New Balearic Islands law effective from today.

It seems to me that one can just about cope with the 50m rule above during the day in certain areas but no chance at night. Looking at the list of excluded zones and triangulating with people's experiences above, the capacity to cope with the quantity of boats has been severely restricted especially in the high season. This will for sure drive people away from the Balearics but will likely take a couple of seasons. it is probably easy for the authorities to stomach now as Marinas are jammed full it seems and maybe they want to promote only the day trippers. Note that they also passed laws killing AirBNB and toughened up holiday let laws which reduced capacity last year and thus increased hotel prices etc. My experience during August last year was that Mallorca was empty versus previous years. It was easy to book restaurants and i was able to get into marinas with a day's notice. When i asked around they said this was the effect of the World Cup which i think is nonsense. The Balearics just got too expensive relative to other destinations. We anchored in all the banned places like Benniras, oblivious to the new rules, and didn't get hassled but again I am sure everyone was just winding up their enforcement task forces so I suspect 2019 is going to be challenging. we got checked once in Menorca and the anchor was in sand but touching the weed and the guy was fine and quite reasonable but at the time i rather thought this was just a local thing. As it turns out we are moving East to Sardinia/Corsica but that is quite co incidental. Those now in Sardinia and Corsica may want to firm up their contracts for the long term!!!!
 
petem said:
Am I right in thinking that the Navionics charts have been updated to show the anchoring prohibition?

https://webapp.navionics.com/#boating@15&key=_{qmFgezG - see Benirras in Ibiza (north of San Antonio) for an example.

Pete
Click to expand...

Looks like the Navionics charts are reflecting the changes outlined in this document http://media.superyachtnews.com/uploads/library/decret_posidonia cartografia-2018.pdf
So, I have just spent some time modifying the images in the above link so that they can be used in charting software.
I georeferenced each image and overlaid them onto larger scale georeferenced images to create a set of charts specifically for the Posidonia grass.
I use OpenCPN on the boat, at home and on my mobile devices.

Here are some screen dumps that show what I mean.

Zoomed out to show the whole of the Balearics
PosidoniaMed.png


Zoomed to show Ibiza
PosidoniaIbiza.png


Zoomed in a bit more
PortalsFiguera.png


Zoomed into Portals Vells
PosidoniaPortalsVells.png


The screen shots show a proper chart on the left and the Posidonia scans on the right.
Although the Navionics charts are strictly correct, it may be useful to have these scans available as well.
So, I've georeferenced them so that I can use them quickly if I ever need to.

If anyone is interested, I could make these scanned charts available for free download.
OpenCPN is also free to download and use.
 
I honestly feel this will hit Mallorca boating hard.

The place is busy but not completely packed. It is rare to have to head to another anchorage. August is worse yes, but still OK. Mariana availability varies year by year. Last year was not bad, the year before was really tricky.

There is however not that much slack in the system and removing great swaths of what were the most popular anchorages ( Portals Vells, Bongo Bay in Ibiza etc ( no idea of its real name) will simply force people to leave.

Mallorca is at least double the cost of the mainland - sometimes more - and it justifies this by being a boating paradise of clear water, calas etc.

The persist in pumping raw sewage into the sea when there is a downpour ( so much so they have to close the beaches), they are now protecting weed to the exclusion of boats ( there is a lot of weed and it is still there - and the proportion in anchoring areas will be a small percentage) and then also choose to ban apartment rental without a licence ( which you can't get). Bear in mind you won't find many people who know about anchoring who will intentionally anchor up on weed in any event but chain etc will touch it.

No one wants hassle, and Mallorca is rapidly becoming more hassle than it is worth. I have been thinking of leaving for a while - snag is I know loads of people there, marina manager, maintenance etc. I don't have a perm berth so leaving is simple and of course I can always come back.

Like seahorses in Strudland Bay as soon as you mention the environment everyone bows to the pressure. I would never dismiss it, but perhaps providing show based sewage that does not overflow and pump out stations for boats would be a better starting point.

Mallorca hotels are now reducing wholesale rates significantly ( Mallorca Daily Bulletin) so the anti tourist actions are already starting to bite.
 
I guess we'll know more about the impacts of these various new rules by the end of the season, let's see how it goes.

I've been boating in mallorca since I was a child (35or so years now) and it feels like (but I have no idea if my view is correct, it is just a feeling) it's getting busier and busier every year. However the amount of marina capacity is not really increasing ,except for the recent port Adrian extension, but that really only added capacity for superyachts, so the increase must be from boats whose home port is not on the island, ie visitors.

I think if these restrictions are enforced then it will deter people from visiting, from a purely selfish point of view a reduction in the number of boats would be a good thing for me, but probably not a good thing for the island as a whole.
 
We’re seriously looking at leaving Mallorca the posidonia regs are just the final straw, the mainland is looking very inviting at the moment the costs are much lower and a change of scenery might be nice after 16 years on the island
 
I use to have a leaflet about this when we got chased out last year, we also go chased out for using a jet ski in certain areas :(

they where friendly and advised us to only drop the hook where you can see the sandy bottom, if you do this chances are you will be fine.
 
jrudge said:
I confess I did not. The joy of all good April fools is that they seem 100% plausible and given what the local govt have done over recent years this would not surprise me at all.
Click to expand...

I love a good April fool, this one was pretty good, the first few paragraphs of the article got me, then I got to the names.
 
I’m just back from a week in Mallorca on the boat. We anchored in Vells along with three or four other boats. So no sign of any outright prohibition. The people I spoke to said it’s all very confused so I guess we will find out how the restrictions will be enforced come the high season....certainly no sign of any buoys being laid...
 
Quick update I found on Boating in Mallorca facebook:

'Soren Christensen' The article is informative, however, there are some basic misunderstandings: Only about 3 weeks ago I went up to the local Consellaria de Medio Ambiente (NOT easy to localise, I might add, but they are up in the Poligono Son Rossinyol on the Soller road) to get it straight "from the horse´s mouth" As always in public offices, they were very friendly, if somewhat bemused of the visiting "guiri" A friendly chap sat me down and explained: Basically it is the same as last year, the red areas are no-go zones, the yellow ones (including Portals Vells) are OK to anchor, as long as one stays clear of the sea grass. This is for all boats, regardless of size. There will be tenders with a guide guiding you from 15 May (Menorca & Ibiza) and 1 June (Mallorca) The guides can not fine you, but they can call the Guardia Civil and the Environment agents, and they can fine you. Generally, the environment agents take turns, and are in the boats with the guides about once a week in each area. If there is only one person in the tender, its a guide, if there are two persons in the dinghy, expect one to be the agent.
 
I was in majorca over the weekend, and whilst the weather was generally poor (what is going on!) Monday was nice so we went out on the boat, didn't see any of the seaweed police, but I guess from the post above they won't start patrolling until next week.
 
Thanks for the update. It sounds like no one will have a definitive answer until someone's had to take one for the team, so to speak.

We'll be over early July, fingers crossed that Vells is accessible, although I'm sure we'll hear more as of next week.
 
Last edited:
Sant Carles yachties went over last weekend.
In Santa Ponsa at the moment.
They will be anchoring in the usual places so I will get some feedback over the next few weeks.
Only comment so far is that the water is very cold!!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top