Tabarca: the walled island that faces Alicante

The ferry leaves Santa Pola and, in less than half an hour, the mainland shrinks behind you. A low white line appears, stroked by the west wind. That is Tabarca. One thousand eight hundred meters long by four hundred wide, thirty hectares of flat rock at fifteen meters above the sea. The smallest inhabited island in Spain and, since 1986, the country's first marine reserve.

Most visitors arrive from the port of Santa Pola on a catamaran, about 25 to 30 minutes, with a brief underwater-viewing stretch just before docking. In high season there are also longer crossings from the port of Alicante, between 45 and 60 minutes. You disembark, climb three steps off the pier and the scene changes: less city, less rush, time moving at another pace.

A rescue that founded a town

The story of this island begins on another island, more than a thousand kilometers away, off the coast of Tunisia. There, from the 16th century, Genoese families brought in by the Lomellini merchants lived from red coral fishing. In 1741 the Bey of Tunis took the enclave, and soon after, Algerian corsairs turned the fishermen into captives. They remained prisoners for decades.

In 1768, thanks to the mediation of the Mercedarian Order, Charles III paid the ransom of nearly three hundred of those Genoese. They crossed the Mediterranean, passed through Cartagena and Alicante, and in 1770 were settled on what was then called Isla Plana, renamed Nueva Tabarca in memory of their Tunisian homeland. The Count of Aranda built the houses, the king ordered the walls raised so the new town would not fall again to Barbary corsairs, and the island found its first inhabitants. Surnames still alive in the census, Chacopino, Parodi, Manzanaro, Luchoro, are the phonetic echo of that voyage.

Walls, tower and parish

The walled core occupies the western third of the island. Three Baroque gates, San Rafael, San Gabriel and San Miguel, open the perimeter. Inside, straight eighteenth-century streets, low whitewashed houses, two small squares, and the parish church of San Pedro y San Pablo, blessed in 1770 and completed in 1779. It is a rectangular-nave temple with side chapels and a sober, almost military air that does not deceive: beneath the floor lie vaulted galleries once used as refuge.

Outside the enclosure, in the area known as the Campo, stands the Torre de San José, another 18th-century fortification that served as a prison during the 19th. A little beyond, the lighthouse still guides the fishing boats that work at night. The ensemble was declared a Historic-Artistic Site on August 27, 1964, one of the first heritage recognitions in the province. In recent years the Alicante City Council has been buying the extramural Campo so that the entire outer area falls under public ownership and a Special Protection Plan.

Spain's first marine reserve

In 1986 the waters around Tabarca were declared a marine reserve of fishing interest. It was the first in the country and set the model for those that came later, in Columbretes, Cabo de Palos, Cabo de Gata or Formentera. The reserve covers fourteen hundred hectares around the archipelago, at depths from zero to forty meters.

Beneath the transparent blue grows a vast meadow of Posidonia oceanica, the endemic Mediterranean plant that covers about eighty percent of the protected seabed. It is not an alga: it is a higher plant with roots, leaves and flowers. It oxygenates the water, stabilizes the sand, stores carbon and shelters grouper, bream, dentex, barracuda, gilthead and octopus. Visibility in calm waters can exceed thirty meters, which is why Tabarca is one of the reference spots for Mediterranean diving.

Traditional fishing is alive. The small artisanal Tabarquino fleet, with its bussa-type boats, works the outer perimeter of the reserve with trammel nets and selective longlines. Scientists call it the reserve effect: by protecting the core, fish grow, reproduce and spill beyond, where fishermen can work. Four decades of monitoring confirm it, and the evidence is a recurring argument whenever the management of other Mediterranean coastal areas comes up for debate.

The taste of caldero tabarquino

If you arrive at lunchtime, look for caldero. It is the recipe the descendants of those Genoese fishermen brought, adapted and still defend in the handful of restaurants inside the walls. It is served in two courses. First, rockfish boiled in a dense broth, accompanied by potato and a pungent all i oli. Then, rice cooked with the concentrated base of that same broth: rich, deep, with iodine clinging to the teeth.

You eat slowly, under a grapevine or at the edge of the dock, while children jump off the walkway into the water. On Tabarca every meal ends looking at the sea.

How to get there and when to go

Most trips leave from Santa Pola, less than twenty kilometers from central Alicante. Glass-bottomed catamarans offer a brief underwater view just before entering the port, and crossings cost roughly ten euros each way. In summer it is wise to book in advance: midday capacity sells out. May and September breathe better, with warm water and no crowds.

Staying the night

In winter about fifty permanent residents remain. In July and August that number grows twenty-fold. There are a couple of small hotels, a historic inn and a handful of rural lodgings inside and outside the walls. Those who sleep one night discover another Tabarca: the one that begins when the last ferry leaves, when the coves empty and only the wind, the gulls, the hum of the lighthouse and the distant lights of Santa Pola remain on the horizon.

For anyone living in the province, Tabarca is not an exotic destination: it is a domestic luxury. A free morning, a thermos of coffee, the first catamaran, and you are already in another time. Life on the Costa Blanca has these side doors. Opening them is what turns it into a waking dream.

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