Dear Islander,
I hope that your Christmas and New Year was as thoroughly agreeable as ours was? We were very adventurous and travelled all of 65 km, to Santa Ponsa where we chilled out for 4 days at the excellent Bahia del Sol hotel.
Neither myself or the “Dutch bird indoors” are particularly handy around the galley, so it was nice to get some decent seasonal fayre cooked by proper chefs, rather than suffer the usual incinerated turkey, and dried up Christmas pud of our own making this year. Imagine our delight when we were then invited for New Years Eve lunch and dinner by some good friends, which really topped off our festivities in the most enjoyable way, and got us through the holidays without suffering self inflicted food poisoning!
Meanwhile our dog Jack, was being pampered at his second home (a small boarding kennel in Sarraco) where the proprietor Liz, told us that he had enjoyed turkey and vegetables mixed up with gravy for Christmas lunch, but easy on the sprouts, for reasons that should not need detailed explanation here!(What a dogs life eh!)
Result - happiness for all and renewed vigour for 2007, which is definitely needed, as we are in the process of moving across the island to Santa Ponsa.
(Please note our new address is in the front page section)
This means I will spend less hours behind the wheel of my car, and hopefully more hours at the wheel of my boat, but higher mooring costs (if I can find a mooring in the south) will more than outweigh any fuel savings.
Talking of moorings, and as predicted last month, the marina price hike season has started already, with the announcement by Real Club Nautica in Palma that their monthly mooring fees have gone up by 14.6%, electric and water by 6%, and the long term “right of use”(no right to sell) mooring charges, whose prices are controlled by the club, are up by a hefty 20%!
Sources inform us that increases of this order are likely to follow from all the marinas in the Balearics, who have to recover their upwardly revised outgoings to the port authorities, and again this can only reflect in inflationary increases in the purchase price of moorings as the new concessions start to kick in.
Meanwhile the row surrounding the Puerto Punta Portals concessions continues, and we understand that over 150 stakeholders with leased rights to moorings and commercial properties in the port have joined the action group represented by Bellapart Solicitors. This in order to defend their rights “acquired by prior public deed” in maintaining their leaseholds until 2031, and not have them reduced to 2018 as implied in the “Ley de Costa´s” act of 1988.
Promises to be an interesting start to 2007- but please, let´s not forget to enjoy our boating!
Peter