Alicante

The second night on the anchor on mainland was rolly, but not extremely. We decided to wait to see the bays around Alicante before we decide wether to go on anchor or in the marina.

While leaving our anchorage i had to made some pictures to document this incredible view - i mean incredibly ugly of course. To prove my point ....

Not that there aren't any quite beautiful parts of coast - there are great cliffs .....

... even waterfalls .....

... and just around the corner - there it is again - the brilliant spanish architecture. If you enlarge the photo, you could see how tall those buildings really are.

Sailing to Alicante was not very comfortable, there were big roller waves coming from east, so i was pushing to go directly to marina. Tomaz wanted to see the only bay suitable for anchoring 3 miles before Alicante first, so we made a quick stop there. I used some gentle persuasion (like threatening with divorce) to made my point that bay was to open to the waves and so we headed on to the marina - Real Club de Regatas in Alicante. 

We stayed there for three nights and it was very nice. The club is real club with big room where gentlemen smoke cigars and drink gin&tonic, with all the trophies from club members on the wall. There is a big storage room for rowing boats, smaller sailboats and stuff in the club building on the ground floor. It has nice atmosphere and not least important - it is much cheaper than Marina Alicante, that is located in same bay only to the opposite side.

The most prominent sightseeing point in Alicante is Castillo de Santa Barbara, sitting on top of a hill in the middle of the town. We went up of course, but we cheated - we took the elevator. But we then walk quite long through the town - to get used to firm ground under our feet again.

There is a nice view from the castle. The Real Club is the smaller marina on the right side, and i'm sure by now you can tell which boat is ours.

After arrival of the third crew member and then stocking up the boat supplies, this morning we started next leg of our journey to Gibraltar. Today we had a great sailing day with not much waves and right amount of wind in right direction, sailing around 7 knots of speed in the afternoon. We are crossing our fingers that it stays like this over next few days. We are planing to reach Gibraltar in 6 days. It means quite a lot if sailing every day and even one night, but it is not to aggressive, so there will be time for eating and sleeping also - every day :-)