We got lucky that the worst of the storm missed us. Mallorca was hit really hard and a father and son were tragically lost at sea between the islands which was really sad. We were pretty well sheltered in Mahon although it did rain just a bit! But yes the Island was stunning but I would say Mallorca was even more impressive... much more dramatic mountainous scenery... but thats episode 68! :-)
Those friends look pretty fun! Absolutely loved Mahon and what epic times we had in Menorca together despite the storm! Miss you guys, make sure you have a beer (or two) for us 😁
Hi, yes it transforms our cockpit for socialising but also for climbing in and out. It’s a quick release with one nut that a winch handle fits so it makes sense to remove it. I did once set the boat up ready to leave, sat down at the helm only to discover no wheel though..made us laugh! 😂😂
Very enjoyable video as per usual. I hope you'll be pleased to know I don't worry about you and your future. Yes, I read the monologues. I do however always wish you a safe voyage to wherever. P.
Haha! Thank you Peter…true dedication reading all of that! I’m glad you don’t worry about us as we’ll be fine! Lucky to be well set up in life by a lucky career choice that I joined with no thought to retirement but now consider ourselves to be very lucky to be retired “young”! Thank you for your kind wishes. We’re currently in Gibraltar waiting for the weather to set sail for the U.K. aiming to arrive back around July although we all know how sailors plans work out! Cheers 😊⛵️
We'd forgotten about the wasp attack until we reviewed the footage so of course it had to go in! But yes Jellyfish are a bit of a pain. My (Iain) mum got stung in Paxos in 2022 and you can still see the marks so it's definitely something to be avoided. Apart from that though Es Grau was stunning and wait until you see Mallorca next episode. Both Beautiful but Mallorca much more dramatic and mountainous etc... :-)
We loved our time in Menorca and in particular Mahon back on our previous boat. Such a magic place. Watching the episode we had a chuckle when you said the water temp was 27c. Where we are at the moment in Indonesia it's 32c. Cheers R & K
It’s a lovely place isn’t it? 😍 32°? Wow that’d barely cool you down! I (Iain) experienced water of that sort of temperature when I spent a month teaching powerboats in Kuwait many years ago it was like being in a bath and not very cooling! 27° in the water is a good temp for me 👍🏻⛵️😊
That looks simply stunning. Particularly so as we sit here in the rain soaked Somerset countryside. We are just back from sailing in Thailand very hot and very sticky and the sea was alive with jellies. :-( This week our prospective new boat goes for survey in Plymouth. Fingers crossed.
It was beautiful but wait til you see Mallorca in the next episode. I guess they are both beautiful but Mallorca is much more dramatic and mountainous! Thanks for your comment :-)
A view from the UK. Blimey, no wonder you're sweating Ian, you've got your fur coat on. It'll help if you take that off for a start..... Further to your experience in Son Saura. Having watched yourselves and others that sail the Mediterranean, i am starting to get this impression of the place being really quite over populated with boats of all sizes. Everyone going to the same touristy bits of the Med, all looking for that elusive empty cove. You all include drone footage of packed marinas which cost a small fortune to moor. Unwittingly your travelogues, which i enjoy btw., are a window into your world which, the more i see it, the less i want to do it. Sitting on a sail boat waiting for any wind that chances along, motoring a lot of the way to a destination i've seen a hundred times before, to a Trattoria or Pizzeria in any port that all look the same. Do you ever lay on your hammock in the early hours thinking what the hell are we doing here, meandering from place to place on the coast, never venturing more that 5miles in land just to see ANOTHER view? Will the romance of being forever on holiday get boring or when you don't look good in a thong or 'budgie smugglers' any more? I hope you're planning for the inevitable and booked your daughters back bedroom when the time comes. Somewhere to get your pension sent. Sorry to be so negative but it'seither i worry about you 2 or i've yet to take me meds, or both. Happy wandering.
Ooh well now Robert.... you've hit into something here! I don't know if you saw our episode from last year called "The winds of change" when we decided to turn around and make our way back to the UK? We touch on quite a lot of what you mention. So do I ever lie in my hammock wondering what am I doing out here? Yes frequently is the answer. You may not have seen it but the boat was up for sale just a couple of months ago with a plan to return to the UK and live on a huge motor boat with a fixed home berth! We've rowed back from that a little due to the cost of fuel but yes I ask myself those questions a lot of the time. We've seen some incredible things this past year such as hiking a volcano and then returning to our own home but those things could probably ultimately be achieved by going on holiday and we'd probably spend less money and stress doing so! Our plans and emotions change by the week, as I say we were all set to sell a few months ago but now setting sail back to the UK and will see what we feel when we get there. Its true to say that we haven't found our Nirvana yet and just keep changing plans as we seek it. The question we keep coming back to though is what else would we do? We can't see ourselves living in a normal house in the same place all the time although we have both done so in the past. The bigger question that i guess we are still coming to terms with, me especially, is one that is probably an issue for many in retirement....what is the point of me?! Now thats a bit deep eh? but you started it!! But yes we are doing all these things and all that effort and having come from jobs where peoples lives could be in our hands it can all feel a little empty and lacking any real purpose. As I say this must be something that all retirees have to deal with whatever walk of life they are from but I think we are still adjusting to living a life doing things that don't really matter to anyone except us and our nearest and dearest. We are definitely making that adjustment but it is taking time. Anyway the Med... there are idyllic spots where the hoards don't go but in places like the Balearics they can be tougher to find. Es Grau was busy but not crazy with little rented motorboats and it was beautiful but even there you can't anchor forever when the wind changes. Its a challenging lifestyle for sure and its a very fine balance between the effort vs the reward. When she was attacked by the wasp Kate was trying to say how the life was challenging but the rewards were meant to be swimming in crystal clear waters etc but in Son Saura that was just too dangerous. I didnt have footage of all the little rental boats so didnt illustrate it very well but yes the balance, for us, between the effort and the reward is on a knife edge! Now... the good news! You don't have to worry about us we have a plan! Well we have lots of plans but when we have had enough of sailing we may move to a motorboat, we may move to a canal boat in the UK or on the french canals. We are lucky that our police pensions mean we will always have a decent bit of money coming in and when we reach state pension age we'll have the state pension on top so if all else fails we will always have rent money to keep a roof over our heads. I think we will find our balance in due course. At the moment we are looking at spending time in the UK where my fur coat will be a benefit! ( I hate to admit it but it is actually too hot for us in a Med summer!) but, sitting in the Gibraltar sunshine, are not looking forward to UK winters but hope to counter that by taking long winter sun holidays. One point a friend made to us, and ties in with your comment of us being bored of a permanent holiday, is that we're not actually on permanent holiday, we're just living life in a hot place on a house thats in need of constant care and attention and can't be left alone for too long. As our friend said, we need a holiday from our life just like anyone else but from the outside we do appear to be on permanent holiday so most won't understand that it is actually just living. I don't expect anyone to weep for us as we live the life we choose but when it doesn't fulfil us we make changes until it one day hopefully does. So there you go Robert... can of worms well and truly opened! I'd still advise anyone who wants to do it to go and do it but do it with open eyes and be prepared to accept that it may not be what you thought because paradise can be challenging! We, well Kate because I have plenty of boat work to do, have already found some extra online work which gives a little purpose as well as extra cash to travel by faster means such as airliners and I spend quite a bit of time on the videos because I love doing it, love the memories but certainly not for the money! I have just completed my requalification to be a commercial skipper once back in the UK so hopefully might pick up some boat delivery work from time to time. OK I may have waffled enough! Yes I do mull my life over in my hammock but don't worry we have plans, backup plans and backup backup plans for the future...!! Thanks for your input... it was insightful and touched right onto what goes through my/our minds quite a lot. Cheers for now :-)
@@FollowIntrepidBear Well, if you're going to open up, so are me and Lindy. We are both 73yrs old this year, non smokers and before retiring i was a self employed electrical engineer mainly in the Machine tool & petro/chem industry and Linda, a pharmacy dispenser who i met later in life, (another story was our meeting at Tesco's pharmacy, does Kate want to know?). We could financially retire in our 50s which we did. My early working career installing computer controlled machine tools all over Europe took me to Italy which i instantly felt a connection with as i have a love of Opera and classical music and had time to visit Venice over a 2week installation visit, so always had in my mind i might retire there. I convinced Linda to move there on retirement and we bought a swiss chalet type villa in 6acres in Abruzzo, 3 under olive trees which we harvested, 25mins from Pescara just in the Gran Sasso national park. This is where the parallels occur with you 2. We have always been busy people. We cannot stand doing nothing. You have to keep thinking, planning, working on projects and us converting the villa into 2 separate flats with one becoming a self catering holiday let as an income, the other for us to live in was right up our boulevard, as they say. We offered a welcome Italian meal to guests, cleaned the flat, maintained the grounds with a ride on mower and strimmer, took many guests to Rome for day trips, always something to do. Then....we had the L'Aquila earthquake in 2008 which shook our foundations and tilted the house slightly down hill. Then in 2015 we had the Amatriche, (Marche region above Abruzzo), earthquake the put the house right over and would need 100k euros to underpin with no guarantee it would stand when the next earthquake appeared. Yep, you're in front of me, Italian house insurance DOES NOT include earthquake damage. We obviously, could not afford this and so we had to return to the UK and sell the villa at a 100k loss. Undeterred, being in my 60s', I passed my taxi license and became a chauffeur in Cambridge to the "high and mighty" to airports or hotels, or other universities- 3 Nobel prize winners don't you know and Lindy got a job at Boots the chemist in Saffron Walden. This is when i took my Day skipper licence, VHF exam and 4 day practical boating course to do exactly what you 2 are doing but never had enough money to buy a boat but thinking of renting one for holidays'. After a few years we both had to 'retire' again as standing and sitting for long hours starts to hurt at our age. So what do we do? I have always kept honey bees so i carried on with this and we also got an allotment. Same thing applied. Getting old you just get weaker but your mind does not hence the conundrum. My escape was to fulfil my dream through the likes of you 2, - sorry you drew the short straw. There was another couple doing the same thing as you that we watched but were so middle class and up themselves, i just stopped watching them. "Sailing Fair isle" i think they are called. So, whether we know it or not, us busy busies are always planning for the future, the next chapter of our lives, whether we know it or not and i am sure you 2 will be doing the same - what's next - it's in your genes mate, that's why you 2 are compatible, you have the same outlook on life. Boat delivery sounds right up your street but.....don't leave it too late to start 'cos let me tell you your age will count against you however experienced you are. There is a company called "Halcyon" that does exactly what you are looking for. Our advice is to jump now before it's too late, you're too old, then maybe we can still watch your lovely videos. You never know, we might meet up one day. With the very best wishes to you both, sail on good buddies, Rob & Lindy xxx
What a storm, but the island looks worth the visit!❤
We got lucky that the worst of the storm missed us. Mallorca was hit really hard and a father and son were tragically lost at sea between the islands which was really sad. We were pretty well sheltered in Mahon although it did rain just a bit! But yes the Island was stunning but I would say Mallorca was even more impressive... much more dramatic mountainous scenery... but thats episode 68! :-)
Those friends look pretty fun! Absolutely loved Mahon and what epic times we had in Menorca together despite the storm! Miss you guys, make sure you have a beer (or two) for us 😁
Best cruising buddies ever! Miss you too :-)
Some pretty amazing scenery there, stunning.
Thanks Matthew... yes it was pretty stunning and wait til you see Mallorca in a couple of weeks time :-)
I like how you stow the wheel when in a marina, sure gives you more room to move around in the cockpit.
Hi, yes it transforms our cockpit for socialising but also for climbing in and out. It’s a quick release with one nut that a winch handle fits so it makes sense to remove it. I did once set the boat up ready to leave, sat down at the helm only to discover no wheel though..made us laugh! 😂😂
Very nice, cheers guys!
Thanks Trev 😊👍🏻
Someone's got to say it - "Any old port in a storm!"😉
Haha... yes indeed Pete!
Very enjoyable video as per usual. I hope you'll be pleased to know I don't worry about you and your future. Yes, I read the monologues. I do however always wish you a safe voyage to wherever. P.
Haha! Thank you Peter…true dedication reading all of that! I’m glad you don’t worry about us as we’ll be fine! Lucky to be well set up in life by a lucky career choice that I joined with no thought to retirement but now consider ourselves to be very lucky to be retired “young”! Thank you for your kind wishes. We’re currently in Gibraltar waiting for the weather to set sail for the U.K. aiming to arrive back around July although we all know how sailors plans work out! Cheers 😊⛵️
OMG we laughed so hard with Kate trying to speak and kill the bee! I feel for you Kate and the jellyfish, I’m so scared of them as well.
We'd forgotten about the wasp attack until we reviewed the footage so of course it had to go in! But yes Jellyfish are a bit of a pain. My (Iain) mum got stung in Paxos in 2022 and you can still see the marks so it's definitely something to be avoided. Apart from that though Es Grau was stunning and wait until you see Mallorca next episode. Both Beautiful but Mallorca much more dramatic and mountainous etc... :-)
Very warm. Beautiful exploring. Water looked very clear glad you found some jelly free water.
It was very warm indeed Jim but beautiful when we found the right spot 😍
We loved our time in Menorca and in particular Mahon back on our previous boat. Such a magic place. Watching the episode we had a chuckle when you said the water temp was 27c. Where we are at the moment in Indonesia it's 32c. Cheers R & K
It’s a lovely place isn’t it? 😍 32°? Wow that’d barely cool you down! I (Iain) experienced water of that sort of temperature when I spent a month teaching powerboats in Kuwait many years ago it was like being in a bath and not very cooling! 27° in the water is a good temp for me 👍🏻⛵️😊
@@FollowIntrepidBear we are at 3degrees south so this close to the equator it's warm enough on deck for the water to still feel good even at 32c
Happy Easter to you both
Thank you guys and to you :-)
That looks simply stunning. Particularly so as we sit here in the rain soaked Somerset countryside. We are just back from sailing in Thailand very hot and very sticky and the sea was alive with jellies. :-(
This week our prospective new boat goes for survey in Plymouth. Fingers crossed.
It was beautiful but wait til you see Mallorca in the next episode. I guess they are both beautiful but Mallorca is much more dramatic and mountainous! Thanks for your comment :-)
A view from the UK. Blimey, no wonder you're sweating Ian, you've got your fur coat on. It'll help if you take that off for a start.....
Further to your experience in Son Saura. Having watched yourselves and others that sail the Mediterranean, i am starting to get this impression of the place being really quite over populated with boats of all sizes. Everyone going to the same touristy bits of the Med, all looking for that elusive empty cove. You all include drone footage of packed marinas which cost a small fortune to moor. Unwittingly your travelogues, which i enjoy btw., are a window into your world which, the more i see it, the less i want to do it. Sitting on a sail boat waiting for any wind that chances along, motoring a lot of the way to a destination i've seen a hundred times before, to a Trattoria or Pizzeria in any port that all look the same. Do you ever lay on your hammock in the early hours thinking what the hell are we doing here, meandering from place to place on the coast, never venturing more that 5miles in land just to see ANOTHER view? Will the romance of being forever on holiday get boring or when you don't look good in a thong or 'budgie smugglers' any more? I hope you're planning for the inevitable and booked your daughters back bedroom when the time comes. Somewhere to get your pension sent. Sorry to be so negative but it'seither i worry about you 2 or i've yet to take me meds, or both. Happy wandering.
Ooh well now Robert.... you've hit into something here! I don't know if you saw our episode from last year called "The winds of change" when we decided to turn around and make our way back to the UK? We touch on quite a lot of what you mention. So do I ever lie in my hammock wondering what am I doing out here? Yes frequently is the answer. You may not have seen it but the boat was up for sale just a couple of months ago with a plan to return to the UK and live on a huge motor boat with a fixed home berth! We've rowed back from that a little due to the cost of fuel but yes I ask myself those questions a lot of the time. We've seen some incredible things this past year such as hiking a volcano and then returning to our own home but those things could probably ultimately be achieved by going on holiday and we'd probably spend less money and stress doing so! Our plans and emotions change by the week, as I say we were all set to sell a few months ago but now setting sail back to the UK and will see what we feel when we get there. Its true to say that we haven't found our Nirvana yet and just keep changing plans as we seek it.
The question we keep coming back to though is what else would we do? We can't see ourselves living in a normal house in the same place all the time although we have both done so in the past. The bigger question that i guess we are still coming to terms with, me especially, is one that is probably an issue for many in retirement....what is the point of me?! Now thats a bit deep eh? but you started it!! But yes we are doing all these things and all that effort and having come from jobs where peoples lives could be in our hands it can all feel a little empty and lacking any real purpose. As I say this must be something that all retirees have to deal with whatever walk of life they are from but I think we are still adjusting to living a life doing things that don't really matter to anyone except us and our nearest and dearest. We are definitely making that adjustment but it is taking time.
Anyway the Med... there are idyllic spots where the hoards don't go but in places like the Balearics they can be tougher to find. Es Grau was busy but not crazy with little rented motorboats and it was beautiful but even there you can't anchor forever when the wind changes. Its a challenging lifestyle for sure and its a very fine balance between the effort vs the reward. When she was attacked by the wasp Kate was trying to say how the life was challenging but the rewards were meant to be swimming in crystal clear waters etc but in Son Saura that was just too dangerous. I didnt have footage of all the little rental boats so didnt illustrate it very well but yes the balance, for us, between the effort and the reward is on a knife edge!
Now... the good news! You don't have to worry about us we have a plan! Well we have lots of plans but when we have had enough of sailing we may move to a motorboat, we may move to a canal boat in the UK or on the french canals. We are lucky that our police pensions mean we will always have a decent bit of money coming in and when we reach state pension age we'll have the state pension on top so if all else fails we will always have rent money to keep a roof over our heads.
I think we will find our balance in due course. At the moment we are looking at spending time in the UK where my fur coat will be a benefit! ( I hate to admit it but it is actually too hot for us in a Med summer!) but, sitting in the Gibraltar sunshine, are not looking forward to UK winters but hope to counter that by taking long winter sun holidays.
One point a friend made to us, and ties in with your comment of us being bored of a permanent holiday, is that we're not actually on permanent holiday, we're just living life in a hot place on a house thats in need of constant care and attention and can't be left alone for too long. As our friend said, we need a holiday from our life just like anyone else but from the outside we do appear to be on permanent holiday so most won't understand that it is actually just living. I don't expect anyone to weep for us as we live the life we choose but when it doesn't fulfil us we make changes until it one day hopefully does.
So there you go Robert... can of worms well and truly opened! I'd still advise anyone who wants to do it to go and do it but do it with open eyes and be prepared to accept that it may not be what you thought because paradise can be challenging!
We, well Kate because I have plenty of boat work to do, have already found some extra online work which gives a little purpose as well as extra cash to travel by faster means such as airliners and I spend quite a bit of time on the videos because I love doing it, love the memories but certainly not for the money! I have just completed my requalification to be a commercial skipper once back in the UK so hopefully might pick up some boat delivery work from time to time.
OK I may have waffled enough! Yes I do mull my life over in my hammock but don't worry we have plans, backup plans and backup backup plans for the future...!!
Thanks for your input... it was insightful and touched right onto what goes through my/our minds quite a lot.
Cheers for now :-)
@@FollowIntrepidBear
Well, if you're going to open up, so are me and Lindy. We are both 73yrs old this year, non smokers and before retiring i was a self employed electrical engineer mainly in the Machine tool & petro/chem industry and Linda, a pharmacy dispenser who i met later in life, (another story was our meeting at Tesco's pharmacy, does Kate want to know?). We could financially retire in our 50s which we did. My early working career installing computer controlled machine tools all over Europe took me to Italy which i instantly felt a connection with as i have a love of Opera and classical music and had time to visit Venice over a 2week installation visit, so always had in my mind i might retire there. I convinced Linda to move there on retirement and we bought a swiss chalet type villa in 6acres in Abruzzo, 3 under olive trees which we harvested, 25mins from Pescara just in the Gran Sasso national park.
This is where the parallels occur with you 2. We have always been busy people. We cannot stand doing nothing. You have to keep thinking, planning, working on projects and us converting the villa into 2 separate flats with one becoming a self catering holiday let as an income, the other for us to live in was right up our boulevard, as they say. We offered a welcome Italian meal to guests, cleaned the flat, maintained the grounds with a ride on mower and strimmer, took many guests to Rome for day trips, always something to do. Then....we had the L'Aquila earthquake in 2008 which shook our foundations and tilted the house slightly down hill. Then in 2015 we had the Amatriche, (Marche region above Abruzzo), earthquake the put the house right over and would need 100k euros to underpin with no guarantee it would stand when the next earthquake appeared. Yep, you're in front of me, Italian house insurance DOES NOT include earthquake damage. We obviously, could not afford this and so we had to return to the UK and sell the villa at a 100k loss.
Undeterred, being in my 60s', I passed my taxi license and became a chauffeur in Cambridge to the "high and mighty" to airports or hotels, or other universities- 3 Nobel prize winners don't you know and Lindy got a job at Boots the chemist in Saffron Walden. This is when i took my Day skipper licence, VHF exam and 4 day practical boating course to do exactly what you 2 are doing but never had enough money to buy a boat but thinking of renting one for holidays'.
After a few years we both had to 'retire' again as standing and sitting for long hours starts to hurt at our age. So what do we do? I have always kept honey bees so i carried on with this and we also got an allotment. Same thing applied. Getting old you just get weaker but your mind does not hence the conundrum. My escape was to fulfil my dream through the likes of you 2, - sorry you drew the short straw. There was another couple doing the same thing as you that we watched but were so middle class and up themselves, i just stopped watching them. "Sailing Fair isle" i think they are called.
So, whether we know it or not, us busy busies are always planning for the future, the next chapter of our lives, whether we know it or not and i am sure you 2 will be doing the same - what's next - it's in your genes mate, that's why you 2 are compatible, you have the same outlook on life. Boat delivery sounds right up your street but.....don't leave it too late to start 'cos let me tell you your age will count against you however experienced you are. There is a company called "Halcyon" that does exactly what you are looking for. Our advice is to jump now before it's too late, you're too old, then maybe we can still watch your lovely videos. You never know, we might meet up one day. With the very best wishes to you both, sail on good buddies, Rob & Lindy xxx