The thought of being wholly responsible for a £300,000 yacht should have made the second week more stressful but in reality it was a great deal more relaxed. Training was intense and involved being shouted at a lot, whereas when we were in charge, we moved slower and thought things through. The real stress was the weather, which by now was becoming really hot and humid, with the temperature at nearly 40C and humidity up at 85%. Fran decided that many years married it was time for single cabins and Andrea very quickly followed suit, so that the boys had the two aft cabins and the girls the fwd ones. Fran also started buying industrial quantities of ice, placing them in buckets and trying to turn her cabin into a freezer. You had to admire the ingenuity but also had to be alert to beers and gin bottles going missing from the fridge, as additionally she had a tendency to use these as cold water bottles.  

We decided that for a couple of days, to build our confidence we would visit places we’d anchored or berthed at previously. Of course we forgot something very important, conditions can and do change!!! Fran discovered this coming into the Port of Andratx, the wind being a lot stronger and coming from a different direction than when we were last there. Stuart had already alerted the Port authorities on VHF that we didn’t have a clue of what we were doing. Of course he didn’t put it quite like that when he spoke over the radio and used “over” and “out” in the right places but we think they understood as they put us miles away from anywhere with only one nearby boat we could hit. As it happened, hitting it was not the problem, the wind wanted to blow us back into harbor. The kindly Italian man in the neighbouring boat, now having become relaxed about the possibility of being hit threw us a line so that we could park up at right angles to the pontoon like all the other boats and not the 45° we seemed to be pointing. It is safe to say that Fran was beating herself up about our flawed entry, until she spent an hour watching others berth and learned two important things. The meaning of the word “Schadenfreude” and the fact that even the experienced sailors get it wrong and sometimes spectacularly so.   

The rest of the week was calamity free and whilst coming alongside, anchoring or picking up a mooring buoy could still induce anxiety into the duty skipper, we all became a lot more confident in our ability and even tried some new places. One of these was Sant Elm, a beautiful little village where we picked up a mooring buoy and decided to stay the night. At this point, I think I should mention the tender. Most charter boats will have a little inflatable with a small motor to get you to and from the shore. However, Claudi is really a working boat and not best equipped for the tourist sailor, as such its little dinghy was only equipped with oars. Up until now we had shown ourselves to be a cohesive team, all pulling in the same direction, this ended the minute we got into that dinghy. I can only imagine what people watching from the restaurants must have thought about our spiral approach to shore. However, after a nice dinner with plenty of white wine, this minor technical problem seems to have disappeared.

Coming into Palma and berthing “Claudi” for the last time was bitter sweet. We had probably had had enough sailing for the time being but were equally upset we couldn’t gain further experience. One task was left for us to perform however, the boat clean. Having been on a charter before with our friends Emma and Steve, we knew what level of cleaning was required. Emma demanded quite high standards and had been insistent that a boat should be spotless when handed back. I think Howard and Andrea found it a bit strange that we should pay so much money and then be expected to clean the boat ourselves but we explained patiently and in depth that was what was expected. The “Claudi” was therefore cleaned to within an inch of her life and when we handed the boat over therefore, we were bemused at the arrival of a cleaning team, although not as surprised as they were when they saw that there was nothing left to do. Howard and Andrea had already left for the airport, which is probably a good thing.