Police are investigating the death of a British man whose body was found floating in the water at a Costa Blanca port.
Civil Guard divers recovered the 53-year-old’s body around 11am yesterday morning at the marina in Calpe north of Benidorm after the alarm was raised just over an hour earlier.
The unnamed Brit had moored a boat he is said to have lived on in the pleasure port earlier in the week after arriving from the nearby town of Altea.
An autopsy is due to take place later today as police await to hear if the post-mortem reveals anything pointing to the man’s death being the result of a possible crime.
Sources close to the ongoing inquiry said they believed it could be a tragic accident and he may have fallen into the water from the boat under the cover of darkness several hours before his body was spotted.
A spokesman for the Civil Guard in Alicante said this morning: “I can confirm we have recovered the body of a 53-year-old British man from the water at Calpe port.
“We were informed by an emergency response coordination centre around 9.40am yesterday and mobilised specialist divers from our GEAS unit.
“There was nothing we could do to save him. He was already dead by the time police divers reached him.”
A well-placed source added: “The results of the autopsy will be key in determining the future of the investigation but there was nothing at the scene pointing to any obvious signs a crime had taken place.
“It could well turn out to be an accidental death where the man has fallen into the water.”
It was not immediately clear if the dead man, who is unlikely to be named by police, was holidaying on the Costa Blanca or lived in Spain.
The marina where the grim discovery was made is located at the foot of the resort’s landmark Calpe Rock or Penon de Ifach as it is known in Spanish, as is the harbour for the large fleet of fishing boats.
