Wollombi II: Palma to Alicante

10 Dec

We left Palma de Majorca at 0845 as we had to fill up with diesel after using the slave all the way from Calgiari.. The forecast called for 10kts generally from the rear and for 0.5-1 m, for once it proved pretty much accurate.

So we set off to Alicante...

Adieus Palma

Canada and Austria off we go..

Palma de Majorca

After filling her belly, we were off....

With Evelyn and Philipp, we were off to Alicante...

The lighthouse at the southern tip of Palma and next, we motored past Eatpizza and at about 2100, a bright light appeared out of nowhere (nope, I didn't bash my head neither was I getting liquored up)and it just grew in size and the thing carrying the light rumbled closer... It was the Spanish coastguard, they just wanted to know last port of call, destination and persons on board... It was a bit unsettling to get chased by them, guess they could turn on navigation lights or something... Still as there was nothing to see, they scooted back to whence they had been lurking... At about midnight shortly after I had gone to bed, I was awakened by the fouled prop *AGAIN*.. So fortunately the wind was blowing in our general direction, so we put out the full genoa.. At the time I thought it was a bit much as there was a nasty swell coming from the beam so the genoa would collapse and take a big tug on the boat when it re-filled.. Regardless, the crew adjusted course to make up for the bothersome swell.... Later in the day, once we cleared the shipping lanes, and the swell had died down a bit, I went for my swim to retrieve some more plastic from the sea...

I *HATE* plastik!!!

The whole of the summer, I picked up one piece, so far it's 3 out of 4 trips I have managed to find something in the sea..... The diving this time was a bit more adventurous, as I had to time when the swells came past, get under the boat and stay far enough below the boat so I didn't get bonked on the head by the boat(would be a bit of damage to the hull ;-))

Benidorme in the distance

After this was cleared it was just lots of these, nice sunsets and sunrises..... We got to Alicante and decided that we had a nice weather window and the weather so we should push on to Cartagena... We got to Cartegena and similar situation, nice wind, from the beam at 10-15kts so we were off at8-9kts... The next stop was Almeiramar...

Close to Capo de Gata, this hotel, has a larger unusual sign, the hotel itself, hotel Le Cap... The sunset was quite nice, to say the least, by this stage the wind had done it's job and was calling it quits for the night and it was now behind us, with a bit less of the bothersome swell on the beam..

The sunset on the way to Capo de Gata was quite nice (the picture below has not been enhanced in any way, nor were any animals, trees etc harmed in it's making)

We arrived at Almeiramar at aprox 04h00 and tied up along the fuel dock, where we all had a good morning's sleep. I had to be up at 0800 to register at the port.. Turned out it was 0900...