What nobody tells you is that the moment a sailing trip really begins is not when you board the boat. It's about 20 minutes into your first glass of wine on deck, when the harbour is humming around you, someone makes a joke that nearly makes you choke on aforementioned wine, and you think: oh good. This is going to be one of those weeks.
That’s what happened when our six-strong Club Avandra crew hit Latitud 6 in Palma harbour.
Day one was Palma — lunch on deck, a practice sail to establish that yes, we did have sea legs, and dinner at the Tast tapas bar in the city centre. Day two was our first proper sail, out to Andratx, with a safety briefing, a swim beneath Cap Negret and dinner on board as the sky went every shade of gold it could manage and we all remembered why people spend their lives chasing moments like this.
Day three involved an Andratx market, a detour to Sa Foradada for the paella that Mallorca is famous for, a stop beneath Michael Douglas's house (because: why not) and an anchor that wedged itself so thoroughly under the rocks that it required the collective problem-solving abilities of the entire crew to retrieve. Reader, we did it and not gonna lie, we were quite pleased with ourselves.
Sa Calobra on day four was breathtaking. Sheer cliffs, water the colour of something a paint company would struggle to name adequately, and a swim that felt like being let into a secret. A BBQ of salmon and prawns on board that evening, because after Sa Calobra, anything less would have felt anticlimactic (and anything more would have been showing off).
Day five brought Sant Vicenç and Ca'l Patro, beach restaurant of dreams, where the conversation stretched long and nobody was in any particular hurry to leave. Day six brought the wind. Thirty knots, building to thirty-five, with trip host Karen at the helm looking entirely unruffled while the rest of us tried to look like we were helping. We moored in the Bay of Pollença — where Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier once honeymooned, since you ask — and the excellent dinner that followed was made possible even better by the adrenaline.
A swim, breakfast, a gentle sail around the bay marked our final morning, and an anchorage off Pollença for lunch — interrupted by a regatta that had apparently taken over the entire marina and showed no signs of accommodating us. We found our way in regardless. We had, by that point, handled considerably worse.
And so. The calas were extraordinary. The food was exceptional. Mallorca from the water is a revelation that everyone should experience at least once - with the right crew, of course.
But the trip wasn't really about any of that. It was about the dinghy rides where everyone was slightly too squashed and nobody minded. The anchor crisis that required genuine teamwork and produced genuine pride when it was resolved. The quiet moments at sunset when a group of women who didn't know each other a week ago sat together in comfortable silence watching the horizon do something spectacular.
It was about what Club Avandra does when it works at its best: puts the right women in the right place together and gets out of the way.
We came back with suntans, strong opinions about paella, and friendships that didn't exist eight days ago. Not a bad week's work.
Next sailing adventure coming. Watch this space — and in the meantime, find out what else we have coming up at www.clubavandra.com
