Tilting At Windmills: Balearics’ oil exploration

When, a couple of years ago, I wrote an April Fool about oil exploration in the bay of Alcúdia, I hadn’t foreseen that foolish fiction could so quickly come to imitate life. The bay itself may not become dotted with oil rigs operated by my make-believe oil-exploration company, Tonto S.A., but the waters around the Balearics could be the location for rigs and a battle over whether they should be there or not.

On the face of it, oil exploration anywhere near the coasts of the Balearics sounds insane. In terms of a visible blight, assuming they were to be that visible, they aren’t much of an advert. Blots on the seascape are one thing, though; the environmental impact of exploration is another. Posidonia, for example, would be harmed, and I’ve recently written about the damage that is being caused to the sea grass by different man-made interventions. Posidonia is not, though, the only marine species that would be affected.

A couple of weeks ago, the Balearic Environment Commission, which is a part of the regional government’s environment ministry, issued a report which identified 19 environmental dangers from exploration. These included the effects of noise and drilling on the likes of turtles and giant squid.

What is interesting is that the Commission, within the ambit of a Partido Popular regional government that one might think would be inclined to wish to pursue exploration with some vigour, speaks with almost total unanimity on behalf of its various constituents – other government departments, the Council of Mallorca and town halls – in being dead against exploration. Tempting though it may be to nuance this as a snub to an initiative driven by a socialist central government, the fact that virtually no one in officialdom supports exploration, and not therefore just the usual suspects of the environmental lobby, suggests that Madrid has got it badly wrong.

The PP is being consistent. Its then deputies from the Balearics, one of them the now president of the Council of Mallorca, Maria Salom, brought a motion before Congress in February this year to have authorisation for prospecting revoked. The parliament’s upper house, the Senate, did in fact attempt to revoke the authorisation the following month, only for Congress to reject this.

Oil prospecting between the Balearics and the mainland isn’t in fact anything new. There are already well over 100 borings and wells that date back almost 40 years. None of them in the vicinity of Mallorca, at a 150 to 200 kilometre distance, are really that close, but the very prospect of closer prospecting plus the potential shipping of oil in large tankers concern politicians and conservationists alike, especially as the memory of the oil spill from the Don Pedro in Ibiza is still very much alive.

How different attitudes might be, though, were there genuine guarantees of oil riches in the seas near the Balearics, who can tell. It is the lack of such guarantees that makes it easy to reject exploration. But what if there were oil? And lots of it. An economy such as that of the Balearics, indeed that of Spain, with its over-reliance on tourism and construction, cannot afford to just dismiss the possibility. As has been said, and not least by the economics expert Douglas McWilliams at the ABTA Convention in Palma in October, nations that are commodity rich (and this primarily means oil and gas) are the economic winners of the future. The mere fact also that the Spanish Government prepared for a “shock” in terms of oil supply earlier this year by reducing the motorway speed limit should make those who are anti-oil think a bit harder.

The ambitions of the green lobby in Mallorca are that the island should come to depend more greatly on renewables. But the use of renewables remains only a tiny portion of the Balearics’ energy provision. A plan to erect attractive windmills along the sea front in Playa de Palma is a nice idea, but it won’t create huge amounts of energy. The piecemeal approach to renewables, though, is indicative of an almost total failure of central governmental policy in respect of energy. The drive to a “green economy” has, as a leaked government document suggested, been an economic nightmare, causing energy prices to rocket and jobs to be lost rather than created.

Oil is the antithesis of the green economy and the antithesis of sound marine conservation and, possibly, tourism. But oil might just be an economic saviour. And in the absence of a realistic energy policy, simply tilting at the windmills of oil exploration is no answer.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

All In A Day’s Lack Of Work

On one day last week, three things happened which, while they may initially seem to be unrelated, aren’t. One was the closure of TV Mallorca, the second was an announcement by the government that financial support for various fairs would not be forthcoming, and the third was a protest by musicians.

TV Mallorca’s demise was inevitable. It was arguably unnecessary and superfluous given the existence of IB3, so the Partido Popular had targeted it for the chop, and chopped it has now been.

But TV Mallorca went beyond being just another broadcaster. It was a source of contracts, employment and encouragement for those in the audiovisual industry, one of the very few areas of activity in Mallorca that has had anything like some sort of growth recently.

At the same time as Microsoft and the local audiovisual industry are demonstrating that they can be innovative in coming up with solutions for other parts of the economy, i.e. tourism, it seems somewhat perverse to be undermining this very industry. The government will argue, of course, that it is the private sector, in the form of Microsoft or whoever, which should be the impulse behind innovation and growth, but it does also require governments to stimulate industry. Quite how Josep Aguiló, minister for both finance and business, squares the competing demands is unclear. Or rather, it is clear enough. Finance, or lack of it, wins.

The government’s spokesperson, Rafael Bosch, has hinted that the government has a cunning plan for investment in the audiovisual industry, so those at TV Mallorca who now find themselves on the dole plus the production companies that have lost business can presumably breathe a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, what this cunning plan is, is also unclear.

Within Aguiló’s wide remit is responsibility for fairs and congresses. The body which oversees these has made it clear that events have to be self-financing and that the government is not prepared to lose money on them. Among the fairs is the Palma Boat Show, scheduled to take place from 28 April to 6 May next year. The chances are that it won’t.

The viability of the boat show is open to further question, the government suggests, because the boat show in Barcelona hasn’t, in its words, “worked”. It’s taken a long time to figure this out, if it is the case. 50 years to be precise.

It may be legitimate to question the benefits of the boat show in direct economic terms, but in a wider sense, that of the kudos that comes from a show and its contribution to the reputation of Mallorca’s nautical industry and nautical tourism, one has to wonder whether the government’s attitude isn’t somewhat short-sighted.

Then there are the musicians. Eleven music associations and groups, some of them familiar names at fiesta times and on other occasions, have lobbied the Council of Mallorca over cuts to financial assistance. The Council’s now administration has said that the cuts are all the fault of the previous administration and that it will bring back the funding for traditional Mallorcan music performers in 2012 without, however, being specific. Given the parlous state of the Council’s finances, it is probably wise not to commit to anything.

With the musicians, it is a case not of jobs but of the contribution to local culture which, by extension, means or should mean tourism. It is rather more nebulous than the audiovisual and nautical industries, but an economic case for the musicians can just about be made. As part of the, if you like, “fiesta industry”, which faces even more cuts next year, there is a concern that an erosion of the fiestas may just have a negative impact on tourism.

There is financial support for the musicians from non-governmental sources, as there is finance and sponsorship available for fairs, plus the private sector to fund the audiovisual industry, but this funding isn’t infinite. Understandable it is that the government is seeking cuts where cuts can be made, but it runs a risk of abrogating responsibilities for industries it would wish to develop and for culture it should be supporting.

There again, maybe this is all just a case of realism finally taking hold, a recognition that money, for all sorts of things, was handed out almost willy-nilly without questions being asked as to whether it was wise or not and without any real control. Possibly so. But on one day last week, you had the impression of the seemingly diverse but ultimately interdependent industry and culture of Mallorca, which in turn feed into tourism, just grinding to a halt. Cuts yes, but you can only cut so deep before the bleeding becomes terminal.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Cruising To Destruction: Posidonia

Nice work if you can get it for electricity companies. They are lining up to get the gig to supply boats coming into port, for which you can read primarily cruise ships coming into Palma. It’s all part of a drive by the European Union to reduce emissions from ships, by which engines would be switched off and energy would be transmitted from land.

The environmental harm caused by cruise ships is something to which I have previously referred. With an increase in the number of ships comes the potential for greater damage, and, as cruising is increasing across the Mediterranean, the EU has moved to try and do something about it.

Cruising has been described as the “bad boy of travel”. A large liner is said to emit higher levels of carbon dioxide than a large, long-haul airplane, though it is commonly argued that ships (of all types) and planes emit the same levels in relative terms. There are, though, other pollutants from a ship’s fuel – sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide.

All forms of transport bring with them costs and benefits. In the case of cruising the environmental costs have been placed at seven times greater than the economic benefits, assuming one accepts that there really are economic benefits, and I have said before that Palma and Mallorca do not benefit as much as is made out.

The equation between environmental costs and economic benefits was one contained in a significant study, the Scarfe Report, into the impact of cruise ships on Victoria in British Columbia. The study, issued earlier this year, is a comprehensive examination of the effects of cruising on a specific community and economy. Scarfe identified, among other things, the costs to health and property values and the costs of marine discharges. The reference in the study to the seven times higher environmental costs wasn’t, however, one that related to Canadian experience; it was to a Mediterranean one, that of the port of Dubrovnik in Croatia.

Citing the Mediterranean has special significance, as shipping has a major effect on marine species that, apart from waters around southern Australia, are only found in the Med – posidonia.

The most evident sign of the existence of posidonia oceanica is in the form of the kiwi fruit-shaped balls that are washed up onto Mallorca’s beaches. The sea grass and underwater meadows it forms around the Balearics are prolific. Off Ibiza, what is reckoned to be the largest and oldest meadow anywhere was discovered in 2006.

The posidonia is important for all sorts of reasons, one of them being that it protects coastlines from erosion, another that it, ironically enough given ships’ emissions, helps to mitigate the effects of CO2. The importance attached to posidonia explains the number of studies that are conducted into its destruction, which, given that it takes long to grow, is, in some instances, close to irreversible.

Official attitudes towards posidonia are contradictory, to say the least. While there is a recognition of its vital role in the local ecology, certain projects, e.g. the extension of the port of Ibiza, have been given the green light despite the official report (in the case of Ibiza) acknowledging the fact that it would harm posidonia meadows. Greenpeace, in a submission to the European Commission in 2009, condemned port infrastructure projects around the Balearics and also condemned Spain for a failure to comply with European law.

Posidonia is affected by all sorts of things. Oil exploration off the Balearics is the latest to be added to the list of destructive influences. The electricity cable from the mainland is another. But shipping is one of the more destructive, and it is so in different ways, such as through anchoring and discharges. A report from 1999 in respect of posidonia around Port-Cros in southern France went so far as to recommend a moratorium on all anchoring for a minimum of five years to allow the sea grass to at least begin to recover from destruction.

The bay of Palma is full of posidonia, as is the bay of Alcúdia into which cruise ships might one day enter. The investment that has been poured into both Palma and Alcúdia has been that of chasing the cruise-ship shilling. But at what cost? Supplying electricity to ships is a recognition that there is a cost, one borne by the environment. There are others, and one might argue that the investment would have been better spent elsewhere. But, for now, electricity is to come to the rescue, and how will they provide for it?

You know, I’ve always thought that those posidonia kiwi-fruit balls might burn quite nicely.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Cruise Tourism Myth (7 November)

By way of a coincidence, a couple of mentions of cruise tourism over the past few days had worked themselves into my consciousness. I referred to one of them yesterday; the other had simply lodged in my memory banks.

The reference I made was to Leo Hickman who has lumped cruise ships in with all-inclusive hotels in branding them one of the worst forms of tourism in that they generate little by way of benefit to local economies. The one I hadn’t referred to, but now do, was to Puerto Alcúdia and a question asked by the restaurant association as to why its new commercial port was not receiving cruise ships.

In Alcúdia there was talk of it becoming a port of call. It was one reason why so much was invested in developing the new terminal and in deepening the waters. To date, it has not become a port of call and it may never become so. The restaurant association would wish otherwise, as it would hope to reap the benefits from stopover passengers.

The benefits. Ah yes, the benefits of cruise tourism to local economies. These are the benefits that Palma (though not exclusively Palma) derives from cruise tourism and which the city anticipates more of as the volume of cruise traffic increases.

But, as we are reminded not infrequently, passengers disembark, wallets bulging, ready to spend wildly, only to find shops closed. At least, this is one of the sticks which are used to beat Palma shopowners into opening submission and which is used to criticise an inert local tourism-related industry that spurns the opportunities from cruise tourists.

Alcúdia’s restaurants presumably believe that they, along with other local businesses, would enjoy untold riches from passengers taking a bit of shore leave. Would they, though?

One of the most important pieces of research into the economic impact of cruise tourism was undertaken by the Policy Research Corporation on behalf of the European Commission. Based on data from October 2008 to September 2009, it looked at, among other things, expenditure by passengers. Of the top 15 ports in Europe, Palma was ranked sixth with around 53 million euros, a figure that rose to 70 million when crew and ship expenditures were added.

The report calculated specific expenditures dependent upon whether passengers disembarked during a stopover (and not all do) and whether they were joining or leaving the ship. The average spend was, respectively, 60 and 95 euros per passenger (the figure being the same whether joining or leaving).

In themselves, the figures seem healthy enough, but you need to dig down into them to understand what they represent. Mostly all the spend by a passenger joining or leaving a ship is on hotel accommodation; the spend of the passenger who disembarks for the day goes primarily towards an excursion of some sort.

The cruise ship functions in its own way. Because stopovers are short, it organises well in advance, as in booking excursions with a select few attractions/activities for which the cruise ship typically extracts a significant commission; and it is said that this can be as high as 50%, which immediately slashes that expenditure which gets into the local economy.

The ship has its arrangements with hotels, with a handful of chosen excursions and perhaps with certain shops or others, and a commission will operate in almost every instance. The benefit, in other words, tends to be spread very thinly. And where the passenger has some “free” time, what can he actually contribute over and above what has pretty much been pre-determined? P&O, for example, lists Pollensa and Formentor as one of its nine shore excursions. In Pollensa there are 30 minutes “to do as you choose … it is the perfect place to have a morning coffee”.

And so that’s about it. A coffee. Very little, and the restaurants of Alcúdia might bear this in mind, is actually spent on food. It’s the same issue as with all-inclusives, as the passenger has generally already paid for his food on the ship. At most he might buy a small snack and the odd drink while on shore, and that’s it.

There is plenty more that could be said about cruise ships and cruise tourism; about the environmental damage caused by ships, and which is greatly understated, or about the fact that little or no direct employment is generated. A benefit does come from cruises, but it is not as great as might be thought, a point made by Professor Paul Wilkinson of Canada’s York University, and a leading researcher into cruise tourism, who has said that “cruise visitors have little potential economic impact”.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Weever’s Tale And The Drowning Man

A common theme of most Mallorcan summers has been conspicuous by its absence this year. Jellyfish. “Plagues” or threats of plagues have not materialised, for which we should all be grateful. The absence of any biblical style invasions of the “medusa” and the resultant absence of their reporting by the media may explain why an attack by a different nasty of the waters merited some column inches. A German woman was stung by a weever fish in Peguera the other day. At first, I thought I was going to be reading that she had been killed. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case, but quite why it was necessary to report a weever-fish attack I honestly can’t say. Maybe it’s still the silly and a very slow news season.

It’s not as though there aren’t other weever-fish incidents. A former neighbour of mine was stung close to the shore in Playa de Muro three summers ago. It was, in his words, indescribably painful. Actually, given that he is French, these weren’t his words, but they amounted to the same. The sting required a trip to the hospital, but this was as much precautionary as really necessary.

Fatality by fish is extremely rare. In 1998 there was a death, that of a British teenager swimming off Cala Blava. The cause was something of a mystery, but it was almost certainly as the result of an acute allergic reaction to being stung by a “spider fish”, which is how the weever is known locally (“pez araña”).

The waters around Mallorca don’t hold great terrors, but they claim lives every year. In the Balearics as a whole, eighteen people have drowned so far this summer, one more than in 2010. Playa de Muro, for some reason, seems to attract more than its fair share of drownings. Over the space of ten days at the end of August there were three fatalities.

It is not as though there is anything dangerous about the sea off Playa de Muro. The water is shallow, and the sea only becomes potentially risky with an undertow or the wrong sort of wind. Even then, it can’t really be described as dangerous, no more so than any other shallow water subject to the same conditions. A common link in the three drownings was that of age; each swimmer was over 60 years old. The emergency services (by which one primarily means the Cruz Roja, the Red Cross) attributed the drownings to cardiac failure. Around 70% of all drownings in the Balearics are of people over the age of 60.

Advice on keeping safe when swimming includes not swimming alone, not swimming when there are no lifeguards on duty, i.e. too early in the morning, too late in the evening or at night, and even taking care if there are too many people in the water; it can be more difficult for a lifeguard to detect a swimmer in trouble when the sea is packed.

The advice is sound enough but is easily and temptingly ignored. Of the drownings that have occurred, the circumstances have not generally been exceptional. One of the drownings in Muro, for example, occurred at 3.30 on a Sunday afternoon. Maybe there were a lot of people in the water, but who considers this when going for a swim? Unfortunately, unfortunate things happen.

Indeed, the emergency services reckon that incidences of “reckless” swimming are on the decline. By reckless, one presumes they mean ignoring red flags, though it is not entirely clear, as it is also not entirely clear what Muro town hall means when it says that reckless swimmers will be fined.

Presumably not reckless, albeit she was swimming solo, was Teresa Planas who has just completed the 40-kilometre crossing between Menorca and Mallorca in under 14 hours. It’s as well that’s she has completed it, as the sea between the two islands is where the risk of the phenomenon of the meteotsunami (“rissaga”) is at its greatest, and as the autumn equinox approaches, so the risk increases.

The sea and the beach come with very few risks. Drownings are generally unavoidable if they are the result of a health malfunction. Treading on weever fish is hard to avoid. But there is one risk and one example of, if you like, recklessness that can be avoided. That is the beach at night. The sea may not be risky, unless you’ve gone skinny dipping on a tankful, but if you have gone skinny dipping, you may not find everything as you left it. Even if you keep your clothes on and just go for a walk, there is a risk. It’s best avoided.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

To The Alcúdia Station: Estación Náutica

Never let it be said that things move swiftly. So slowly do they move that you can be forgiven for believing that whatever they are had been forgotten. As is, or was, the case with the Estación Náutica in Alcúdia.

You have to go back to February 2009 to be reminded of when this concept first surfaced in Alcúdia. In May of that year it was actually signed into being. And then? Silence. But the silence has now been broken. The business association behind the “estación” in Alcúdia has finalised the process of its candidature to become a part of the Asociación Española de Estaciones Náuticas (AEEN). A further meeting in January should seal this candidature and allow Alcúdia to call itself an “estación náutica”.

We can all breathe a sigh of relief. Put out the bunting perhaps. We would do if we really knew what the whole thing was about and, more importantly, what benefits it is likely to bring. I can go back to a meeting at Alcúdia town hall in February last year to remind myself of the degree to which attendees were unclear. I can recall a later meeting, one that I didn’t attend, but which was – as it was described to me – full of those looking to extract whatever benefits they could for themselves. Whatever the concept was, it appeared to be a recipe for self-interest.

Let me try and clarify. An “estación náutica”, and this description is aided with the words of the head of tourism in the town as expressed in May 2009, is “a tourist product with accommodation and water-sports activities sold as a tourist package that allows the tourist to engage in the likes of sailing and underwater activities and complementary activities such as golf and horse-riding”. Alcúdia will become the first such “estación” in Mallorca; others exist elsewhere in the Balearics and on the mainland. AEEN’s website declares that these centres are the “best nautical destinations in Spain”.

There is a lengthy document which lists the requirements for becoming an “estación náutica” and the benefits of doing so. If I try and put them in a nutshell, they demand levels of quality and service of all participating members, of whatever type of business, and the use of the “estación náutica” brand as a mark of quality. There is also a requirement, one to tackle seasonality, which demands a minimum of the principal offer of accommodation and water-sport activities from March to November; a requirement that should be a benefit.

The concept does not necessarily mean creating anything new – Alcúdia has plenty of water-sports activities plus all the complementary activities and offers. It is largely a marketing exercise.

Anything that might assist tourism in Alcúdia (or anywhere else that fancies branding itself in this way) has to be welcomed. But questions do arise. One is why it requires an outside agency, AEEN, to bring parties together in establishing a “brand” that already exists? Or rather, could have existed if parties had been minded to put their heads together to come up with something similar.

Secondly, would it really help with lengthening the season? Menorca has such centres. Are they operating for the minimum period set out? Maybe they are, but whether anyone is going to them or indeed can get a flight out of season, I couldn’t honestly say. Thirdly, there is the matter of organisation.

What you will have is a further agency involved in tourism, one separate to the town hall but which will presumably work alongside the town hall. There will be a separate website, a separate office (like a tourism information office, I guess) and separate promotional material. Duplication is everything in tourism promotion.

This could all be a great success, and innovation is not to be sniffed at, if success does follow. But what would be useful to know is what hard benefits have accrued to those resorts in the Balearics and the mainland that already operate as an “estación náutica”. Does this marketing have a positive bottom-line effect? Well, does it? I have searched for examples which might indicate this, but without success.

However, one does also need to consider this in the longer-term. Establishing a reputation as a water-sports centre doesn’t happen overnight, nor does one for high quality. So in terms of measuring benefits, some patience is necessary.

There remains, though, one final question. The name “estación náutica” might mean something to the Spanish, but what does it mean to those from other countries. How is it translated? A nautical destination in English, according to AEEN. Sorry, this doesn’t cut it. Water-sports centre or resort? Better perhaps, but isn’t Alcúdia already known as this? Maybe it isn’t, in which case fine, but water-sports resort conjures up an image of something different, of something specific, of something new. And unfortunately, apart from the “brand” name, it is none of these.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Everybody Had Matching Towels

The lobster season lasts for four months; it has something in common with the tourist season, as is now being claimed. Following the cuttlefish harvest of early spring, from May until August lobster becomes the prized catch for the fishermen of northern Mallorca who operate out of the four main fishing ports – Pollensa, Alcúdia, Can Picafort and Cala Ratjada.

The season has been pretty good, but there are ripples of discontent on the waters between northern Mallorca and Menorca, the location of the lobster catch. They all have to do with money. In “The Diario” yesterday it was reported that fishermen’s income from lobster is back to the level it was three years ago, as low as 30 euros a kilo, while their costs – fuel most obviously – have risen. By comparison, fishermen in Menorca receive 50 euros per kilo. It is nothing to do with differing quality; it is, after all, the same lobster.

The problem lies with the regulation and organisation of the markets on the islands. From Alcúdia comes the observation that whilst there is an association for the fishermen’s catch, it doesn’t seem to function that well. Moreover, there appears to be a missed opportunity in terms of exporting to the mainland; the Mediterranean lobster, so it is said, is appreciated more than that which comes from the Atlantic.

Lobster is delicious, but it is not to everyone’s taste. Or rather, the method of cooking is not liked by everyone. Get over that, and it is a treat. But a question is, where can you actually eat it and where is best to eat it? One of the oddities of local restaurants is the sheer absence of what one might classify as genuine fish restaurants. There is plenty of fish on the menu, and lobster in some cases, but I’m struggling to think of anywhere that proclaims its truly fish credentials. Bogavante in Puerto Alcúdia was one such place (“bogavante” and “langosta” both mean lobster, but different types), but it is no longer. The Miramar remains, and it boasts about its “caldereta”, lobster soup if you like. Someone (half Mallorcan) who I know well once suggested I went with a group to Menorca, partly for the lobster. Why go there? I asked. You can get lobster locally. “No,” came the reply. There is nowhere that does good lobster. Not even the Miramar, he reckoned.

Lobster is lobster, I would have thought. Stick it in a pan of boiling water, wait a bit and then scoff it down with a side serving of garlic mayonnaise. There’s not a lot to it. Ah but the lobster in Menorca is better, I was informed. How can it be? It’s the same lobster, and it presumably costs more in Menorca, if the fishermen are getting 50 euros a kilo. Yes, but the caldereta is better. Indeed, Menorca is the place to get caldereta. I’ll take his word for it. I have never actually been to Menorca, to eat lobster or for any other reason.

But the mystery as to the lack of fish restaurants remains. Or maybe it’s just a reflection of the need to cover all bases that restaurants choose not to specialise only in fish. And were there, then they would probably engage in lobster wars. “Real” lobster here; “authentic” lobster there. But the fishermen of Puerto Alcúdia would still only be getting 20 euros less than their Menorcan counterparts.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Town That Didn’t Want The Train – A Fairy Tale

The transport fairy gives and the transport fairy takes away. On the day that they came to officially open the as yet unfinished new terminal at Alcúdia’s port, some other they were in the process of killing off the Alcúdia train – for the time being at any rate. At the cost of some twenty odd million euros the new port will be totally shiny and new later this year when the walkways have been finished. But they made sure to get it officially opened just in case and before the transport fairy could wave her wand and make it all disappear, which is what the malevolent and spoilt little brat was up to in the islands’ parliament yesterday. “You shan’t go to the Alcúdia station,” said she. Or something like that. And I know, I know that was the fairy godmother, but she was still a fairy. 

 

The money spent on the port was a drop in the bay of Alcúdia compared to the close on 100 million euros that was earmarked to churn up local finca land and run a ruddy great rail track through the auditorium. It would have been money well spent, but Alcúdia town hall played hardball – and lost in all respects. One member of the parliament said that the administration will pass into history as having been from the town that didn’t want the train.

 

The report on the parliament proceedings was such that I confess to having lost the will to live when trying to make sense of what the various political parties wanted or didn’t want in respect of Alcúdia, Manacor and any other tram or train. A plague on their various houses. The upshot is that the Alcúdia train, if indeed it ever is to see the light of a tunnel, will not be doing so as a result of the workings of the current legislature. So much for President Antich’s “age of the train”. 

 

The transport fairy has been busy these past few days. She sprinkled some magic dust in Barcarès where there had been the little local difficulty regarding the development of the marina that no-one seemed to know about. Surprising to report, therefore, that over 2,500 signatures appeared on a petition against the development, which is over 2,500 more people than knew about the development when I went there (except the bloke in the office) and roughly 2,500 more than live in the larger Barcarès area (I do exaggerate here of course). But it was all something and nothing, as indeed I had discovered. The environment minister has said that there are no immediate plans to do anything and indeed nothing might well happen as the chaps from the ports authority have to weigh up priorities for the island as a whole. 

 

The transport fairy looked down on the little port in Barcarès and smirked. “Why would you give priority to this?” And with a whoosh of the wand it was gone. Far, far away to the place with the magic finca land with no train. 

You Have A Cup Of Coffee

Oh no, here we go again. Hot on the heels of the piece of two days, another letter complaining about prices. One grows tired of this litany of expensive woe, especially when it’s so skewed. Up pops someone else in “The Bulletin”, this time using the price of a coffee as the stick with which to beat the cost of Mallorca. How much? 3.50 euros. 3.50 euros? Where the hell have they been taking a coffee? It can be the case that some restaurants will charge excessive amounts for the likes of a coffee, but they are usually expensive restaurants anyway. The solution is to go somewhere else, or take a post-prandial stroll to a café or bar where the coffee will be, typically, 1.50 (you can indeed pay less). Or maybe this was a special type of coffee, who knows? And that’s just the problem, you never know. You never know which restaurant or bar, you don’t necessarily know where it is. I daresay that in the high- and well-heeled boutique bars of Deía or Portals you can cop a big’n for one with milk. Doesn’t mean to say that you pay it everywhere, and you don’t. Of course you don’t. So why say it? You know, I might write a letter, say I was charged five euros for a coffee. No, make that a tenner. And then I’ll demand that the authorities do something about it all before the tourism apocalypse occurs. And of course I won’t say where this tenner was charged, because it was all a fabrication. Can we please just give this all a rest, as it is, yes really is, rather tiresome.

 

 

Not the year of the jellyfish

Been stung by a jellyfish this year? Chances are you haven’t been. According to the “Cruz Roja”, its lifeguards and staff have had to attend to a mere 3,221 bathers in the Balearics who have been on the wrong end of a jellyfish tentacle. Sounds a lot? Not really. In 2008 the number was 13,767, while in 2006 – the year of the plague – it was almost double that figure at over 26 thousand. Ibiza is the place you need to go to be more likely to be stung; the number of victims there is not far off a half of that 3000 plus total for this year. Given that more people go to Mallorca than to Ibiza or Menorca, it is perhaps surprising that the fewest numbers of stings are recorded on the biggest of the islands. Or maybe the Cruz Roja doesn’t patrol that many beaches in Mallorca. Anyway, it’s all rather encouraging. Perhaps the winds have just been in the wrong direction and have blown the sea and the devils away. But don’t get too complacent, there have, in Mallorca, been nearly 270 people stung by fishes, most obviously the weever fish. My neighbour for example. “Merde”, said he when his foot expanded and he had to head off to Muro General. Well, he is French, so he would say that.

How Can I Resist You?

The re-development of the commercial port in Alcúdia is entering its last phase. The new infrastructure – building, terminal, expanded dock facilities – will open at the end of summer in September, but not completely. The walkways need some more time, and so the whole project will be finished off in the winter. 

 

At a final cost of close to 24 million euros, the port will be capable of accepting much heavier tonnage, thus taking some of the merchant trade from Palma, and of doubling the number of passengers on the Barcelona and Menorca routes. It will have been a major infrastructure investment project that, theoretically, will propel the port to a different level of importance. Also theoretically, it will prove to be a boost to the local economy. The question is – how much of a boost. 

 

There has been talk of the new port becoming a stopping-off point for cruise ships. This, perhaps more than anything, could be highly significant, but it is only a possibility as yet. Despite the impressive commitment to upgrading the infrastructure, one still does have to ask what it is all going to mean. New jobs should be created especially for handling merchant shipping, but otherwise? The recent track record where major projects are concerned is not that encouraging. Go and take a look at the industrial estate in Alcúdia for instance. Not that there’s anything to see. Other local estates, Pollensa and Can Picafort, are hardly full to overflowing with units.

 

 

Still on matters maritime, there is a somewhat alarming application of tax on non-Spanish boat owners. I admit that it is confusing. It was explained to me at some length yesterday. It all revolves around length of boat (15 metres or more or less), charter or non-charter, exemption licence previously granted or not. This is too tricky an area except for those steeped in the industry, but I am told it has a political dimension and is also indicative of how laws in Spain tend to be passed, forgotten about and then returned to with some vigour. And that vigour involves some swingeing demands directed, or so it would seem, against a sector that might be able to improve the size of flagging governmental coffers. I recommend following it all on the website of “The Islander” – http://www.theislander.net.

 

 

The musical has become the almost default summer entertainment mode. Around the hotels it is possible to stumble across the likes of Hairspray and Mamma Mia. The auditorium in Alcúdia tomorrow takes this one stage further – a two-hour spectacular described as “a journey through the magic of Broadway”. I confess that I don’t quite get it with musicals, despite a past influenced by the older musicals of Oklahoma, West Side Story etc.; the influence largely manifested itself in the form of drunken student evenings and their related singing (so-called). It is something of a mystery that the musical has made such a strong comeback, but come back it has to reinvigorate not only Broadway and the West End but also to give employment to troupes of entertainers at the auditorium and in the tourist resorts. 

 

How can I resist you? Hmm, well actually I can. But then I’m not everyone.