Alicante (cont'd)

This post is not in sequence but I thought there were a couple of encounters in Alicante worth recording.

Ed and I spent the afternoon of Aug 22 washing salt of the deck and hatches. Skylark was spotless again. Amazing how much salt gets deposited on deck and on the fittings. In the evening, we went in search of the real Alicante, away from the tourist belt along the waterfront. On a side street, we saw a shop with a Malaysian flag and a sign “Malaysia House” It was one of the typical Chinese run shops selling cheap clothing and household stuff that we seem to come across in nearly every Spanish town we’d been in. Up the hill in the old town, we found much outdoor dining on narrow streets favoured by the locals. Certainly no English was spoken by the diners. Our search for gastromic authenticity was rewarded at a little restaurant on a side street – excellent gazpacho and tapas. On the way back to Skylark, we stopped for ice cream and retired for the night satisfied that we’d sampled some of the real Alicante.
With visitor and crew departures on Aug 22, the boat suddenly felt much larger. As we slept through the night, a 50 foot power boat docked alongside us in the narrow space to starboard. He must have been good, we didn’t hear or feel anything, not even the slightest bump.
Another hot and sunny day today, Sunday. Went is search of the supermarket the marina office had told us about. We found it but it was closed. Stopped for coffee where another customer told us of a mini-market by the train station five minutes away. It turned pout to be a small convenience store, not much good for our purposes. On the way down the hill, Ed was propositioned by two fat hookers (11 am on Sunday morning!). He politely refused their offers and walked quickly away.
Back at the boat, a young woman stopped by and introduced herself as Barbara from the Amel rep’s office in Alicante. She had been advised of the rudder post problem by Amel at La Rochelle. We told her we had solved the problem was since finding a wrench large enough to do the job. She did give us directions to a grocery store that was open on Sundays, a short walk from the marina. Much desired fresh bread, salad greens and frosted cornflakes were found as well as fresh fruit. Returning to the marina, we stopped by the Subway sandwich shop, ordered cokes and sat down to use the free wi-fi courtesy of the chiropractor’s office on the floor above. Email and news with a strong signal at last. A fellow came by to ask about the wi-fi. He was wearing a shirt with the logo of the boat that had docked alongside Skylark briefly in Gibraltar – Traite de Roma. He had just replaced the Belgian skipper and was headed for Barcelona as well. Returned to Skylark, lunched on spinach salad and a fresh baguette. At around 4 pm, we dropped the moorings and left the harbour in a slight swell and light breeze. Ed has quickly mastered being at the bow and stern all at the same time