Mallorca Day 5 - Soller market and walking the docks.

The wind came up in the night and I could hear the ting ting of sailboat rigging. Oddly comforting. I would have been cursing it if I was sleeping on Zatarra in Port Dover. Even though Port de Soller is a very sheltered harbour, the wind does come in and whistle around the bay, trapped by the mountains.

I headed into Soller on the tram again. It's certainly not the cheapest way to get into town, E12 (about $17 Canadian) there and back, but I had read that Soller is difficult to drive around with lots of one way and pedestrian streets. Walking would be the cheapest and I will check that out this coming week. Maybe walk one way and tram the other.

The tram stops close to the market building.

The fishmongers is right inside the door and there is a sign in English and German that you can buy your fish and then get it grilled at the bar located in the market. Those reddish coloured things on the right of the picture are Balearic shrimp. They are red even when not cooked. I bought some yesterday and then read about them. They are very juicy and flavourful.

There are a number of stalls to get produce and I spread my patronage around. In all I bought oranges, bananas, strawberries, cherries, carrots and a red pepper.

The market and the area around it was a bit sparse. I suspect, like Ceret and Ayamonte, it will get busier as February moves into March. More stuff will come into season and more tourists will be around to buy.

Walking up towards the central square there were a spattering of stalls set up on the sidewalk.

I walked up to the station to check out the train to Palma only to find that it was closed and that, due to tunnel repairs, the train would be replaced by a bus until the middle of February. A lot of stores also had signs up saying they would open mid February.

I walked around some of the narrow, cobblestone streets and then into the shopping district. Many of the shops had their products out in the street in honour of Saturday and it was much busier than when I was there before.

Tram home and lunch in the courtyard, out of the wind. My legs were still complaining about yesterday so I decided to take it easy today and just walk around the marina.

These flowers were on sale (E1 each) so I got one for the windowsill and one for the patio table.

I have never seen a sailboat with a transom like this before, makes me want to see what it's like inside.

.

It's a Jongert 21s. I found a U-Tube video. 2 masts, centre cockpit, 81 ft long and quite lovely inside. There were 2 of them a couple of docks apart.

Intuition made the Jongert look small. 2 wheels, 3 spreaders and a mast that stood way above the rest.

That's her on the far left.

The wind was even stronger this afternoon and fishing and pleasure boats, that had been out on mooring buoys, came in and rafted off or moored at the transient docks.

This shots for Simon and Dan, its the only J Boat I saw, walking the docks today. I don't think its a big racing fleet here.

Got the first sketch of the holiday out of the way. Even though I am around boats a lot I have never been able to sketch them satisfactorily. I didn't finish it as the wind kept blowing the pages. I will probably try these little Llaut boats again as they are rather picturesque.

Some of the larger ones have a small cabin.

Some have the same shaped hull but are rigged like a regular sailboat.

At the commercial end of the marina there are a group of them that are definitely still working fishing boats.