27th August - 10th September (Portugal/Spain)
On our way down the river we anchored for the night at Guerreiros do Rio and the following morning took the dinghy ashore to visit the local River Museum. This houses a collection of twenty eight miniature replica boats which used to sail on the Guadiana and displays on the various types of fishing carried out over the years, along with several video presentations. Apparently the river was once a very busy place, not only for fishing, but also for customs officers on the lookout for smugglers (or smooglers as the curator described them). The museum is very small but well worth a visit. After a quick lunch we headed down to Ayamonte and ran into a huge number of yachts and dinghies all racing up the river to Alcoutim. Keeping out of their way was good fun! We anchored close to Aztec Dream and had intended going into the marina the next morning, but when we tried it at high water, we discovered that there would have been insufficient depth for Mistroma, so we turned around and re-anchored.
When both boats left Ayamonte it was quite foggy with no wind, so we motored for a couple of hours until the wind got up and then had a great sail down to Chipiona. As it was early evening when we arrived we decided to anchor in the bay and go into the marina in the morning. Bad idea – it was a very exposed anchorage and the wind changed direction overnight making it decidedly rolly. We didn’t get much sleep and Aztec Dream had to re-anchor about 02:30. Everything looked much better in the morning and we headed into the marina. The rest of the day was spent cleaning the boat to get rid of the accumulated grot and grim acquired over the previous six weeks.
The next morning we all hopped on to a bus, Steve and Lynne headed off to Seville, while we went to Jerez and enjoyed wandering around the Alcazar of Jerez, which was really interesting. There was also a Camera Obscura show, which was very good, but unfortunately was in Spanish, although we managed to get the gist of the talk. After lunch we walked around the Jewish Quarter and then it was time to catch the bus back to Chipiona after a very enjoyable day.
A couple of days later we spent a night in Cadiz to celebrate our anniversary. The marina is well outside the town, but it was a very pleasant walk. We had a look at the Cathedral and then had an excellent lunch of tapas (one of the best meals we’d had recently) followed by a visit to the Castillo de San Sebastian which was the Cuban DNA clinic in the Bond film “Die Another Day”. It was very disappointing as there wasn’t a lot there and no real feeling of any fortification. The much smaller Castillo de Santa Catalina, which had also been used in the same film, was much more interesting. On our way back to the boat we walked through Park Genovés which has some amazing conifers sculpted into very interesting shapes. Cadiz is a beautiful city and we probably should have stayed there a bit longer, but what we didn’t see this time we’ll catch on our way back north, whenever that may be!
A couple of hours after leaving Cadiz in a flat calm, we were hailed by a small fishing boat, with father and son out for a day’s fishing. When we approached, the father indicated that they had no engine and would we tow them to the next town about five miles away. He threw us a line and we proceeded with them in tow. Luckily he was quite happy to be left just outside the channel into the harbour, where he re-anchored to await another boat willing to tow him in. It seems to be an annual event for us to go to the aid of another boat. We carried on and motored to Barbate where we anchored in the bay for the night to await a favourable tide to go through the Straits of Gibraltar. The winds can be very strong here, but thankfully we didn’t have any problems and it was a really easy passage to the marina at La Linea de la Concepción, where Steve and Lynne were waiting on the pontoon to take our lines. They’d arrived a few days ahead of us.
