Mallorca Sunset Time By Month, For Planning An Evening Sail

The evening light on Mallorca moves almost four hours across the year, and that single fact reshapes every sunset sail plan. A June departure leaves the pier in broad afternoon glare, while a December one begins in what feels like late afternoon, with the sun already low over the Bay of Palma. This guide lays out the verified sunset times for Palma month by month, then works through what each window means for choosing a departure, a swim stop and a route. Since many sunset trips run on shared catamarans, it helps to read up on the downsides of catamaran tours in Mallorca before you pick your departure.

The numbers here are calculated for Palma itself, on the 15th of each month, in local Mallorca time. They hold closely for the whole island: Port d'Alcudia, Port de Pollenca and Cala Ratjada all sit within about half a degree of latitude of Palma, so the difference in clock time is a minute or two at most. Use the table as a planning instrument, not a promise, since haze and cloud change how the light actually reads on the water. If you also want to know how warm the sea will be when you drop anchor, the month by month guide to Mallorca's weather and sea temperatures covers that side of the planning.

What Time Does The Sun Set In Palma Each Month?

In Palma the sun sets at 5:49 pm on 15 January, moves later steadily through spring, peaks at 9:18 pm on 15 June, then slides back to 5:26 pm by 15 December. The total swing across the year is close to four hours of clock time, and the steepest changes come in the shoulder months of March, April, September and October, when sunset shifts by roughly one and a half to two minutes a day.

The table below gives both sunrise and sunset for the 15th of each month. The mid-month date is a reasonable snapshot, but remember that in spring and autumn the daily drift is fast enough that a date two weeks away can differ by twenty minutes or more. If a precise arrival time matters for your evening, check the exact date rather than the month average.

Two patterns worth noticing. First, June and July sit nearly flat at the top: 9:18 pm and 9:16 pm, so the late-light season is wide even if the exact peak lasts a few weeks. Second, autumn runs ahead of spring by an hour or so: mid-September sets at 7:58 pm while mid-March sets at 6:56 pm. The sea leans the same way, averaging about 13.9°C in March against 24.7°C in September. September therefore gives warm water and a long evening at once, which is why many sailors treat it as the comfortable month.

Which Evening Catamaran Sail Matches The Sunset Time?

The right evening sail depends on how much golden hour you want on the water: in summer, a 4 to 5 hour trip leaving in the late afternoon catches the 9:18 pm sunset at sea, while from November to February a sunset departure leaves mid-afternoon and returns before dinner. The listings covered here offer day and sunset options rather than fixed timetables, so match the listed duration to the month's sunset, not to a printed departure hour.

No departure times are stated on the listings covered here, and none should be invented: what is firm is each trip's total duration, from 2 hours on the shortest Palma option up to 5 hours on the longest. Work backwards from sunset. In June, a 4-hour trip that wants to be at sea for the 9:18 pm sunset leaves around 5:15 pm and is back at the pier by 9:15 pm, right as the sun goes down. In December the same 4-hour trip that includes the 5:26 pm sunset leaves around 1:30 pm and is back at the pier by dark, well before most Mallorca restaurants open.

The small group tapas category suits this planning especially well, because the boats are small and the experience is built around food and drink rather than a fixed schedule. The Sailpalma tapas sail from La Lonja Marina Charter, from $110.92 per person with a 4.7 rating from 527 reviews, is a strong pick for a relaxed afternoon on the water, and you can check availability alongside the small group tapas sail overview. The wider comparison of formats, from shared party-adjacent sails to private charters, is in the guide to sunset catamaran options.

A worked comparison helps. The table below pairs three distinct evening-capable formats with their listed duration and from-price basis, so you can slide each one against the month's sunset yourself.

The most reviewed listing on this site is the Catamaran Luxury Tour with Meal and DJ at 4.5 from 3,654 reviews, and its sunset option is explicitly 4 hours. Against a June sunset of 9:18 pm that reads as a roughly 5:15 pm departure with the DJ set carrying the last of the light, while in October, with a 7:10 pm sunset, the same 4-hour window leaves around 3:15 pm and still catches the golden hour.

How Do You Plan A Departure Around The Sunset Window?

Count backwards from the sunset time, not forwards from the departure: decide how long you want to be on the water after the sun goes down, subtract that from the sunset hour, then subtract the trip's listed duration to find the departure window. In practice this means summer trips leave in what feels like full afternoon, and winter sunset trips leave close to lunchtime, which surprises visitors every year.

There is a second, quieter factor: the light before sunset is long in Mallorca, so the hour before the sun touches the sea is often the finest of the whole trip. A swim stop in that light, with the water still holding the day's warmth, is the moment most evening sailors remember. In August the average sea temperature near Palma is 26.0 degrees C, the warmest of the year, so an 8 pm swim stop in that month is a genuinely warm one.

The pier itself is part of the evening. Several Palma departures, including the Golondrinas pier trips, leave from the Paseo Maritimo waterfront, which has just completed a 3.5 km redevelopment with more than 1,800 new trees and about 70 percent more pedestrian and green space, and which won a national sustainable construction prize in October 2026. Arriving early turns a departure into a waterfront walk. For the wider question of when in the year to sail at all, the month by month planning guide breaks down sea temperature against crowd-free calendars.

One more planning note on timing honesty: sunset times are astronomical facts, but a visible sunset is a weather outcome. Haze, cloud and the Tramuntana mountains to the north-west of Palma can cut the visual sunset short. Weather can cancel trips, and the cancellation terms are on the live listing. None of that changes the clock times in the table; it only changes what the evening looks like on the water.

Why Is June The Latest Sunset And December The Earliest?

Palma's sunset spans 9:18 pm on 15 June down to 5:26 pm on 15 December, a spread of nearly four hours, because Mallorca sits at a mid northern latitude where summer days stretch and winter days contract sharply. The extremes do not fall on the solstice itself: 15 June is actually later than 15 July, 9:18 pm against 9:16 pm, a small asymmetry of the calendar and the clock.

The asymmetry is worth knowing for planners. Late June gives the longest light, but the difference from early July is minutes, not hours, and July holds a 9:16 pm sunset with warmer average sea, 24.8 degrees C against June's 22.5. Anyone chasing the absolute latest evening should aim mid-June to early July; anyone wanting warm water plus late light has a wide window from late June through mid-August. The wider set of guides lives on Mallorca Katamaran Tours.

At the other end, December's 5:26 pm sunset means an evening sail is really a late-afternoon sail, and by mid-November, at a 5:34 pm sunset, the same applies. The average sea temperature tells the rest of the story: 16.3 degrees C in December against 19.7 in November and 22.7 in October. A sunset sail with a swim stop is comfortable through September and plausible in October; by December it is a light-and-coats trip, which has its own appeal on a small boat with tapas and a welcome drink.

For a trip that keeps the evening feel even in the warmer planning months, the Deluxe Catamaran with Snacks, Drink, SUP & Snorkeling runs about 4 hours from the Muelle de Golondrinas near the Auditorium, from $85.15 per person, 4.6 from 1,085 reviews, with a welcome cava or juice and paddleboards on board.

Do Sunset Times Differ At Port D'Alcudia, Port De Pollenca Or Cala Ratjada?

No, not meaningfully: all three north and east coast ports sit within a degree of Palma's latitude, so their sunset times differ by a minute or two at most, and the Palma table serves the whole island. What does differ is the view. From the north coast the sun drops behind north-western headlands, while Palma Bay sailings watch it sink toward the open sea to the south-west.

The listings covered here depart from Palma, Port d'Alcudia, Port de Pollenca and Cala Ratjada, and that geography is the real variable. The Alcudia cruises, such as the Mallorca Catamaran Cruise with Scenic Views and BBQ Lunch from $85 per person, 4.1 from 130 reviews, list the Aucanada lighthouse, Es Coll Baix beach, the Bay of Pollensa and the Formentor Peninsula among their stops, so the evening light there falls across a coastline rather than open sea. The full north coast picture, with both Alcudia departure piers, is in the Alcudia catamaran guide.

On the east coast, the Day Catamaran Trip to Cap des Freus and Llevant Natural Park departs Cala Ratjada from $113 per person, 4.6 from 16 reviews, with a traditional Mallorcan lunch and drinks. East coast sailing faces the sunrise rather than the sunset, which makes it more of a daytime proposition, though the run back along Capdepera and Cala Agulla picks up the western light over the hills. The listing doesn't state departure times, so check the live booking page before planning the evening. Read the 4-hour duration against any month's table: October's sunset sits near 7:20 pm, leaving plenty of margin for an afternoon finish.

How Does Sea Temperature Change An Evening Swim Stop?

The average sea temperature near Palma runs from 13.9 degrees C in February to 26.0 degrees C in August, which means a comfortable evening swim is really a May to October story, with the best pairing of warm water and late light in August and September. In deep winter the swim stop exists on the itinerary but most guests stay dry, and the evening sail becomes a coat-and-drinks trip instead.

These are monthly averages, not daily readings, and the sea holds its heat into autumn: September's average of 25.1 degrees C is barely below August's peak, while the air and light already feel like autumn. That mismatch is the quiet argument for a September sunset sail, warm water under an early-evening sky with a 7:58 pm sunset.

Which listings actually give you that swim stop is a listing-by-listing question. The Palma Catamaran Cruise with Swimming and Snorkelling, from $44.82 per person, includes a swim stop and snorkelling equipment, though hotel pickup and drop-off are not included. The Sa Calma Boats Premium Catamaran Day or Sunset Trip, from $95.24 per person, 4.4 from 522 reviews, sails to the Cala Vella marine reserve area with a 1.5-hour stop for swimming, which in August is a long, warm dip before dinner.

What Should You Know About Wildlife And Anchoring On An Evening Sail?

Whatever the hour, two rules shape what a trip may do: boats in Spain must keep at least 60 metres from cetaceans under national protection rules, and anchoring on Posidonia seagrass meadows is banned in the Balearics, with authorised buoys as the legal alternative. Passengers do report bottlenose dolphins off the south-west, around the Santa Ponsa and Paguera routes, though none of the trips listed here depart from those waters and no operator can promise a sighting.

The 60-metre figure comes from Spain's Real Decreto 1727/2007, which sets a mobile protection cylinder of 500 m radius around any cetacean or group, with an exclusion zone to 60 m, a restricted-permanence zone from 60 m to 300 m and an approach zone from 300 m to 500 m, as published on the official state bulletin. In practice the skipper handles all of this; for you it means the boat slows, holds distance, and the sighting is on the dolphins' terms.

The seagrass rule matters for the swim stop itself. Posidonia meadows, the dark green patches you see under clear water, are protected by Balearic Decree 25/2018, and the ban was reinforced nationally by Real Decreto 191/2026; the Balearic official bulletin carries the original decree. Authorised mooring buoys are the legal alternative, which is why many swim stops tie off rather than anchor. Seeing Posidonia from the surface while snorkelling is one of the quiet pleasures of a Cala Vella stop, and it is entirely legal: the ban is on anchoring, not on looking.

For the wider question of what a sunset trip costs across formats and group sizes, the boat tour price guide compares per-person sails against per-group charters, a distinction worth holding onto: shared sails are priced per person, private charters for the whole boat, and the two are never directly comparable as cheaper or dearer.

The evening light is the reason people book these trips, and the clock does the rest. A good last option for a longer evening format: the Magic Catamarans 5-hour tour from Palma, from $67.15 per person, rated 4.4 from 127 reviews. Barbecue lunch or dinner is included, with sodas, water, juice and coffee available for the whole trip and wine or sangria served with the meal.

However the month falls, the planning arithmetic is the same: take the sunset time from the table, decide how much golden hour you want on the water, and match the trip's listed duration to it. The listings covered here vary from 2 to 5 and a half hours, and every one of them fits some month's window better than another's. Start with the clock, then pick the boat.

Common Questions About Mallorca Sunset Times