Paradise Found…Again

I realize that I’ve used this subject line before (you may remember the little slice of heaven that I wrote about called Conception Island), but this place is also truly deserving of this moniker. This is the Ibiza that you rarely hear about. Not the Ibiza of all night clubbing and lifestyles of the rich and famous, but the Ibiza of staggering beauty.

We headed out from Espalmador for a leisure sail. While out, we figured we’d check out the anchorages around Formentera. We were having such a nice time that we decided to mosey up to Ibiza and have a look at some anchorages on the south end that David had spotted on our charts. We figured if we didn’t find anything to our liking, we could just head back to our mooring at Espalmador. There were two possibilities. The first was a nice spot along a wide, white, sandy beach. But why not check out the other one. As we rounded the corner into the outer bay, it was magnificent. Then further, tucked into the eastern end of this bay was a smaller, completely secluded cove. There were a handful of other boats but it still felt amazingly private. It was three sides of beautiful cliffs topped with pines. And the water…the water was like Caribbean water (the way that we always describe the clearest, bluest waters), so clear that it was not a question as to whether the anchor had hit bottom, I could just watch it.

We spent three days there in our own glorious paradise, swimming, reading, listening to music, cooking, dinghy exploring, and sometimes doing nothing at all but gazing. I only stepped foot on land once to hike up a trail that led up to the top of a cliff and then along the ridge. I felt like I wanted to stay there forever, in that spot, on this boat, forever. Yes, it was that perfect.

The truth is that I should say that it was “nearly” perfect. Yes, perfect is an elusive word after all… and I suppose not even Conception Island was entirely perfect -albeit just about as close as one might ever come to it – given its impossibly remote location making it difficult to access (though this could actually be an argument for its perfection). And then there’s the fact that you can’t actually live there what with the whole uninhabited national park thing. Anyway, this place really was nearly perfect, and the only thing that kept it from the highest of ratings were the jellyfish. There weren’t tons of them but just enough to keep you aware. We hadn’t noticed them at all at first. I only happened upon one while swimming when, mid-stroke, something grazed my hand. I looked up to see a mauvish/brownish jellyfish right in my path. I quickly swam back to the boat where David and I proceeded to search for and finally photograph the offender. We looked it up to find that their stings are severe. No, not deadly, just extremely painful. Luckily I only had minor contact with its top and not its tentacles. Not that that put the kibosh on our swimming b/c the water was way to inviting for us not to accept each and every invitation.