In crisis to Alicante, 10-12 October 2022

With time pressure increasing as Pieter needs to be in Ibiza on 14 October for flying back to his family, we decided to sail at night the 63 nautical miles from Cartagena to Alicante. The plan was doing it during the day, but because of the problems with the gasoil filters, we got delayed until late in the afternoon. The forecast was for winds 8m/s (16 knots) with gusts up to 12m/s (24 knots). In such conditions, 12 hours would be sufficient to comfortably cover the ride.

North of Cartagena

As night was falling, the weather became threatening and we could see lightnings on the horizon...

The picture below is an extract of the Navionics nautical charts, at the Palos cape separating the Cartagena bay (Costa Cálida) from Alicante Bay (Costa Blanca). The Cape is a natural reserve with lots of rocks and buoys. As a protected area, there are restrictions in place but we were planning to go though it to reduce the distance. Luckily, we changed our mind and decided to get around given the threatening "atmosphere". This proved to be wise...

The pink line on the chart below is our track. We were going up towards North-East. The track is smooth in the initial part, with the change of direction to avoid crossing the Cape area in the restricted zone. The wind was coming from the east initially. Then, the wind disappeared suddenly, just to reappear a minute later from the north-west, at 14m/s (28 knots), accompanied by rain so thick that we could not see through. As Brits would say, it was raining cats and dogs. Besides, we were surrounded by lightning immediately accompanied by thunder, right above us and so impressive when experienced in surround sound. We managed to furl the genoa, but did not have the luxury to take a reef or two given the area we were close to. 

With the center board up and the main sail still fully up, we were surfing blindly through these waters, the eyes close to the chart plotter screen, trying to see something through spectacles washed by rain, in order to maintain an appropriate direction.

The break in the line correspond to furling the genoa. Then the track start moving sideways continuously, representing our attempts to remain in control of the boat. Part of the reasons for the difficulties in controlling the boat was to still have the full main sail and no front sail, resulting in the boat being "pushed" from the back with a high potential for swerving. Besides, we pulled-up the centre board, which contribute further to the boat veering out of control at full speed. It lasted over an hour, and will remain one of the toughest highlights of my maritime adventures...

We finally arrived fine very early morning and anchored outside of the Alicante commercial harbour. But the day was not over as the two marinas in Alicante were full and we had to search for a shipyard willing to accommodate us for 24 hours. Which we found!

The approach to Alicante

We did not invest much time to explore Alicante.