Denise and I recently hosted guests from Ireland. It is important to have out-of-town visitors. They will have researched your city and can let you know what there is to do there. Clarity brought with her news of Tabarca, an island about twenty kilometers from downtown Alicante.
Tabarca is a lot like Catalina, assuming Catalina was washed in hot water and then left in the dryer way too long. Which is to say it is very small. How small? I stood in the center of the island and took two photographs, one looking north and the other south, each providing a nice view of the sea. A man with a sore back, bad hip and weeping blisters on both big toes, could walk the width of the island in less time than it takes to make a medical appointment.
Clarity read on the Internet that one could snorkel on Tabarca amidst sea turtles. Clarity was excited to swim with sea turtles, and we were excited to swim with Clarity, so everyone was excited when we got off the ferry (about an hour ride, 20 euros). We were hungry and had two hours to kill before meeting our guide, so we walked through the little village, looking for a restaurant offering food and shade.
There were quite a few restaurants with outdoor dining, but none had an empty table. (Important tourist tip: If you are going to Tabarca be sure to call ahead and make reservations.) When we got to the last of the restaurants, one with maybe sixty outside diners and no empty tables, Clarity spoke in Spanish with the establishment’s owner who, after making us wait in the hot sun for fifteen or twenty minutes, or maybe it was a week, led us down some steps to indoor seating.
The restaurant’s inner sanctum was gloriously cool and overflowing with talkative people who couldn’t care less about Covid-19. The noise level was off the charts, which meant that you had to speak up to be heard, which everyone did, making it even noisier, requiring people to speak even louder, which made it still noisier, requiring people to speak louder . . ..
Seriously, it was so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think, which was okay because nobody was interested in doing that, as was obvious from the fact that we all volunteered to spend a pandemic hour or two in a confined space with re-circulated air and lots of strangers shouting at each other while sitting real close. It became somewhat quieter when an unconscious young woman was carried from her table and folks worried that she might have the corona virus. But then everyone simultaneously decided she was just drunk, which isn’t contagious, and we all resumed speaking loudly and letting mouth vapors intermingle.
You may think that my friends and I were unconcerned about the corona virus, but you are wrong. Ordinarily we would not have entered such an obvious Petrie dish of contagion. However, we were reassured by the presence of the two armed policemen, presumably there to arrest any deadly viruses. Also, the choice was, sit there in the cool and replenish our precious bodily fluids, or go outside and bake until we were golden brown on the outside and a nice rosy pink in the middle.
Our snorkeling guide was Adam, from Tabarca Blue Sports. Adam, a very nice young man, is from Budapest. I asked him if the food in Budapest was very bad. He said that it was quite good. “Really,” I asked. “Then why did you leave Hungary?” Adam laughed at my dad joke, which is how I know he is nice.
Adam lived in the United States for several years, so his English was impeccable. He took our little group snorkeling around the island’s north side, which is a marine sanctuary, so the waters are clear and the fish abundant. There are, however, no turtles. It seems the Internet led Clarity astray on that score, but that was okay. We snorkeled into a cave and watched tiny crabs crawl up volcanic rock walls. Phil, one of our friends, reached out toward one, but luckily I was there to warn him not to pick it up. “You don’t want anyone to hear that you got crabs in this cave, do you?” Phil proved to be nice also.
We returned to Alicante on the ferry. Everyone was required to wear masks the entire time, even though we were outside, in the sunshine, in a strong wind. On first blush this regulation seemed excessive, but then I considered the time spent in a basement exchanging air with loud drunks, and on average the level of caution probably was appropriate.
The bottom line on Tabarca: Well worth the trip if enjoy snorkeling in clear waters and a nice boat ride. However, try to go on a week day, and definitely not on a Sunday, which is when we went. And, of course, make a reservation for outdoor dining.