The trip to Alicante was again one with the wind on the nose and lots of motoring otherwise fairly uneventful until we reached Cabo de Palos just before Alicante at about 0100 in the morning, when I was on the wheel and felt there was something behind us, it turned out that the Guarda Civil were shadowing us in a rib with no lights on. Eventually they came alongside and boarded us to check out what we were up to. The trainee officer who came on twisted his ankle in the cockpit and hobbled around the boat checking lockers, before leaving us to carry on. I am sure they got bored with us not being able to talk Spanish. We assume that smuggling from North Africa is what they were checking for.

We arrived in Alicante and spent a whole day cleaning all the salt off the boat from the journey ready for the additional crew of Penny, Amy and Holly Clark to join us.

Alicante turned out to a lot more pleasant than we expected, giving us the chance to get a replacement Fender after someone permanently borrowed one in Aguadulce and trying to replenish the one of the gas bottles

Bill