If you regularly drop in to read about our exploits I have to say sincere apologies dear reader. I normally post over the weekend as I don't know how to post and have a delay on the update to the website. This is a real turnaround from my youth when, as a bright young spark, I owned and did basic programming and website design on computers before most other people even knew what they were. Technology and innovative ideas have clearly not only caught up with me but sadly now is running into the distance. I digress, but needless to say a 40 hours sailing crossing was the reason I didn't manage to post on time this week so apologies for the tardiness in my actions. Let's begin shall we? Memory is a funny old smuggler. It stashes away treasures in the hold of your mind, often polishing them to a brighter sheen than they ever possessed, and leaves the dross to the rats. The Mallorca I had in my head are some sun-bleached photo's from 1986, a place of lycra-clad legs and the burning in my lungs as I chased phantoms round Palma and up the serpentine climbs of the Soller Pass.

At sixteen, on a cycling winter camp, I was king of the mountains. I’d cycle ahead, dismount with a flourish worthy of a matador, snap photos of Europe’s elite cyclists as they grunted past, then leap back on my steed and catch them, my ego billowing like a spinnaker. Oh, the glorious, unassailable confidence of youth.

Thirty-nine years later, at the wise and slightly creaky age of fifty-five, I guided Sawasdeekat into Palma's vast, modern marina. The smuggler had been at work. The port was a gleaming forest of superyacht masts, boats that looked like cars and a far cry from the gritty cycling hub of my memory. Time, that cheeky scoundrel, had rebuilt the city while my back was turned. We weren't here for nostalgia, though. We were here for friends.

Flis, Gordon (celebrating an anniversary), and Julie and Phil had flown in from the UK, brave souls willing to trade predictable weather for the promise of adventure aboard our 48-foot catamaran. Pookie, my MasterChef of a wife and personal compass (you can follow her culinary genius @pookiestylecook on Instagram, tell her I sent you), and I caught a bus into the city, the air thick with the scent of salt and imminent fun.

We found them, all sunhats and smiles, and plunged into the labyrinthine streets of old Palma. And that’s when we heard it. Not the gentle clatter of café life, but a primal, rhythmic BOOM-BOOM-BOOM punctuated by the shrieks of a thousand whistles. It was the sound of a city giving itself over to joyous anarchy.

We rounded a corner into the Plaça Drassanes and stopped dead. The square was a seething, sun-drenched sea of yellow. A thousand people, maybe more, all clad in identical canary-yellow t-shirts, were dancing, chanting, and beating drums with a fervour that vibrated in your teeth. The atmosphere didn't just crackle; it drenched you in pure, uncut electricity. We had, by sheer, beautiful accident, stumbled into the ranks of the Canavall.

Fun Fact: This wasn't just a random party. We had gate-crashed the opening salvo of the Batalla de Canamunt i Canavall, an annual water fight of epic proportions that playfully recreates a 17th-century feud between two noble families from the city's upper town (Canamunt) and lower town (Canavall). Think Montagues and Capulets, but with super-soakers and a lot less tragedy.

We were instantly, irrevocably hooked. Adopting the yellow as our own, we let the human river sweep us along. The narrow, canyon-like streets became a carnival corridor. From wrought-iron balconies high above, locals leaned out, their faces split with grins, and hurled buckets of water down upon us. Not maliciously, but as a baptism. Children with water pistols the size of small artillery pieces targeted us with gleeful precision.

We were drenched, soaked to the skin, laughing so hard we could barely breathe. It was a water fight on a civic scale, a shared, soaking madness where everyone was a friend you hadn't met yet. We, armed with nothing but mobile phones and a sense of wonder, were mere spectators in this aqueous war; but we left feeling like honoured guests, our clothes heavy with water and our spirits light with a unique kind of joy.

The next day, our slightly damp but exhilarated friends boarded Sawasdeekat. The boat rules were laid down with the gravity of a ship’s captain – chief among them, the sacred and non-negotiable law of the marine head: Thou Shalt Not Put Paper Down the Loo. A lesson no one wants to learn the hard way. For those less blessed in the knowledge of yacht plumbing… let me explain:

Your boat's toilet isn't a toilet. It's a biological slurry pump with a very sensitive stomach.

The only thing it can digest is what you, yourself, have already digested. Full stop.

Toilet paper is its worst enemy. In a land toilet, paper disintegrates in a giant, watery sewer system. On a boat, it hits a small, macerating pump or a narrow hose. It doesn't dissolve; it wraps. It wraps around the macerator blades like a shroud. It snags in hose elbows, mixing with other "solids" to form a dense, felt-like plug called a "marine-berg." This is the single most common and catastrophic blockage on any vessel.

The rule exists because the physics are brutal: The pipe is too narrow, the pump is too weak, and the consequences are too expensive. Grease hardens into cement. Wipes are a death sentence. And even "marine-grade" paper is a notorious liar that builds up over time.

The Cardinal Rule: The head is a one-ingredient recipe. Anything extra is sabotage. Everything else, everything, goes in the labelled bin next to it. Anyway, back to our story….

We took our guests for a short sail to a secluded bay, where the world melted into shades of sapphire and emerald. Lines were cast overboard in hopeful, if fruitless, attempts to catch dinner. Kayaks were launched, and sun-drenched limbs were arranged across the trampolines for serious bouts of sunbathing. And as the sun began to dip, painting the sky in watercolours, we introduced them to our signature deck sport:

Extreme Jenga.

This is not your grandmother's Jenga. The tower starts life in the traditional, three-across formation. But then, the 'Starter' – a role requiring the steady hands of a bomb disposal expert and the twisted mind of an architect – is granted divine right to twist, lean, and contort the structure into a Leaning Tower of Pisa on steroids. The rules are simple, the execution is not:

1.  No brick can be taken from the top three, now "playable," levels (Playable being any spot you can realistically perch a brick on (Realistically is defined by whichever drunk participant makes the best argument).

2.  A removed brick can be placed on any of the top three levels, in any orientation you dare.

The result is a terrifying, beautiful sculpture of teetering timber. Bricks stand vertically like lone sentinels. They are laid diagonally, defying gravity and common sense. The tower becomes a monument to impending doom, made infinitely more hilarious by our house rule: whoever sends the whole thing clattering to the deck faces a drinking challenge. It’s a brilliant, nerve-shredding way to end a day.

As our first wave of “crew” were set ashore and flew back to Blighty, the next arrived. Enter Danny and Vikki. We’d found them through a crew-finder app, a modern-day version of pressing a note into a corked bottle. We’d already had a 'job interview' over a meal at a gastro-pub outside Manchester, which felt less like an interview and more like casting for an action movie.

Vikki, an ex-nurse, possessed the two most valuable skills on any boat: the ability to suture a wound and the knowledge of what to do if someone falls off the world. She’d sailed her own boat as a young woman and crossed the Atlantic, not once, but several times on a Tall ship, a veritable Captain Cook in a sunhat.

Danny was ex-army and ex-fire service. He was a man who followed orders, put out fires, and for fun, enjoyed spelunking. That’s the practice of climbing down into small holes in the ground to look for even smaller holes to climb into. To me, a man who enjoys his personal space, this sounds less like a hobby and more like a personalised version of hell. But on a boat, you want someone who doesn't panic when things get tight and hot so he seemed to also fit the bill.

Their combined CV read: Can handle Atlantic storms, medical emergencies, onboard fires, and confined spaces. They were, on paper, perfect for our upcoming Atlantic crossing. But a trans-ocean voyage on a 48-foot catamaran is a forced marriage of sorts. You need to be sure you can stand the sight of each other after three weeks.

So, we took them for a three-day shakedown cruise around Mallorca. We sailed, we ate Pookie’s magnificent food, we talked, and we played a nerve-shredding game of Extreme Jenga (they introduced us to Rummikub which reminded me of a card game I used to play). They were brilliant. Calm, competent, and with a sense of humour that aligned perfectly with ours. The deal was cemented in our minds. They were our crew.

But adventure, like a good sauce, waits for no one. We were on a tight schedule. Our friend Steve, the legendary character we’d met when we first bought Sawasdeekat in Cartagena, had come through with a deal too good to refuse. He had a stash of pristine lithium house batteries. 1.2kWh of pure, silent, energy-inducing glory. We already had 700Wh, but this upgrade would transform our self-sufficiency, powering our floating home for longer without the grumble of a generator. The catch? We had to get to Denia, and fast, for him to install them. So, with fond farewells to Danny and Vikki, we pointed Sawasdeekat’s bows towards Ibiza, the first leg of our sprint to the mainland.

The morning was still, the sea a sheet of hammered silver, forcing us to motor. But then, the wind remembered its job. It steadily filled in, and soon we were slicing through the water at a thrilling 9.5 knots with an 18-knot wind at our side. The seas were flat, the sun was warm, and the world felt perfectly ordered. Pookie, defying the motion of the boat and with the grace of a dancer, conjured up a beautiful tuna dish in the galley. All was right in our world.

We were happy, optimistic, and charging towards our next upgrade, blissfully unaware that our next blog entry would be written from a very different perspective.

Join us next time for the leg to Denia, where our bright-side-of-life philosophy is tested by a horrendous accident, where I get knocked unconscious and learn a new, unwelcome word: oedema.

"Time and tide weather the Body's vessel, but it is our own choice that decides whether we set sail for adventure or lie at anchor watching life from the harbour"