Thursday we had one of our longest passages of the week, 40 miles from Cartagena to Torrevieja. Daren was up bright and early (despite today being the official rest day drom his abs challenge) to source essential supplies via some creative sign language.
We left our difficult overnight berth via some precisely perfect pivoting around our port periphery, and set off on our route in light airs. Due to lack of breeze we were forced to motor for the first half of the passage, until Lesley threw a tactical tantrum and we elected to raise canvas. While progress was slow, the direction and strength were just enough to complete the rest of the passage under sail.
In addition to rounding a point littered with shipwrecks, our route took us past Mar Manor, a vast inland lagoon separated from the sea by a 12 mile sand bar packed with hotels and holiday properties. As we progressed, the relatively empty and mountainous coast that had been standard across most of the south gradually gave way to a smoother landscape and an almost constant chain of civilisation and tourism along the coastline.
Lunch consisted of a fantastic gourmet salad so satisfying that most of the crew immediately felt the need for a siesta, and remained so for most of the remaining leg. As the breeze died towards the end of the trip, everyone resurfaced for some intense man overboard practice (fortunately not involving a real man overboard) which proved to be so authentic we accidentally triggered our man overboard alarm and spent some time trying to find out how to turn it off again! To top off the experience, we even landed our first tuna of the week! Take that Colin!
We found a berth at Torrevieja yacht club which proved to be fantastic - very classy facilities including a pool, and agreed among the crew to be our best location so far. We found a great fish restaurant called El Pescadore which easily took the top spot of this week's eateries and is highly recommended for anyone else coming this way!
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