Another cool and cloudy day, and for a change, not too late a start. After breakfast and prayers, I did a little more work on the service for Sunday, before Sarah called by at eleven to take Anthony and I on a trip to the Parque Natural Ses Salines and along sections of the south west coast of the island.
Beyond the airport on the coastal plain is a large area of what once would have been salt marsh, but was industrialised when the Phoenicians first arrived and settled along this part of the coast around 2,800 years ago. Later they moved east across the bay and established a trading port when the Ibiza city now stands. There are roughly 28 square kilometres of salt pans here. Salt is harvested and still exported today as it has been down the centuries. The full range of bird life associated with water of such high salinity is found here, a bird watcher's paradise.
First we went to St Rafel for coffee, but had to double back because I had forgotten to pick up my midday antibiotic pill when I was leaving. I was most annoyed with myself. Then we drove straight to Ses Salines. The visitor centre and observation platforms were closed, but it was still possible to walk on some paths and take the peripheral road right down to the beach restaurant, which went past the 'salt-works' with mountains of salt stored, waiting for transport, and looking like piles of snow with a layer of dirt on top. We spotted black winged stilts, a solitary shelduck, plus flamingos, a few dozen quite close 150m away, and a large colony along the shore side of the lagoon, six kilometres or so away from us, visible as a pinkish white line in the distance. The zoom lens on the HX90 gave us an image showing that they were flamingos, but at that distance the image was blurred.
Then we doubled back and took another road westward along the southern shore for a brief visit to a see the pier where salt for export is loaded on to a ship. Nearby is a long beach with white sand. In the summer it is very popular and the area is crowded and overrun with parked cars, but not this year so far. It's still mainly locals enjoying time out.
We then drove to La Caleta, a small cove whose shore is lined with characteristic local fishermen's huts, dug into the tufa on the shore, with wooden extensions on to the beach with slipways over the sand. Sarah and Anthony both said that this cove was unspoilt, and had hardly changed in thirty years. The only visible difference was the modernity of the handful of motor launches and yachts at anchor there. I took a picture which excluded these craft, to capture the sense of a place suspended in time.
From there we drove to Es Cubells, a clifftop village overlooking a beautiful bay with the island of Formentera on the near horizon. It has a lovely church with an open square with a restaurant on the inland side, and another restaurant overlooking the sea. It's a popular place for Anglican wedding blessings to take place. Such a romantic setting. There's also a Carmelite convent above the village. Only two sisters remain there now but the place is used ecumenically for retreats and conferences. The building is very plain looking and geometric, and dates perhaps from the 1930s at a guess. We didn't have time to stop and say hello, as there was one more visit to make before lunch, to a small beach, normally crowded and difficult to navigate due to parked cars on the approaches, but today almost empty. The reason to come here was to get a good view of es Vedra, an imposing tall rocky offshore island, populated by goats and occasionally, I imagine, intrepid human rock climbers.
Then we drove back to San Josep for a restaurant lunch at a reputable place which was open and serving a three course menu del dia. It was an excellent meal with a charming young mesera serving us. Each restaurant that's open for business must have a one way system of entry and exit, and provide a strong alcohol based hand-wash for everyone entering. The staff all wear masks, and tables are set with decent distances between them. All carefully thought out.
You could only dine out with confidence in the company of a few people you know have lived in isolation and remained virus free, as the tables don't allow for two metre social distancing. Thankfully, weeks have passed now since Ibiza had its last case, although a new one is said to have been detected lately activating a 'trace and test' response from the authorities. There's been no news reports of this in the media yet, however.
After lunch Sarah drove us back to Casa Capellania. It was such a treat to see so much in a four and a hour excursion. Sitting for so long in a car did get uncomfortable towards the end, but was a good trial run for my home journey - a one hour flight, a two and a half hour flight, then a three hour car journey back to Cardiff. I couldn't have managed this a fortnight ago.
It was as the sun was setting in an overcast sky that I went for my daily walk on one of my usual routes, but just fell short of my 10k target, as I didn't walk so much in the house before going out for the day. It's surprising that normally a quarter of the distance I cover daily is in the house.
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