La Manga

Our first road trip in Spain is to the nearby seaside resort of La Manga for Ronan’s birthday.
La Manga is extraordinary because it is a 22km long sandbank that separates the Mediterranean from a huge saltwater lagoon called the Mar Menor. Colm reliably informs me that ‘La Manga’ is the Spanish for ‘sleeve’ which makes sense because of its long narrow shape.
There are so many high rise holiday apartments built on the sandbank that you often don’t get a sense of its sleeve-like shape as you drive along the length of it. There are building on both sides of the road that block out any view of either the Mediterranean or the Mar Menor for the most part. At the narrowest part of sandbank there are no builds and you the sea is on side of the road and the Lagoon on the other.

We have hired a car to drive up here for the weekend as we have already decided we won’t be bringing Regal into the Mar Menor despite it being a marine reserve with plenty of anchorages and marinas. Sadly over the last number of years there have been consistently high levels of pollution. This August, 5 Tonnes of fish were removed after they had died from the pollution. It is mainly caused by run offs of fertiliser from the surrounding industrial style fruit and veg farming. Even if the pollution stops today the experts think it would take 10 years for the lagoon to recover.
When we get out of the car to look at the Mar Menor there is nothing discernible- it is a big expanse of water and there are kite-surfers out enjoying it’s flat surface in this strong wind. We walk along the beach and there is algae washed up on the shore and the sand is black in parts. It’s sad and there is no sign that the polluting will be stopping any time soon. This area is part of a bigger in area in Spain that is the plastic glass house capitol of Europe - where most the Spanish fruit and vegetables in Irish supermarkets come from. There is miles upon miles of land covered in plastic and we saw it as well further south when we were sailing up the coast .
When we were booking accommodation here we opted for the Mediterranean side of La Manga - so we could look out to sea and for the most part ignore the terrible pollution close by. It was a birthday celebration after all.
We were right by Cabo de Palos and Ronan joins a diving group on Saturday morning for a shore dive within wetsuit walking distance of the apartment. The usual food orientated celebration is expected by the birthday boy on his return so and we go to great lenghts. We can’t get the fancy induction hob working and there’s no kettle so we microwave four portions of scrambled egg and microwave four cups of tea.
We make up for the mediocre lunch later with a lovely dinner in a seaside restaurant.
The highlight of the weekend is on Sunday morning when we walk down to the nearby beach for a snorkel. This is the day we alll finally get the hang of it and there are so many fish to see right off the beach. Ronan says there is more to see here than on his Saturday dive.
On our way back to Cartagena we stop off at a beach so Ruby and Colm can body board - The waves aren’t particularly good but Colm stays in for ages having fun. We have gorgeous Paella in the Chiringuito (beach bar) and head home to Regal.Read more