26^th April   MARINA GREENWICH

38 37.7 N   00 00.3 W

Another mill pond. Good for covering ground smoothly on the engine (doing about 2.6 li/hr at 1650 rpm and 6.5 kts), no good for sailing if you want to get anywhere.

Left Santa Pola at 09.40, and at 15.45 was at the fuel pontoon, which is also the reception berth, so got a fill of diesel. We went past Alicante and Benidorm – Benidorm was incredible, it was like Hong Kong! I can’t believe how many hotel rooms there must be there, or what occupancy rates are….then you go on round the next headland and there is a beautiful bay, with Marina Greenwich at the northern end, and this great lump of rock marking Calpe at the NE point of the bay.

The marina was like something off the telly. We had a sundowner at this bar overlooking a row of jet skis in the turquoise water, looking at stuff written in Russian for the customers. There was a massive superyacht moored alongside the breakwater just along from us (Rubecam)….

Charlotte and Nigel earned their keep whilst berthing, we were squeezed into a really narrow gap between two other boats, an X yacht and a cabin cruiser, and they managed to push/pull us past both. It was a really quiet mooring, we’d have been secure with no lines at all given how tightly we were pressed…

Today covered 41 NM