Why sail Mallorca
Mallorca is the big island: 550 km of coast, a mountain range a thousand metres high along the north-west, a capital with four marinas and an airport an hour from most of Europe. Romans built Pollentia at Alcúdia; Jaume I took the island for Aragon in 1229 and left it Catalan; the 1960s left it with the hotels. From the water none of that crowds you. A week here can be all cliffs and caves on the north-west coast, all sand and shallow water in the south, or the cross-island passage from Palma to Pollença that takes in both. And it has Cabrera, the only national park in the Balearics you can only reach by boat.
Harbours and marinas
Anchorages, coast by coast
South. Out of Palma bay, Portals Vells is the first real cove, with its rock-cut chapel; Cala Blava and Cala Pi are the sheltered stops east of the airport. Then the long white sand of Es Trenc, the best beach on the island and a fine anchorage in anything from the north, and Colònia de Sant Jordi beyond it.
Cabrera. Ten miles south across open water, an archipelago of one island and eighteen islets, a national park since 1991, with a fortified harbour at Es Port where the park buoys are. Sa Cova Blava, the blue cave, is on the way in. Nothing ashore but a castle, a museum and a bar; that is the point.
South-east. Cala Mondragó inside its natural park, two beaches and a turquoise lagoon; Cala Llonga and Cala d’Or; Portocolom, a big natural harbour with room to anchor; Cala Ratjada at the corner. This is the coast for families and for a first week.
North-east. The bays of Alcúdia and Pollença, and at the tip of the peninsula Formentor, the best anchorage in Mallorca: deep, sheltered from everything but the south-east, pines to the water. Beyond Cap de Formentor the north-west coast begins.
North-west. Forty miles of mountain falling into the sea. Sa Calobra and the mouth of the Torrent de Pareis, a gorge that ends on a shingle beach; Port de Sóller; the cliffs of Deià; then Sant Elm and the island of Sa Dragonera, a nature reserve where you anchor in the channel and go ashore for the lighthouse walk. Sail this coast in the morning, in settled weather, and know where the shelter is.
Buoys, parks and permits
Cabrera is the one that needs planning: overnight moorings are on park buoys booked online in advance, by boat length, normally one night per boat, and they sell out weeks ahead in summer. Book them when you book the charter. Sa Dragonera, Mondragó and the Llevant peninsula are natural parks where you anchor on sand only; S’Albufera at Alcúdia is the wetland behind the beach, worth a morning ashore for the birds. Everywhere on the island the posidonia rules apply: sand or a buoy, never the weed.
Wind and weather
Summer is the embat, the sea breeze that fills from late morning and is strongest on the south coast between Palma and Cap de Ses Salines, where the warm southerlies (Xaloc, Migjorn, Llebeig) give it a push. Sea temperature reaches 26°C in August and stays above 14°C in winter. The wind to plan around is the Tramuntana, the northerly that the Serra shields Palma from and throws straight onto the north-west coast; it is a winter and shoulder-season wind but can arrive in July. The rule is simple: sail anticlockwise, keep the north-west coast for a settled morning, and treat Port de Sóller and Formentor as the two safe harbours. Our seasons guide has the month-by-month.
Eating and going ashore
Mallorcan food is sobrassada, the soft paprika sausage; arròs brut, a soupy rice with game and sausage; tumbet, the vegetable bake; and ensaïmada for breakfast. Palma has become one of the best eating cities in Spain, with Michelin-starred rooms and a Santa Catalina market district full of small restaurants. Out on the coast the ones we send guests to are Es Racó d’es Teix in Deià for the view and the star, Son Tomàs in Banyalbufar for rice on a terrace over the sea, and the fish quay at Port d’Andratx and Port de Sóller for the simplest lunch. Palma’s nightlife is the old La Llotja quarter and the Paseo Marítimo; Puerto Portals is for cocktails before dinner.
Festivals to plan a stop around: Nit de Sant Joan on 23 June with bonfires on the beaches, the Moors and Christians battle in Pollença on 2 August, Mare de Déu d’Agost on 15 August in the harbour towns, the Chopin Festival in Valldemossa every Sunday in August, and the Diada on 12 September.
A week from Palma
- Day 1: handover, Portals Vells or Cala Blava.
- Day 2: Cala Pi, Es Trenc, Colònia de Sant Jordi.
- Day 3: Cabrera, night on a park buoy.
- Day 4: Back north, Cala Mondragó, Cala d’Or.
- Day 5: Portocolom, Cala Ratjada.
- Day 6: Alcúdia bay, Formentor.
- Day 7: Round the cape to Port de Sóller, or retrace to Palma if the north-west looks unsettled.
Seven days covers the south and east with Cabrera; a second week adds the north-west coast, Sa Dragonera and the return to Palma, about 180 miles all round.
