What a busy month; things we'd booked mid COVID actually happened - Malta, along with a much delayed Boys Walking Week and a trip to the boat, AND Dave's 60th Birthday.
We flew out to the boat on 12th September, just time to get sorted before Jen, Kyri, and Becca came to stay with us on the boat. Friends, Kel and Rich, arrived and booked into an AirBnB in Alicante. Jen and Kyri had a mammoth trip from a family wedding in Cypress but arrived in one piece.
Birthday boat trip to try out Dave's present - an inflatable windsurfer on the 15th.
What no champagne for the launch?
All the toys!
And he's off
Carole pulling the sail up.
On the way back
Great sail back, complete with a rousing rendition of "What a bloody good day to go sailing". Carole on the wheel. Pity you can't hear the singing, or maybe not!
A grand day out.
Great glasses
We met up with a load of other boaties at a marina bar to celebrate before heading off for a meal.
After a slow start the next day and a wander around town to sort out antigen tests for the flights back we set off in the boat again, this time for Tabarca.
Not much wind, so we motored across to the island. the little bell was given to me so that someone would bring a beer whenever I rang it - Only worked on my birthday though, must need new batteries.
Becca taking a photo
Kyri and friend
We recreated the photo we took in 2017 with Jen and Becca on Derek the giant yellow duck whilst sailing around Ibiza, they still look like teenagers!
Late night back into Alicante
Sadly, all too soon, everyone had to fly back home leaving us on the boat. But my walking trip was coming soon. We hired a car to make it easier for Carole to play tennis whilst I was away on the walking trip, only for a car to drive to the side of us whilst we were on our way to Quesada - luckily no injuries and not too much damage. A couple of days later I went off to Gandia to meet up with the boys - the weather forecast wasn't good...
First night meal, it started raining when we got to the restaurant
And we came out of the restaurant to this flooding
All I could do was laugh!
The weather improved over the next day or so and we got back up into the mountains, good walking but the paths were a lot less used than other areas we've been to and the vegetation more overgrown and very vicious!
The weather did improve eventually
And we could finally see the views
Cliff edge path
We'd come up from a village near the top right of this photo! Steep!
After crawling through this hole we came out into this open cave, complete with 200m drop!
Amazing cave
More exposed paths
Our final walk was up the peak in the distance.
At the top was a visitors book, which we signed as the Northern Boys Walking Group
Geoff fighting his way through some very scratchy vegetation
You can tell we're getting older though, we used to pick pork pies and butties to take up the mountains - now its salads.
Finally managed to persuade the boys to have a full blown paella, not sure it was appreciated though - back to Italian the next night.
We spotted some great wildlife on the walks, this spider was probably the best though. It was about the size of the palm of a hand.
Whilst I was off walking Carole was playing tennis but I'm not sure just how much tennis was played......
Carole nd Fran in Alicante
In the town of La Marina
Diane's birthday onboard Snoekies
It got messy!
We had a few days of the car hire left when I got back from the walking trip so we drove up into the mountains again to a small town called Xativa. A castle and market town close to a river swimming spot that was mentioned is a book called Wild Swimming Spain - the swimming spot was an excuse really to find a nice hotel in a new area of Spain.
Very chilled on our veranda
View of thew castle
Hotel Mont Sant restaurant
Fabulous gorge with lots of swimming opportunities
Eventually chose this one for a swim
there was an mpressive castle at Xativa as well
Carole sat on the royal "Throne" in the Princess' quarters
On the way back to Alicante we stopped at Denia and walked to the sea caves that I'd visited before by kayak with the walking boys
It was trickier to get there on foot than by sea - this was the path...
The caves are actually man made stone quarries flooded when the sea level rose. Apparently very high quality stone for carving.
Once back in Alicante we had time to stop at anchor for a couple of nights and completely chill out before packing up the boat; it was a great 4 weeks but now it was time for something different - a COVID booked trip to Malta.
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