Papi, Friederike and I arrived in Alicante on Thursday. The boat was in fine shape albeit under a brown veil of dust. Three hours of work got rid of that the next day - now she looks like new again.

A fine 15-20kn Westerly and brilliant sunshine greeted us yesterday and we took advantage of it sailing the 30 miles up to Calpe. We noticed one change from January apart from the short sleeves: There are now other sailboats around in the Med - we were not alone. We also could see that Long Island Sound is not such a unique place to sail. In the afternoon we were fighting what in LIS would be the "North/Southerly." The seabreeze fighting the Westerly wind - result: engine on.

One "attraction" of the trip up here apart from the perfect sailing conditions was the sight of Benidorm (see picture). A mini New York City set in steep mountains on the ocean. This is what they mean by "overbuilding".

Here im Calpe we are moored underneath a spectacular rock that rises vertically from the harbor for some 500 meters. There is some way to hike up - unclear that we will take advantage of that opportunity ...