Thursday morning we had booked to go on the catamaran to investigate round the outside of the island. We sailed into a smuggler’s cave that used to have a rope ladder hanging at the back forming an escape route to higher land. We looked at lots of coves, houses belonging to some of the world’s great and good, looked at many of the tiny Balearic islands and headed towards Es Vedra.
Es Vedra is an imposing rock, approximately 400 metres high, and with almost vertical sides. There is a cross on top which may be a mark of respect for the monk who apparently spent his life there. The story says that he took goats over with him, they have bred and there are now a herd of about 30 living as wild animals on the island.
Es Vedra and its smaller sister island Es Vedranell have many mythical tales surrounding them. They are supposed to be magical and mysterious being similar on the magnetic force to the Bermuda triangle – or so we were told :-) This is where the sirens in the story of Jason and the Argonauts are supposed to have waylaid Persius’ (I think) party. Please don’t get cross if I need to check my Greek mythology, I have not read the tales for years – in fact there is a good idea!
We drank sangria and swam from the catamaran, it was a lovely tour, thoroughly enjoyed by all. We took lots of photograph from the sea looking back to the island. The rock formations of the land, coral reefs in the sea, fish and weed were all clearly visible, there was a glass submarine area but it was permanently full with children who seemed to be enjoying the underwater views. We decided to look from in the water instead.
The sea bottom has huge areas covered in a plant called Neptune Grass
“As well as providing an important habitat for a great variety of marine species, seagrasses play a role in protecting our planet from the increasing build up of carbon dioxide. They act as a "carbon sink", like land-based plants, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and thereby helping to slow down the effects of global warming.”
Quoted from http://www.divesitedirectory.co.uk/seagrass_meadows.html
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