Mallorca Weather And Sea Temperature By Month

Two numbers do most of the work when a catamaran booking month is being chosen: the temperature of the water at the swim stop, and the hour the sun goes down. Air temperature gets the attention, but a four-hour sail lives or dies on whether people actually get in the sea, and a sunset option depends on how late the light holds.

This guide lays out the verified averages for both, month by month, anchored to the ports the listings covered here actually depart from: Palma, Port d'Alcudia, Port de Pollenca and Cala Ratjada. One limit up front, stated plainly: this page covers sea temperature and sunset times only. Rainfall and wind are not covered here, and weather can cancel trips, and the cancellation terms are on the live listing.

What Is The Average Sea Temperature Near Palma Each Month?

Average sea temperature near Palma spans 13.9 degrees C in February to 26.0 degrees C in August, a swing of more than 12 degrees across the year. June at 22.5 and September at 25.1 sit inside the genuinely warm window, while May at 18.9 is borderline and January at 14.4 is cold for anything but a quick plunge. These are monthly averages, not daily readings, so any day can run above or below them.

The figures come from monthly averages recorded near Palma, and they hold reasonably well for the south and west of the island where most of the catamaran listings depart. The bays are shallow and warm quickly in high summer; that is exactly why Cala Vella and the Bay of Palma swim stops feel so different in August compared with May.

A practical reading of the table: most swimmers are happy in the water without a wetsuit from late June through early October, tolerable in May and October, and bracing outside that. Nobody on this page can promise a calm day or a warm current on your date; averages describe the month, not the morning. The table below is the reference for everything that follows.

The pattern matters more than any single cell. Water temperature lags the air by several weeks, which is why September often feels like the better-kept secret: the sea is nearly at its August peak while the daylight is still long enough for a full afternoon sail with a swim stop and a late return.

When Does The Sun Set In Palma Through The Year?

Sunset in Palma on the 15th of the month moves from 5:26 pm in December to 9:18 pm in June, a difference of nearly four hours of evening light. A 4.5-hour afternoon sail that ends in daylight in July finishes in full darkness in November, so the same listing is effectively a different product depending on the month.

For the listings with a sunset option, this table is the planning tool. The 4-hour sunset version of the Mallorca: Catamaran Luxury Tour with Meal and DJ, from $61.62 per person, departs late enough in June or July that dinner on board happens in golden light; book the same option in late October and the sun is down well before the boat returns. Sail times shift with the season, so check the departure hour on the live listing for your date rather than assuming the summer timetable.

There is a second, quieter effect. Palma's Paseo Maritimo, where several departure piers sit, was redeveloped into a 3.5 km waterfront with substantially more pedestrian and green space and won a national sustainable construction prize. Arriving an hour before a winter departure, when sunset is near 5:30 pm, now means a genuinely pleasant walk rather than a traffic-sided wait.

The two sails above cover the main weather-driven choices. The Blue Circle deluxe catamaran, from $85.15 per person, keeps things comfortable with snacks, a drink, SUP and snorkeling over four hours. The Swim and Snorkel cruise, from $44.82 per person for 2 to 4 hours, is the volume option at up to 100 guests, with snorkel equipment included. Two further Sail Palma small-group tapas trips, from $112.68 and from $110.92 per person, cap passenger numbers at 12 and include tapas and a welcome drink. That small-group format makes a swim stop genuinely flexible: more time in the water when it is warm, more time on the tapas and the coastline when it is not.

Which Months Give You Both Warm Water And Long Daylight?

Only July and August combine a sea average at or above 24.8 degrees C with sunset after 8:30 pm, and June and September come close on one side each: June has 22.5 degrees C water with a 9:18 pm sunset, September has 25.1 degrees C water with a 7:58 pm sunset. October flips the trade: water still averages 22.7 degrees C but sunset drops to 7:10 pm by mid-month.

Read that as four distinct booking profiles. If the swim stop is the point, any month from June through September works, with August the safest bet on water alone. If the sunset sail is the point, May through August gives you the late light, and June tops the table. If you want both at once without the August peak, early September is the overlap: the sea is a fraction off its maximum and sunset still sits near 8 pm at the start of the month.

Outside that core, the trips reframe themselves. A spring or late-autumn catamaran run from Port d'Alcudia, such as the Mallorca Catamaran Cruise with Scenic Views and BBQ Lunch from $85 per person, is a coastline-and-lunch outing: the five-hour run to Es Coll Baix beach and Cala Murta, passing Aucanada Beach and the Formentor peninsula, is the product, and the swim stop becomes optional, something you take if the day allows rather than the point of the trip. The listing includes a BBQ lunch or dinner and two drinks, so the onboard half of the day carries real weight when the water is cool; the food and the deck time together do much of the work a swim stop would normally do in high summer. If that onboard-heavy tradeoff gives you pause, the guide to the real downsides of catamaran tours covers what else to weigh before you book.

Because the Palma: Catamaran Cruise with Swimming and Snorkelling lists snorkel equipment, a swim stop and a BBQ option, it is the listing that bends furthest across the seasons: a full swim-and-snorkel day in August, a coastal sightseeing run with a warm meal in April. Its 2 to 4 hour duration range also means there is a shorter variant when daylight is short.

How Do The Different Departure Ports Compare For Season Planning?

All the sea temperature and sunset figures on this page are anchored to Palma, and the three other departure ports, Port d'Alcudia, Port de Pollenca and Cala Ratjada, sit within a small margin of them because they share the same sea. The real seasonal difference between ports is not water temperature, it is which listings exist there and what their schedules do with the daylight available.

The listings covered here depart from Palma, Port d'Alcudia, Port de Pollenca and Cala Ratjada; there is no catamaran listing on this site from Port de Soller, Cala d'Or, Santa Ponsa, Magaluf, Cala Millor or Peguera, so no price or departure from those ports is quoted anywhere on this page. That matters for planning: if your hotel sits near one of the unlisted resorts, the practical option is travelling to a covered departure point rather than waiting for a tour that does not exist. In the north, the Half-Day Visit to Formentor Beach by Catamaran from $45.55 per person is a beach-visit trip with a swim stop listed and no meal stated, and at up to 300 guests it is a different animal from a 12-guest tapas sail. In the east, the Day Catamaran Trip to Cap des Freus and Llevant Natural Park from Cala Ratjada, $113 per person with a traditional Mallorcan lunch and a 4.6 rating from 16 reviews, is the island's only listing here on that coast. Everything else covered here is indexed on Mallorca Katamaran Tours.

One marine rule shapes the whole bay regardless of month: anchoring on Posidonia seagrass meadows is banned in the Balearic Islands under Decret 25/2018, and authorised buoy systems are the legal alternative. Balearic rules prohibit anchoring over Posidonia meadows. Authorised buoys and mooring fields, or sand patches, are the permitted alternative to dropping anchor in any pretty cove.

When Is Snorkeling Actually Pleasant Off Mallorca?

Snorkeling is comfortable from roughly June through early October, when the average sea temperature sits at or above 22 degrees C, and most pleasant in August at 26.0 degrees C. Before June, a 15.9-degree April average makes snorkeling a short, cold proposition without a wetsuit, and the listings that include snorkel gear are the ones to check for what else they offer in cooler months.

Gear matters less than the water. The Palma: Catamaran Cruise with Swimming and Snorkelling includes snorkel equipment and life vests; the Deluxe Catamaran with Snacks, Drink, SUP & Snorkeling from $85.15 per person adds paddleboards and a welcome cava or juice; the Mallorca: Premium Catamaran Day or Sunset Trip lends snorkel gear against a EUR 10 deposit. The luxury DJ tour sells snorkel equipment onboard for EUR 20, which is worth knowing before a hot August day when every guest on the boat wants a mask.

A note on what is in the water: Posidonia meadows are visible in snorkeling contexts and are part of what makes the swimming stops around Cala Vella notable. Swimmer safety zones keep boats under 3 knots within 200 m of beaches and 50 m of the coast, which is why the boat positions itself outside the marked area and guests swim in from there.

The Alcudia cruise pairs a lunch of chicken, sausage, pasta salad and fruit, drinks included, from $82 per person over five hours, stopping at Platja Des Coll Baix and Playa del Puerto de Pollensa. In warm months it is a full water-sports afternoon; in May or October it leans on the meal and the coastline.

What Should You Know About Wildlife And The Sea In Each Season?

Spanish law keeps boats at least 60 m from cetaceans under Real Decreto 1727/2007, and passengers on boat trips off Mallorca's south-west report bottlenose dolphins in 2026, though no catamaran listing on this site departs from that coast, so no sailing here is a dolphin trip. Loggerhead turtles nested on a Palma beach in 2025 and 34 hatchlings were released, a sign of a warming, living bay rather than a schedule you can book against.

None of the listings covered here promises a dolphin, turtle or seahorse sighting, and this page will not either. What the seasonal numbers do support: warm months mean active snorkel stops over seagrass and rocky shallows, cool months mean a sailing-and-lunch format with the water as scenery. The legal buffer around cetaceans, set out in Real Decreto 1727/2007, defines an exclusion zone to 60 m and restricted zones out to 500 m, which is why a catamaran never chases a sighting even when one appears.

For choosing between formats at different times of year, the site's comparison of half-day versus full-day boat tours works through the daylight arithmetic this page's sunset table implies, and the guide to the best time for a catamaran tour takes the season question further than sea temperature alone.

How Do You Match A Tour Type To Your Travel Month?

Match the format to the water: full swim-and-snorkel and sunset sails belong in the June-to-September window, while the lunch-and-coastline cruises and small-group tapas sails with flexible swim time carry the shoulder months well. A private charter at four hours, from $1,389.36 per group for up to 12 guests on the solar-powered option, works in any month because the boat and the day are yours to shape.

The small-group tapas category runs from $110.92 to $125 per person across its three listings, all from Palma, all around four hours, all capped at 10 to 12 guests. That format is the most weather-adaptive on the site: freshly made tapas, a welcome drink, SUP boards and snorkels on board, and a skipper who can weight the afternoon toward swimming or toward the coastline depending on what the month allows. In cooler months, when sea temperatures make long swims less appealing, the freshly made tapas and the coastline carry more of the experience, while in summer the swim stops and paddle boards take over. It is also the category where the Palma tapas luxury tour, 4.9 from 2,107 reviews at from $112.68 per person, sits alongside its sibling From Palma sail at 4.7 from 527 reviews, and the two are separate products from the same marina rather than variants of one trip.

The site's most reviewed listing, 4.5 from 3,654 reviews, from $61.62 per person, runs five hours in the morning or four at sunset with a gourmet buffet, vegetarian and vegan options, an onboard DJ and one swimming stop at Cala Vella. In August that swim stop is the headline; in April the buffet and the Bay of Palma scenery are.

Planning the wider trip around the sail, the site's Mallorca weather and season planning coverage and the practical rundown of what to bring on a catamaran tour cover the two questions this page's tables raise next: which month, and what to pack for the water temperature you find. Weather can cancel trips, and the cancellation terms are on the live listing.

Common Questions About Mallorca Weather By Month