Thunderstorms and Sea Creatures

The first week away for my wife and I in 2016 was to Cala Bona on the lovely Spanish island of Majorca.

The resort area of Cala Bona is very pleasant but it has to be said that the ‘beaches’ (and I use the word advisedly) are not really conducive to detecting in the water using a scoop for target retrieval. The beaches are relatively small and the thin layer of fine yellow sand partially hides a mainly rocky shoreline. It would be fine for those of us who might prefer to snorkel and wave the sand away with their hands, but that is not for me. I did try searching it one morning out of sheer desperation as the swimming area is protected from the worst of the waves by groins and adjoining breakwaters composed of large boulders, but the results were far from encouraging so I didn’t bother trying it again.

So, you might ask, why choose Cala Bona knowing that the detecting prospects were far from ideal? Well the answer is simple, we knew from past experience that the hotel was excellent, and more importantly (from my point of view anyway), that the vast expanse of soft golden sand in the sister resort of Cala Millor was only a 10 minute stroll away along the promenade! Sea conditions during the week were unfortunately far from flat calm, and being fairly early in the season, I only had one find of note throughout the whole week, a 14ct yellow and white gold wedding band weighing 5.94gm. However, on the positive side, the Euro coin finds were enough to cover our modest drinks bill in the hotel.

Upon our return home, I started to give serious consideration to revisiting a resort that I had been to many years ago and for which I had for some time harboured a suppressed desire to return. This was back in the early days of my detecting obsession, Rimini on the Adriatic coast of Italy. In those days, working for British European Airways, I was fortunate in having access to cheap air travel.