plates of these with a couple of beers each we were well satisfied. That night the boys had a big night out, discovering some more areas of Palma and Santa Catalina and also another marina aboard a large motor yacht. There is another side of life in Mallorca that Greg and I are not likely to experience!

On the Sunday we had a great sail and anchored off the cliffs on the eastern side of the bay for lunch and a swim in the aqua water.

Richard left on Monday and Tom, Greg and I spent the afternoon at the beach at Puerto Portals and later drove to Port d'Andratx for a seafood paella dinner at Rocomar, the furthest restaurant out along the bay's southern shoreline. We love their olives and aioli with bread that they provide as nibbles. We have never seen so many people at Port d'Andratx - the town was absolutely packed with people out for dinner and several of the restaurants have extended their outside eating areas. It really just looked like a whole town of people dining, but it's understandable because it's an ideal place to be - overlooking a beautiful harbour on a balmy night, eating fresh seafood brought in by the local fishing fleet and drinking excellent Mallorcan wine.

We had a lot of work to do on the boat on the Tuesday but eventually we made it back to Puerto Portals beach on yet another sunny and hot day. That night we decided to return to el Neo for dinner, mostly because their tapas are excellent and Tom and I were especially keen to have a serve each of the crumbed prawns (gambas, caught off the coast of Port de Soller), served with a Bloody Mary. We remembered our favourite dishes from the previous occasion and Tom's first pick was the grilled octopus, Greg's was the salmon sashimi and mine was the duck meatballs. Everything was just as delicious as we remembered, with excellent friendly service. Our dessert was an ice cream from the gelati shop across the road from the marina; there are long queues constantly for their great range of ice creams and sorbets.

Tom left very early on Wednesday morning and we felt sorry for him leaving beautiful sunny Mallorca to go to grey London, especially with Australia playing such poor cricket!