For a while now, I've wanted to visit an island located off the coast of Alicante. This weekend, some of my American friends and I finally went to the island of Tabarca. The ferry (the only one of the day until June) left Alicante at 11:15 AM and it only took us around 45 minutes to arrive on the island.The island is technically part of the city of Alicante, and at last count, it has 68 inhabitants. Even so, this makes it the largest inhabited island in the Community of Valencia. According to our waiter at lunch, there can be thousands of people on the island during the summer, and during the winter there are typically only around 10 people (mostly older folks) who stick around.
Throughout the centuries, the island has served as a haven for pirates--such as the Barbary pirates. In the 18th century, the island was conquered by the king of Tunisia. He imprisoned all of the inhabitants of the island. However, they were later freed by Carlos III of Spain. Most of the inhabitants stayed on the island and Tabarca was converted into a military post.
The island was beautiful! The water is exceptionally clear and so you can see everything in the water. This is one of the reasons that Tabarca has been designated as a marine reserve. There are various protected species that live around the island such as sea bass, grouper, conger eel, gilthead.
Since the waters are so clear, we wanted to go snorkeling to see what types of fish we could see. Unfortunately, the water is still a little too cold to be in for a long time, and we didn't have the right gear. However, I'm sure that we'll come back some other day to check it out.
No comments:
Post a Comment