Balearic Arrival

Eleven hours after casting off mainland Europe, we dropped anchor in Cala Badella, Ibiza. The crossing was smooth, with calm seas and 12-knot winds slightly forward of the port beam. We took our place seamlessly among an array of yachts anchored in the small cala, or nature harbor.

Philip and I ventured ashore in the dinghy to check the lay of the land. Philip, only hours removed from his cubicle in Manhattan, tried to act nonchalant as he strolled among the barely bikini’d bodies. Nothing could have prepared him for the sight now before him – crystal clear Mediterranean waters, sugary buff colored sand, and dozens and dozens of bronzed, beautiful women scattered across the beach each wearing little more than a G-string. Instinctively, he reached for his camera. The boys back home wouldn’t believe this.

“Be cool, dude. Put it away,” I had to say.

We now knew that we weren’t in Kansas anymore. Ibiza was a different kind of place, full of uninhibited people from all over the world looking to have a good time.

We sipped a tall, cool drink at the beachside bar and returned to the boat. After lunch, Emily joined us as we donned snorkeling gear and ventured toward the edges of the cala. No silt or sediment impeded our view of the sea bed and marine life. Below, brilliantly colored fish of varying sizes swam in schools among the coral. Around the corner, an underwater cave beckoned. It was a snorkeler’s paradise.

Suddenly, Jocelyn appeared in the dinghy, quite agitated. “We’re dragging!” she screamed.

Instantly, I flippered my way back toward the boat. She preceded me in the dinghy, and when I got there she announced that things seemed to have stabilized. I swam to a point just above the anchor, and it indeed had moved a few yards from where it had been set.

Taking a deep breath, I dove down for a closer look. About five meters above it, my ears were bursting and my breath seemed short. Panicked, I reversed direction and ascended quickly, heaving a big gasp at the surface. The anchor was in 13 meters of water, too deep for me.

What I did see while near it made me sick. The anchor had somehow found a way to become ensnared in a chain connected between two old cement mooring blocks. It was the classic “foul ground” situation you read about in the pilot books. To make matters worse, we had removed the tripping line from the anchor after arriving because it was too short. There was no way to tug the anchor up from its crown.

We proceeded to try to raise the anchor by pulling it out from under the snag with the boat. Jocelyn was at the helm, Philip was on the foredeck working the windlass, and Emily and I were in the water guiding the maneuvers. No combination of pull angle or raising and lowering would do the trick. We were getting desperate.

By now we had become quite a spectacle for the other boats around us. There’s nothing more entertaining that watching the trials of another boater who is having trouble anchoring or docking. Fortunately, one of our neighbors had mercy on us.

Sensing our predicament, a half-clad lady on a nearby boat called out to Jocelyn in broken English, “Can you help us?”

Jocelyn couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. Here we were in the death throes of a fouled anchor and this lady is asking for help. Quite cheeky, that.

Then it dawned on her that perhaps this was a language issue. Perhaps what she really meant was, “Can we help you?”

So Jocelyn hailed her back saying, “Yes, yes, please. We need help.”

“Do you need a diver?” the lady offered.

“Yes, yes, right away, por favor,” came the response.

Without delay, a fit, tanned Spaniard with short-cropped, salt and pepper hair emerged from below decks. We assumed he would come equipped with air tanks and weights, and when he immediately swam over with only snorkel, mask, and fins, we were shocked.

Emily, whose speaks fluent Spanish, quickly explained our troubles. The Spaniard’s only reply translated as, “I have just eaten lunch,” apparently aware that he shouldn’t dive so soon after eating.

But the circumstances demanded it, and with no hesitation, he easily and effortlessly turned his flippers to the sky, descended 13 meters to the anchor, wrestled it free from the snag, and swam off. The entire procedure took thirty seconds. Emily and I dove as far down behind him as we could to witness it through the cool, clear water.

Back on the surface, I shouted to Philip, “It’s free. It’s free. Bring it up now!”

To Emily, I said, “Please, go thank those people.” She dutifully swam after the Spaniard and approached their boat just as he was getting back on board.

“Muchos gracias, senor. Muchas gracias!” she exclaimed.

“Da nada, signorita. Hoy para tu. Manana para mi,” was his reply. (“Today for you, tomorrow for me.”)

Totally stunned by what had just transpired, we concentrated on resetting the anchor and checking it carefully before collecting ourselves back aboard Windleblo.

“Who was that masked man?” someone asked.

I proceeded to tell the tale of the silver-haired Swede who had impressed Jocelyn and me with his docking prowess in Tananger harbor three years before. We were in our inaugural season, and docking was proving to be our nemesis. Aided only by his wife, the Swede had easily and effortlessly piloted his HR54 to a smooth stop after a long sail through tempestuous waters. We marveled at his prowess and pronounced him Lars, a Nordic stud, our hero.

Well, now we had a new hero. He too deserved a name. A brief debate ensued. Should we name him Manuel? Or Pablo perhaps?

“No, we should name him Jesus,” said Philip.