We walked up to Torre de Santa Elena on the headland of the bay. It’s a hexagonal watchtower constructed in the 16th Century as part of a range of defences for Cartagena and the surrounding coastline. The threat came from the Barbary pirates from N Africa who regularly ravaged the towns along this coast, looting and taking the locals away to be sold as slaves. We returned down from the tower and walked back along the coast to the one and only shop in town for resupply of drinks!

Stopping at the beach bar adjacent to the dock, we had a few drinks, ordered some lunch and enjoyed the view. I have not heard any spoken English here at all although it is obviously a popular spot for Spanish holiday makers.

Back on board Cassini for siesta time and listening to the end of the Lords test match.

No dinner required tonight, hooray! Cheese out of the fridge though; just in case...

Another couple of days here and then we hope to get into the marina at Cartagena on Tuesday so Cassini can be restocked again for the next two weeks with Liz on board for the trip to Barcelona. We can get some washing done, book a taxi to get me to the airport on Friday morning and top up the water and power banks as well as doing the touristy visits to the famous Roman ruins etc.

So far it has proved impossible to get any marina booking of any sort in Barcelona as The Americas Cup sailing competition is in town…. (not quite true, as we were quoted €1300 for 3 nights… well out of our budget!)

This has been a good stop; the water is amazingly clear, plenty of fish to see and also a “wobble” (if that’s not the collective noun, it should be!) of jellyfish today… very pretty to look at but don’t get too close! We also ‘found’ a mask/snorkel combination that had been dropped on the seabed beneath Cassini which Simon recovered and Nigel tried out today. 

Sally

Sally up the tower looking for pirates

Nigel trying out the new ‘apparatus’!