As soon as we left Cartagena, we hoisted the sails. This joy of sailing with the wind lasted for just over five nautical miles. Once again, the almost windless Mediterranean offered us an amazing day at sea powered by the Perkins for the remaining 35 miles to Torrevieja.
About 15 nautical miles before Torrevieja is the Mar Menor lagoon, which we considered as one option for spending a few days at anchor. However, some comments in social media indicated that there are a lot of jellyfish there and also grass straws in the water, which could clog our engine cooling filters. On the other hand, it is a good area for anchoring if the seas outside are rough. Today, the sea was so calm that we weren’t tempted to test our luck in the lagoon. However, many of our friends have spent memorable days at Mar Menor.
Off the coast of Mar Menor is a small island, Isla Grosa. We also circled around it. Its mooring area was really full of smaller boats, so there was no space for us, and we certainly wouldn’t have dared to go for such small moorings with Suwena — so we continued directly to Torrevieja.
There is a large anchorage area inside the harbour of Torrevieja, where we found about twenty boats already anchored upon our arrival. Our time in Torrevieja would be just one night, so we wanted to go into the harbour and take a look at the town itself.
Of the three marinas in Torrevieja, we drove straight to the first one, Marina Salinas. Although its high docks had received some criticism, we thought they wouldn’t be that high, but they really were!
In the Mediterranean, the gangway or passarelle is the bridge that allows you to get from your boat to land. We raised the gangway to the swim platform’s mounts and used a fulley to lift it to the correct height. Since we had only used the passarelle a little, it took us some time to figure out on how to rig it. We added lateral support lines to secure the passarelle so it wouldn’t move sideways. In Torrevieja, I had to climb a very steep slope to reach the dock, as the concrete dock was over a meter higher than our boat’s swim platform. Well, you could always get to the dock, but the downhill trip back to Suwena felt like quite a slide 🙂
The former fishing village has turned into one of Costa Balanca’s most popular holiday towns. You could find a ton of Scandinavian tourists here. Many restaurants had even menus in different Scandinavian languages, and walking down the street, the mix of languages was diverse. We wandered around Torrevieja. Unfortunately, the tours to the famous salt lakes were already fully booked, and we didn’t want to go later. Our time in Torrevieja was limited. Thus, we explored the town on foot, shopped at the long market stall area next to Paseo de la Libertad, attended a Pride concert in the evening, and most importantly, enjoyed an delicious fish meal once again. In the morning, we took a short walk in the center to see Torrevieja’s daytime face. The atmosphere was relaxed and holiday-like both in the evening and during the day. Then it was time for us to head toward Alicante.
