Torrevieja

While we were in Cartagena a pretty strong Westerly storm was coming over. This gave us a couple more days with the WoL while we waited for a better wind window to open up. After three days of very strong winds the weather apps predicted that on Tuesday the 28th, the wind would quiet down a little bit to a 20-25 kts broad wind sail. Bart didn't feel very at ease with the forecast as he anticipated that after so many days of much stronger wind there would be at least one more transition day. However, we had set ourselves a little bit of a deadline because in a little over a week a plane was going to take us to the Netherlands so that we could visit the KvK to set up our very own small business.

So, around 7 am while it was still dark we quietly left marina the Cartagena. We like to leave without any anxious marineros at our own pace. We very soon noticed that Bart had been right. We hadn't even left the the harbor bay yet or the 25+ knots from ahead were coming our way including 2m+ waves. We know that once we turned the corner the wind would come in more favorable, but we were very close to not even going that far. But we sailed on and indeed once we turned the corner it got better. We needed all three reefs but we were doing okay. And a visit from some dolphins always makes our day!

Since we knew we might not have a very comfortable day ahead of us we had multiple options as our final destination. We passed our first one Mar Menor after only a couple of hours and since we were doing well we decided to go for our next option: Torrevieja. The wind started to turn a bit less favorable as we continued on but we managed to get to Torrevieja safely. We were met by a loooooot of kids in their little optimist boats. We think there most have veen somewhere between 50 and 100. It looked like it was some kind of World Cup with of course a lot of Spanish boats, but also kids from Canada, Czech and Singapore. The most impressive part was that they were still sailing in close to 30 knots of wind! They were sailing with one hand and getting the water out of their boat with the other. We said to each other some of these kids will definitely make it to the Olympics in a couple of years.

For us the silence reappeared once we dropped our anchor in the Bay of Torrevieja. Even though the wind was still blowing 25knots and more, we were snug like a bug. At least for the little while that we would stay there...Baca lagi