Navigation to Tabarca Island
Until today, the Escargot had only been out to sea for trial navigations near the port of Alicante. This morning, we set sail for Tabarca, a small …
We spent the last six weeks with the Escargot on the water at the Varadero STA marina in south Alicante. We used this time to validate the performance of our propulsion and solar energy generation, to practice docking our large vessel in various conditions, and to squeeze in a few a leasure trips too!
Unfortunately, we couldn’t sail as much as we planned. COVID-19 has been active again in our area, and we’ve all got sick at some points of this past few weeks.
Our Navigation Data
| Date | Distance | Speed | Duration | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-10-28 | 4.5 nm | 4.5 kts | 1.0 h | Sea trial in the bay of Alicante |
| 2022-11-03 | 20.3 nm | 5.5 kts | 3.7 h | Navigation to the island of Tabarca, anchoring and back |
| 2022-11-08 | 1.0 nm | N/A | 1.0 h | Docking practice in the fishing port of Alicante |
| 2022-11-09 | 1.0 nm | N/A | 1.0 h | Docking practice in the fishing port of Alicante |
| 2022-11-13 | 1.0 nm | N/A | 1.0 h | Docking practice in the fishing port of Alicante with light wind |
| 2022-11-18 | 1.0 nm | N/A | 1.0 h | Docking practice in the fishing port of Alicante with some wind |
| 2022-11-24 | 14.8 nm | 4.9 kts | 3.0 h | Navigation to San Juan Playa, anchoring and back on Thanksgiving day |
| 2022-11-25 | 1.0 nm | N/A | 1.0 h | Docking practice in the fishing port of Alicante |
| 2022-12-05 | 13.7 nm | 4.5 kts | 3.0 h | Navigation to Cabo de l’Horta and back |
| 2022-12-07 | 3.0 nm | 4.6 kts | 0.7 h | First navigation without our sea trial captain in the bay of Alicante |
| 2022-12-09 | 1.0 nm | N/A | 1.0 h | Docking practice in the fishing port of Alicante |
| 2022-12-12 | 0.25 nm | 2.0 kts | 0.1 h | Move from our mooring to the travelift pool with our training captain supervising |
Total distance: 62.6 nm
Navigation Maps
Here is a visualization of our routes based on our AIS data recorded by VesselFinder.
For details on other navigations this season, check out our previous posts: (Second Sea Trial) and (Navigation to Tabarca Island).
Photo Log
We spent several hours training with our instructor, Alex, in the fishing harbor of Alicante, right next to our mooring at Varadero STA. This regular practice helped us gain confidence in handling such a large vessel. Prior to the Escargot project, we only had handled much smaller boats.
Below, we are returning from our Thanksgiving navigation, arriving near the entrance of Varadero STA.
We also snapped a few pictures during our December 5th trip to Cabo de l’Horta. We had family onboard for this trip, even though we were all just recovering from COVID-19!
Then on December 7th, we navigated for the first time without our sea trial and training captain. This was a short navigation in the south bay of Alicante, with some family and BigBoy too this time. The forward deck is one of the best place to chill out, as it is so quiet and beautiful to only see the sea in front of us.
