Short jaunt to Cap de la Heurtas
Our plan for the final stage of our journey to Javea was to head on up the coast to Cap de la Heurtas which is just past Alicante and would take us between 3 to 4 hours. We would anchor there for the night and do a full days sail on Tuesday and Wednesday, aiming to be at Javea Wednesday evening giving us plenty of time to meet Claire and Glen on Thursday.
So, with plan set we slipped our lines at Santa Pola, filled up with fuel and headed towards Isla Tabarca for a quick nose at the coastline of the island. The island is very unassuming, with under 100 inhabitants on the island but is extremely busy with ferries taking tourists backwards and forwards.
What makes it so special is it is a protected marine reserve and has been declared a zone of special protection for birds, the first of it’s kind in Spain. This was granted mainly due to the posidian prairie that surrounds the island, which has an extraordinary ecological value in terms of marine fauna and flora. Hence very specific areas for anchoring and very hefty fines if you anchor outside of these areas. And ignorance is not an excuse!
As we got closer to the island we could see why it was so special, but unfortunately didn't have time to explore too much as we needed to get going to arrive at our anchorage at a decent time.
We headed north and set a course to Cap de la Heurtas. The wind was not with us (again!), so we were under engine although Mark raised the foresail for extra drive so we could cut back the engine a bit.
We arrived at Cap de la Heurtas and spent about 30 minutes looking for a decent spot to drop anchor and at 19:00 dropped the anchor just off the beach.
No comments:
Post a Comment