Friday 31 May 2013
Hanging Around SW Portugal
After al sorts of ideas of this being the end of a stage in our cruise, we are now spending a lot of time in the Portimão/Lagos area. As noted previously, we have knocked the idea of going to the Azores on the head we have come up with an alternative plan which is much looser and has room for variation. Essentially, we will do what we need to round here then do a bit of revisiting The Guadiana and possibly up the Guadalquivir to Sevilla before heading to Morocco for a while and then to Madeira and so on south.
We will have to spend a bit longer at the western end of the country though as there are things that have to be done. Yesterday, we took the plunge and ordered a new sprayhood as the one we have is really on it's last legs. I have done some digging around about our aries windvane – “Henry the Navigator” - and he is going to have to have a rebuild and possible replacement of bearings. This is all conspiring to keep us here for a while. We have also elected to commision a diver to clean the bottom and replace the anode as he will be cheaper than hauling out.
Today, being 30 May will be the last night in the marina for a few days and tomorrow we will head round to Alvor to spend a couple of days at anchor. We will also try the Sopromar chandler in Lagos for an anode.
Alvor was one of the highlights of our cruise in 2011 and we are looking forward to spending some time there again. The town is very touristy but it is at the top of a sandy lagoon very like Ria Formosa but on a smaller scale. The entrance is easy enough but pilotage up to the town is quite challenging as there are a lot of shifting sand bars which mean you have to be careful to pick the channel. Last time we were there, the wind was very light but that will not be the case this time in which case we will have to cut our visit short and go round to the very expensive Lagos for a night. We will have to go there anyway as we have some post to pick up and there is a good supermarket conveniently close so we will do some stocking up as well. We have found the excellent supermarket in Portimão though. The biggest chain here has the wonderful name of Pingo Doce
As I write this we are sitting at anchor just in the entrance of Alvor with 25 to 35 knots of wind but the compensation is that there are lots of kite boarders around. We will go into Lagos tomorrow though as getting ashore would be a bit of a challenge at the moment.
We also have a small but geeky celebration to make as I have got the 3G working on our phone and by using the phone as a wireless hot spot we can now ruin the isolation of this spot by getting internet here as well. At least we will not likely be doing that with the satellite phone!
Photos will have to wait I am afraid as it would be prohibitively expensive to upload pictures.
Wednesday 29 May 2013
Faro to Portimão
This will bring to a close the first stage in our cruise. We are now at a critical point and from here we will have to go somewhere. Our preferred option is to continue to head west from here and go to the Azores. Sao Miguel on Ponta Delgada would be the obvious destination prior to spending the rest of the summer exploring the Azores archipelago. There are however, other options. We could run back east and spend more time in SW Spain and Portugal prior to heading south. We could sail straight to Madeira. Or, we could go to Morocco before heading to Madeira.
As I write this, it is most likely we will head to the Azores though. The original logic of going there was that it would give us a chance to do a real ocean passage without passing any points of no return. The other options below all involve sailing south and effectively you then have to carry on across the Atlantic. Still, nothing is fixed yet. We will be spending a bit of time round here before going anywhere so can take a good bit of time to decide where to go.
Getting here has been both frustrating and also very enjoyable. We managed to catch the tail end of the winter weather here and spent four days stuck aboard while anchored in the Ria Formosa. We then visited Vilamoura, Albufeira and Portimão before getting here.
As noted previously, when dropping Matthew off we felt it would be unwise to come ashore with him as the wind was getting up. That turned out to a fortuitous decision as the wind blew at nothing less than a force six for five days. At one point, we were riding out a sustained 35 knots of wind off Culatra which is effectively a gale. I would like to stress that it wasn't a gale. A gale is made up of more than a wind of a certain strength. We were in quite a sheltered spot and the seas were not particularly rough even though it was not possible to get off the boat. We were getting a bit bored though and at high water there was a near two mile fetch across the whole of the Ria Formosa which made things a bit bouncy and were what precluded going ashore.
After the second day we were feeling a bit uncomfortable as well as fed up with the scenery so we decided to head up to Faro both to get more shelter but also to possibly grab a chance to go ashore if the wind did show any sign of dropping. We were a lot more sheltered but the wind did not drop for another two nights. Finally, the next morning the wind was lighter in the morning and a phone conversation with my brother confirmed that the depression that had been giving us this unseasonal weather was moving off to the north east so we upped anchor and moved back down to Culatra. The wind continued a bit lighter and we got ashore for long enough to visit the shop and have a coffee in a café. While drinking the coffee though the wind started to get up and sure enough it was back up to 35 knots by the afternoon.
It felt as if we were on the East Coast of the UK with lots of marshy mudflats on either side of us and egrets all round. The Storks though reminded us we were fifteen degrees or so south of the Blackwater!
It all sounds a bit more difficult than it really was and boredom was the real issue. We were low on water which was a bit tedious but that was all.
Here is proof that it really was blowing quite hard though. :-)
Early the next morning of the nineteenth, we upped anchor and had a bit of a long motor to Vilamoura. We had not intended to go to Vilamoura as it is a very touristy and rather fashionable watering hole on the Algarve. However, our water situation and the urgent need to do some laundry forced our hand. The first pleasant surprise was the cheap low season rates and the next was the easy communication by bus to other more interesting places. We quickly decided to extend our stay to three nights and make a day trip to Vila Real de Santo Antonio by train as we had not been able to stop there by boat. We also finally gave Audrey a chance to see Faro, a town she had never seen before.
Vilamoura was a bit of a shock at first as it is in complete contrast to Culatra having a completely different sort of tourism to the sandy islands.
The trip to Vila Real or VRDSA as I have seen it referred to was a lot of fun. We always enjoy train rides after all. The only disappointment was that it was easiest to get the bus to Faro rather than to the station nearest Vilamoura. Still, we bought our ticket and then waited around while the very old train wheezed its way into the station. A load of school kids also got on but we managed to get into the other carriage. The Algarve line has to be one of the slowest trains in the world but you do get a good chance to see the country through which you are travelling and it was interesting to see the network of creeks that run all the way from Faro to Tavira not far short of the Rio Guadiana. Slightly disappointingly the Vila Real station was on the edge of town as the chart we have shows railway lines running right to the rivers edge.
We enjoyed wandering around Vila Real which is chiefly notable for having been completely reconstructed after destruction by the earthquake of 1755 which seems to have levelled most of Portugal. An architect called Pombal redesigned the city on a grid pattern radiating out from a square. This gives the town a very elegant feel and is also easy to navigate around. It doesn't feel like a North American city though as the streets are still relatively narrow and the buildings are clearly Portuguese. We would really like to go back there by boat though. The marina looks quite nice and once moored up, the narrow entrance and strong tides would be no problem.
The next day, we finally left Vilamoura for the resort complex of Albufeira. Just to the east of the main resort area is a very upmarket marina which was excavated from what must have been simply a swamp. An entrance channel was then dug and blasted through to the sea. Someone also built a load of “quirky” condominiums all round the marina. It is the antithesis of a characterful harbour but is still quite a nice place for all that. The enjoyment was, for us, enhanced by the fact that they are still charging low season rates – as at Vilamoura. There was also an excellent service wash there and we caught up on all our laundry. Sunsets were enlivened by a very large dog in one of the villas who enthusiastically barked at everything and everyone who walked past. He was a big dog and the echoes were quite good. For a while he seemed to be barking at his own echo! He didn't do it for too long so it didn't become annoying and it was generally a cheerful bark as well.
After deciding to spend an extra night there on account of the low prices we took our departure for Portimão. The forecast was for light winds but we fully expected the strong sea breeze to get up from the west as we had observed almost every day. To our surprise, this did not happen and we had a nice gentle broad reach for the whole 14 miles to the mouth of the Rio Arade. The expectation of a sea breeze prevented us from getting the cruising chute up till it was too late to be worth it. Finally we rounded off the sail by sailing onto our anchor just under the eastern breakwater.
There were a few boats anchored there including the obligatory Wharram cat and a few steel boats. Near us was a very substantial aluminium Dutch boat called Synergie. Over the course of the four days we spent there we got talking to them and found out of their plans to sail to British Columbia. It was a lot of fun to come aboard and show them where to go around Sidney where I grew up and also to recommend visiting both Barklay sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island and also up Jervis Inlet on the mainland to the north of Vancouver.
We certainly wish them luck with their trip and hope to meet up in the Canaries later on in the year.
After four days at anchor we felt the need of showers and laundry so we have pulled into the Marina de Portimão.
We also need to do some maintenance work. The bolt on the heads has started leaking so that needs replacing. We are also acutely aware of the fact that the bottom needs scrubbing. The boatyard here at Portimão seems to be excellent so we are going to spend a while here. We may even lift out here though I have contacted a diver who offers to clean bottoms and change anodes without the need for a lift out. All in all, we are much more minded to do the essential maintenance here rather than in Lagos as originally planned.
Finally, we have also been doing some thinking about what we do from here. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we have made some changes to our plans. Essentially, the Azores trip is off in favour of longer along this coast, a visit to Morocco, longer in Madeira and the Canaries.
We have been downloading some GRIB files and looking at the routing charts for the passage to the Azores and find it's attractions rapidly waning. You have to make quite a lot of northing from Cabo Sao Vincente to be able to reach Ponta Delgada on Sao Miguel. This is both to make the two degrees of northing but also to counter the southerly current. The prevailing winds are north or often Northwest at this time of year for the first few hundred miles. Then, as you get further out into the Atlantic you are going to get closer to the Azores High which will lead to light winds. Thus we would be faced with two or even three hundred miles of stiff beat followed by possibly hundreds of miles of windless motoring.
By contrast, we can ride the sea breezes east from here and revisit places we rushed past on the way down. This might quite likely include another trip up the Guadiana but also a trip to Sevilla up the Guadalquivir. Then, after a month or so we would strike out south for Rabat in Morocco. After some time exploring some of the most ancient ports in the world, we would strike out for Madeira in August. Finally, we would have two or three months to explore the Canary islands in detail before joining the transatlantic crowd at the normal time of November.
Of course, such long term plans are quite likely to change again but that will at least give us more chance of having mostly downwind sailing till we reach the Leeward Islands after Christmas.
Note. For those who are not into the geeky language of sailing: a GRIB file stands for Gridded Binary file and is a highly compressed file containing meteorological information. They are very useful as they are very small but contain a lot of weather information. They have to be treated with caution as the information is raw data with no interpretation but for getting an idea of overall trends they are very useful.
As I write this, it is most likely we will head to the Azores though. The original logic of going there was that it would give us a chance to do a real ocean passage without passing any points of no return. The other options below all involve sailing south and effectively you then have to carry on across the Atlantic. Still, nothing is fixed yet. We will be spending a bit of time round here before going anywhere so can take a good bit of time to decide where to go.
Getting here has been both frustrating and also very enjoyable. We managed to catch the tail end of the winter weather here and spent four days stuck aboard while anchored in the Ria Formosa. We then visited Vilamoura, Albufeira and Portimão before getting here.
As noted previously, when dropping Matthew off we felt it would be unwise to come ashore with him as the wind was getting up. That turned out to a fortuitous decision as the wind blew at nothing less than a force six for five days. At one point, we were riding out a sustained 35 knots of wind off Culatra which is effectively a gale. I would like to stress that it wasn't a gale. A gale is made up of more than a wind of a certain strength. We were in quite a sheltered spot and the seas were not particularly rough even though it was not possible to get off the boat. We were getting a bit bored though and at high water there was a near two mile fetch across the whole of the Ria Formosa which made things a bit bouncy and were what precluded going ashore.
After the second day we were feeling a bit uncomfortable as well as fed up with the scenery so we decided to head up to Faro both to get more shelter but also to possibly grab a chance to go ashore if the wind did show any sign of dropping. We were a lot more sheltered but the wind did not drop for another two nights. Finally, the next morning the wind was lighter in the morning and a phone conversation with my brother confirmed that the depression that had been giving us this unseasonal weather was moving off to the north east so we upped anchor and moved back down to Culatra. The wind continued a bit lighter and we got ashore for long enough to visit the shop and have a coffee in a café. While drinking the coffee though the wind started to get up and sure enough it was back up to 35 knots by the afternoon.
It felt as if we were on the East Coast of the UK with lots of marshy mudflats on either side of us and egrets all round. The Storks though reminded us we were fifteen degrees or so south of the Blackwater!
It all sounds a bit more difficult than it really was and boredom was the real issue. We were low on water which was a bit tedious but that was all.
Here is proof that it really was blowing quite hard though. :-)
Early the next morning of the nineteenth, we upped anchor and had a bit of a long motor to Vilamoura. We had not intended to go to Vilamoura as it is a very touristy and rather fashionable watering hole on the Algarve. However, our water situation and the urgent need to do some laundry forced our hand. The first pleasant surprise was the cheap low season rates and the next was the easy communication by bus to other more interesting places. We quickly decided to extend our stay to three nights and make a day trip to Vila Real de Santo Antonio by train as we had not been able to stop there by boat. We also finally gave Audrey a chance to see Faro, a town she had never seen before.
Vilamoura was a bit of a shock at first as it is in complete contrast to Culatra having a completely different sort of tourism to the sandy islands.
The trip to Vila Real or VRDSA as I have seen it referred to was a lot of fun. We always enjoy train rides after all. The only disappointment was that it was easiest to get the bus to Faro rather than to the station nearest Vilamoura. Still, we bought our ticket and then waited around while the very old train wheezed its way into the station. A load of school kids also got on but we managed to get into the other carriage. The Algarve line has to be one of the slowest trains in the world but you do get a good chance to see the country through which you are travelling and it was interesting to see the network of creeks that run all the way from Faro to Tavira not far short of the Rio Guadiana. Slightly disappointingly the Vila Real station was on the edge of town as the chart we have shows railway lines running right to the rivers edge.
We enjoyed wandering around Vila Real which is chiefly notable for having been completely reconstructed after destruction by the earthquake of 1755 which seems to have levelled most of Portugal. An architect called Pombal redesigned the city on a grid pattern radiating out from a square. This gives the town a very elegant feel and is also easy to navigate around. It doesn't feel like a North American city though as the streets are still relatively narrow and the buildings are clearly Portuguese. We would really like to go back there by boat though. The marina looks quite nice and once moored up, the narrow entrance and strong tides would be no problem.
The next day, we finally left Vilamoura for the resort complex of Albufeira. Just to the east of the main resort area is a very upmarket marina which was excavated from what must have been simply a swamp. An entrance channel was then dug and blasted through to the sea. Someone also built a load of “quirky” condominiums all round the marina. It is the antithesis of a characterful harbour but is still quite a nice place for all that. The enjoyment was, for us, enhanced by the fact that they are still charging low season rates – as at Vilamoura. There was also an excellent service wash there and we caught up on all our laundry. Sunsets were enlivened by a very large dog in one of the villas who enthusiastically barked at everything and everyone who walked past. He was a big dog and the echoes were quite good. For a while he seemed to be barking at his own echo! He didn't do it for too long so it didn't become annoying and it was generally a cheerful bark as well.
After deciding to spend an extra night there on account of the low prices we took our departure for Portimão. The forecast was for light winds but we fully expected the strong sea breeze to get up from the west as we had observed almost every day. To our surprise, this did not happen and we had a nice gentle broad reach for the whole 14 miles to the mouth of the Rio Arade. The expectation of a sea breeze prevented us from getting the cruising chute up till it was too late to be worth it. Finally we rounded off the sail by sailing onto our anchor just under the eastern breakwater.
There were a few boats anchored there including the obligatory Wharram cat and a few steel boats. Near us was a very substantial aluminium Dutch boat called Synergie. Over the course of the four days we spent there we got talking to them and found out of their plans to sail to British Columbia. It was a lot of fun to come aboard and show them where to go around Sidney where I grew up and also to recommend visiting both Barklay sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island and also up Jervis Inlet on the mainland to the north of Vancouver.
We certainly wish them luck with their trip and hope to meet up in the Canaries later on in the year.
After four days at anchor we felt the need of showers and laundry so we have pulled into the Marina de Portimão.
We also need to do some maintenance work. The bolt on the heads has started leaking so that needs replacing. We are also acutely aware of the fact that the bottom needs scrubbing. The boatyard here at Portimão seems to be excellent so we are going to spend a while here. We may even lift out here though I have contacted a diver who offers to clean bottoms and change anodes without the need for a lift out. All in all, we are much more minded to do the essential maintenance here rather than in Lagos as originally planned.
Finally, we have also been doing some thinking about what we do from here. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we have made some changes to our plans. Essentially, the Azores trip is off in favour of longer along this coast, a visit to Morocco, longer in Madeira and the Canaries.
We have been downloading some GRIB files and looking at the routing charts for the passage to the Azores and find it's attractions rapidly waning. You have to make quite a lot of northing from Cabo Sao Vincente to be able to reach Ponta Delgada on Sao Miguel. This is both to make the two degrees of northing but also to counter the southerly current. The prevailing winds are north or often Northwest at this time of year for the first few hundred miles. Then, as you get further out into the Atlantic you are going to get closer to the Azores High which will lead to light winds. Thus we would be faced with two or even three hundred miles of stiff beat followed by possibly hundreds of miles of windless motoring.
By contrast, we can ride the sea breezes east from here and revisit places we rushed past on the way down. This might quite likely include another trip up the Guadiana but also a trip to Sevilla up the Guadalquivir. Then, after a month or so we would strike out south for Rabat in Morocco. After some time exploring some of the most ancient ports in the world, we would strike out for Madeira in August. Finally, we would have two or three months to explore the Canary islands in detail before joining the transatlantic crowd at the normal time of November.
Of course, such long term plans are quite likely to change again but that will at least give us more chance of having mostly downwind sailing till we reach the Leeward Islands after Christmas.
Note. For those who are not into the geeky language of sailing: a GRIB file stands for Gridded Binary file and is a highly compressed file containing meteorological information. They are very useful as they are very small but contain a lot of weather information. They have to be treated with caution as the information is raw data with no interpretation but for getting an idea of overall trends they are very useful.
Tuesday 28 May 2013
Some Photos
I am working on getting an up to date description of our time since leaving Matthew at Faro but in between, here are some photos.
First up - sunset on our first night anchored at Culatra.
Next we are at Faro Station waiting to get our train to Vila Real de Santo Antonio - the Algarve line is wonderfully old and clunky but the ride is quite picturesque.
Now at Vila Real, there is quite a dramatic hotel but it is sadly closed. A sign of the economic situation here?
Back at anchor in Culatra with the wind blowing hard. We were stuck there for four days and unable to get off the boat.
After escaping the Ria Formosa we spent a few days in Vilamoura and then moved on to Albufeira. I wanted to visit the marina for novelty value but at this time in the early season it was actually quite a nice peaceful place to stop.
Finally, we had a very nice gentle sail to Portimao and although we were geared up for strong westerlies in the afternoon, they failed to materialise.
First up - sunset on our first night anchored at Culatra.
Next we are at Faro Station waiting to get our train to Vila Real de Santo Antonio - the Algarve line is wonderfully old and clunky but the ride is quite picturesque.
Now at Vila Real, there is quite a dramatic hotel but it is sadly closed. A sign of the economic situation here?
Back at anchor in Culatra with the wind blowing hard. We were stuck there for four days and unable to get off the boat.
After escaping the Ria Formosa we spent a few days in Vilamoura and then moved on to Albufeira. I wanted to visit the marina for novelty value but at this time in the early season it was actually quite a nice peaceful place to stop.
Finally, we had a very nice gentle sail to Portimao and although we were geared up for strong westerlies in the afternoon, they failed to materialise.
Monday 27 May 2013
Quick Update
We have been anchored in Portimao for the last couple of days and as the boatyard looks quite good here we are planning on craning out and doing some of the essential stuff that we need to do.
The most important thing is to get the bottom scrubbed off but we will also give the engine some TLC and a few other things.
We will also do some serious planning on where to go from here. We would still very much like to go to the Azores but the winds are not very encouraging once you are out here with fresh to strong northerlies for the first few hundred miles and then a strong possibility of calms for the rest. Other options are to head south to Morocco and then Madeira before carrying on to the Canaries and so on.
A detailed description of what we have been doing and what we are going to do will be forthcoming to bore everyone shortly.
The weather looks like blowing up for a few days so we may well wind up in the Marina Portimao before getting lifted out.
The most important thing is to get the bottom scrubbed off but we will also give the engine some TLC and a few other things.
We will also do some serious planning on where to go from here. We would still very much like to go to the Azores but the winds are not very encouraging once you are out here with fresh to strong northerlies for the first few hundred miles and then a strong possibility of calms for the rest. Other options are to head south to Morocco and then Madeira before carrying on to the Canaries and so on.
A detailed description of what we have been doing and what we are going to do will be forthcoming to bore everyone shortly.
The weather looks like blowing up for a few days so we may well wind up in the Marina Portimao before getting lifted out.
Monday 20 May 2013
Chipiona to Faro
The last post left you with us fixing the bog in Chipiona. After the excitement of that we looked at how to get to our next destination which was to be Ayamonte at the mouth of the Rio Guadiana. Ayamonte is on the Spanish side while Vila Real de San Antonio is on the Portuguese side. We also intended to explore upriver. It is 55 miles direct from Chipiona to the mouth of the river or you can break the journey at a place called Mazagon near the mouth of the Rio Huelva. Mazagon doesn’t have a lot going for it and we all decided to make an overnight run to Ayamonte. As the wind had been consistently light we reckoned to get a bit of gentle sailing till the wind died and then motor slowly so as to arrive as it got light at the mouth of the river. The forecast looked fine for this though it did mention a force 4 in the Huelva area.
We duly cast off at 1400 and got sail up just outside the last buoy to the Rio Guadalquivir and proceeded with a very gentle sail up the coast past the Coto de la Donaña national park. All was going fine with the only drama of trying to avoid some sort of fish net. They are not supposed to have permanently laid nets along there but it very much looked like one. As the sun got lower we expected the sea breeze which was up around force 5 now to ease away. On the contrary, it didn't and proceeded to get up to force 6 to seven on the nose. Matthew took the 2000 to midnight watch with it being arranged that I should take over from then and Audrey would do the 0400 to 0800. With three of us, a four hour watch system looked more useful than our usual six hours.
The seas proceeded to build as the wind refused to drop and poor Audrey succumbed to a bout of seasickness. At midnight we were a bit to the south of the entrance to Huelva. I was just about to take over when a bright light dazzled us from astern and a jet black RIB hove alongside. It was the Aduanas or customs come to do a spot check. Two men from the RIB struggled aboard. At one point I thought one of them was going to go over the side but they both got on. It was of course a routine affair and they conducted the most rudimentary of searches – one of them went through the cabin with his torch and verified that we weren't packed to the gills with illegal immigrants. They then filled in a long form of all our particulars. The started with passports and ships papers and then a long list of hull colour, deck colour, equipment (no RADAR), engine make and power, originating port and destination for this passage. With that, they thanked us and clambered back into their RIB. I did see a low dark form shadowing us from a couple of cables away but then they disappeared. Adventure over! We have never been boarded before, least of all in the middle of the night.
The rest of the night was uneventful although working out what fishermen were doing was sometimes a struggle. Eventually, we worked out to leave them alone till it became obvious that we were really on a collision course. There are some gas drilling rigs in the Ensenada de Huelva and an offshore oil unloading buoy near it and we had a merry old time getting between them but did so eventually and I was able to lay a course for about five miles south of the mouth of the river. Matthew duly took over at 0400 and I slept away while he sailed past into Portuguese waters and handed over just before sun up – we were still operating on Spanish rather than Portuguese time which means the sun doesn't get up till around 0830. I took us almost to Tavira before going about and were finally able to lay the No 2 buoy which is the best place to start your approach to the shallow entrance to the river.
The wind by now was in the NW and down to a force 5 to 6 so the entrance was easy though we were bucking the last of the ebb. Ayamonte is a lovely little town with the marina in a basin right next to the centre to town and makes for a perfect goodbye to Spain. It does however feel like a stepping stone to the upper reaches of the river which none of us had visited before. I had not had time to get up there on the trip down in 2011.
Here is Sarah Giddings complete with her lovely new awning
Sunset over the church in Ayamonte
Thus, the next day we chose low water to make our departure and turned right out of the entrance to Ayamonte and headed for the newish suspension bridge that now makes getting from Spain to Portugal very easy for motorists now. It has a charted minimum of 23 meters but these things always look much to low for us to fit under. We did fit of course and passed into unexplored territory for Kynastons. We also passed off the chart for what that is worth. The Portuguese hydrographic office doesn't survey the Guadiana and presumably the IHM in Cadíz don't either so the only chart we have stopped just above the bridge. The Garmin plotter did show a river but no depths or anything.
Here we are approaching the bridge.
The Guadiana upper reaches are a real gem and we took the tide all the way to Alcoutim. The country becomes progressively wilder and your sense of being close to the sea disappears entirely. Alcoutim on the Portugal side and Sanlúcar de Guadiana on the Spanish side are opposite each other and both have their own respective forts which date from Moorish times. The one in Alcoutim was repaired around 1640 after Portugal regained its independence from Spain. One can imagine the respective garrisons alternately taking potshots at each other and then meeting on the river for a bit of booze up.
The plotter gave us a real laugh as the picture shows. According to this we are anchored more or less on top of the castle at Sanlúcar!
We anchored for the first night and enjoyed a beautiful view of the night sky as the light pollution was minimal despite the spotlights on the castle in Alcoutim. There were quite a lot of other boats and clearly at least some of them had wintered there. I am not sure it would be a nice place at I am sure it rains a lot and would also feel very remote and isolated.
Various pictures
The castle over Sanlúcar de Guadiana
Typical river view from our anchorage
A perfect ruined Don Quixote windmill - sadly we didn't feel up to walking up to it the following day.
New Moon
On our second day there a spot opened up on the Alcoutim pontoon and we didn't want to row three up across the strong current so we tied up alongside and explored both villages. There is a ferry between them. It felt a bit strange to know that the time on the eastern bank was an hour ahead of that on the western one. Being a Sunday, most things were closed except the cafés and bars of course. We started a very hot walk up to the Castle on the Sanlúcar side which does look very dramatic. Sadly, we were blocked from getting to the top by a fence and a battered Junta de Andalucia sign telling us that the castle was closed from refurbishment and was due to reopen in 2014. We shall have to revisit after going to the Caribbean.
We had noticed what looked like a lookout point on a hill just north of the castle and wandered over as it looked as if there was a wire going from it across the river. Sure enough, they are building what must be the best ever zip wire. We will definitely have to come back next year so I can try it. Also, a note to readers from London, there needs to be a concerted effort to get our beloved Mayor Bozza stuck on it so we can cut him loose and drop him into the river!
Some more pictures from up the hill.
We really must stop putting pictures of our lovely Rival up though
This rather pretty flower had a very pungent smell and when crushed, the leaves smelt exactly like Friars Balsam. We didn't take any with us though as we hope we wont get any colds.
Typical view of the river from the zip wire starting point.
The view across to Alcoutim
We duly crossed back to Portugal and started a very boozy afternoon and evening. We had elected to eat ashore but wished to cool down with a nice chilled Vino Verde in the bar overlooking the river. Three or four of those later and we went down to Sarah G to change for an evening meal. The change effected, we wandered back up the hill and selected a nice looking restaurant and had some delicious food which introduced Matthew to the way the Portuguese can cook pork. Another excellent bottle of wine was followed by another before the meal was done. We finally finished the evening with small glasses of the Gonzalez Byass brandy LePanto! Very boozy as I said!
We had to make a fairly early start the next morning to catch the best of the ebb tide down the river. Thus, at 0730 we cast off and pushed into a brisk southerly down the river. It had been blowing from the north going up so we were very annoyed to be cheated out of our sail down the river. The thunking of the engine didn't do much for our hangovers either.
No sooner were we past the bridge than the wind died and the ebb tide strengthened. The exit from the river was quite exciting (read hair raising in a yachtie way). As we passed along the breakwater the tide really strengthened and it became clear that we would not easily be able to push against it. We must have been doing something like ten knots over the ground. It was at this point that the swell built up and we had a very bouncy half hour passing over charted depths of something less than a 1.5 meters. Sarah G draws 1.4 meters so at dead low water we would have been effectively on the bottom with a 1 meter swell to add to the equation. Thankfully, the depth never dropped less than 4 meters and we quickly found our way over the bar and into deeper water. Sadly, the windless situation continued and we had a roly 25 mile motor to the entrance to the Ria Formosa.
The flood was running strongly into the Ria which made for some fun getting in. Lots of whirlpools and such like as well as doing around ten knots over the ground but no swell to make it interesting in the yottie sense this time. We anchored off Culatra.
Usually, one is too busy doing yottie stuff to get pictures when things are interesting but as it was not too "interesting" in the entrance to the Ria I have a picture here of the whirlpools though the camera can never do them justice.
And then to the peaceful anchorage.
The next day, Matthew's last full day, dawned sunny and warm so we rowed ashore and walked across the sand from Culatra village to the other side. As in 2011 the beach was pristine and deserted. We walked east for quite a while but didn't quite make the entrance at the other end of the island. A brave Matthew went in for a swim but the briefness of it was a testament to the fact that the water was really not that warm. Audrey and I most likely won't swim in the sea till we get to the Caribbean.
We wandered back doing the stuff you always do on beaches until we crossed back to Culatra village and another big lunch in one of the cafés there. As ever, too much beer and wine was consumed but we enjoyed it.
Matthew had to get over to the mainland to catch his flight and we planned to go with him and do the tourist thing in Faro. However, a strong westerly was blowing up and we thought it better to stay aboard and judge what would happen with the wind before committing. As will be seen, that was a wise decision.
Poor Matthew boarded his Sleazyjet flight and was back in Blighty a few hours later. We now have to start the next stage of preparations before a probable voyage to Ponta Delgada the biggest of the Azores islands.
We duly cast off at 1400 and got sail up just outside the last buoy to the Rio Guadalquivir and proceeded with a very gentle sail up the coast past the Coto de la Donaña national park. All was going fine with the only drama of trying to avoid some sort of fish net. They are not supposed to have permanently laid nets along there but it very much looked like one. As the sun got lower we expected the sea breeze which was up around force 5 now to ease away. On the contrary, it didn't and proceeded to get up to force 6 to seven on the nose. Matthew took the 2000 to midnight watch with it being arranged that I should take over from then and Audrey would do the 0400 to 0800. With three of us, a four hour watch system looked more useful than our usual six hours.
The seas proceeded to build as the wind refused to drop and poor Audrey succumbed to a bout of seasickness. At midnight we were a bit to the south of the entrance to Huelva. I was just about to take over when a bright light dazzled us from astern and a jet black RIB hove alongside. It was the Aduanas or customs come to do a spot check. Two men from the RIB struggled aboard. At one point I thought one of them was going to go over the side but they both got on. It was of course a routine affair and they conducted the most rudimentary of searches – one of them went through the cabin with his torch and verified that we weren't packed to the gills with illegal immigrants. They then filled in a long form of all our particulars. The started with passports and ships papers and then a long list of hull colour, deck colour, equipment (no RADAR), engine make and power, originating port and destination for this passage. With that, they thanked us and clambered back into their RIB. I did see a low dark form shadowing us from a couple of cables away but then they disappeared. Adventure over! We have never been boarded before, least of all in the middle of the night.
The rest of the night was uneventful although working out what fishermen were doing was sometimes a struggle. Eventually, we worked out to leave them alone till it became obvious that we were really on a collision course. There are some gas drilling rigs in the Ensenada de Huelva and an offshore oil unloading buoy near it and we had a merry old time getting between them but did so eventually and I was able to lay a course for about five miles south of the mouth of the river. Matthew duly took over at 0400 and I slept away while he sailed past into Portuguese waters and handed over just before sun up – we were still operating on Spanish rather than Portuguese time which means the sun doesn't get up till around 0830. I took us almost to Tavira before going about and were finally able to lay the No 2 buoy which is the best place to start your approach to the shallow entrance to the river.
The wind by now was in the NW and down to a force 5 to 6 so the entrance was easy though we were bucking the last of the ebb. Ayamonte is a lovely little town with the marina in a basin right next to the centre to town and makes for a perfect goodbye to Spain. It does however feel like a stepping stone to the upper reaches of the river which none of us had visited before. I had not had time to get up there on the trip down in 2011.
Here is Sarah Giddings complete with her lovely new awning
Sunset over the church in Ayamonte
Thus, the next day we chose low water to make our departure and turned right out of the entrance to Ayamonte and headed for the newish suspension bridge that now makes getting from Spain to Portugal very easy for motorists now. It has a charted minimum of 23 meters but these things always look much to low for us to fit under. We did fit of course and passed into unexplored territory for Kynastons. We also passed off the chart for what that is worth. The Portuguese hydrographic office doesn't survey the Guadiana and presumably the IHM in Cadíz don't either so the only chart we have stopped just above the bridge. The Garmin plotter did show a river but no depths or anything.
Here we are approaching the bridge.
The Guadiana upper reaches are a real gem and we took the tide all the way to Alcoutim. The country becomes progressively wilder and your sense of being close to the sea disappears entirely. Alcoutim on the Portugal side and Sanlúcar de Guadiana on the Spanish side are opposite each other and both have their own respective forts which date from Moorish times. The one in Alcoutim was repaired around 1640 after Portugal regained its independence from Spain. One can imagine the respective garrisons alternately taking potshots at each other and then meeting on the river for a bit of booze up.
The plotter gave us a real laugh as the picture shows. According to this we are anchored more or less on top of the castle at Sanlúcar!
We anchored for the first night and enjoyed a beautiful view of the night sky as the light pollution was minimal despite the spotlights on the castle in Alcoutim. There were quite a lot of other boats and clearly at least some of them had wintered there. I am not sure it would be a nice place at I am sure it rains a lot and would also feel very remote and isolated.
Various pictures
The castle over Sanlúcar de Guadiana
Typical river view from our anchorage
A perfect ruined Don Quixote windmill - sadly we didn't feel up to walking up to it the following day.
New Moon
On our second day there a spot opened up on the Alcoutim pontoon and we didn't want to row three up across the strong current so we tied up alongside and explored both villages. There is a ferry between them. It felt a bit strange to know that the time on the eastern bank was an hour ahead of that on the western one. Being a Sunday, most things were closed except the cafés and bars of course. We started a very hot walk up to the Castle on the Sanlúcar side which does look very dramatic. Sadly, we were blocked from getting to the top by a fence and a battered Junta de Andalucia sign telling us that the castle was closed from refurbishment and was due to reopen in 2014. We shall have to revisit after going to the Caribbean.
We had noticed what looked like a lookout point on a hill just north of the castle and wandered over as it looked as if there was a wire going from it across the river. Sure enough, they are building what must be the best ever zip wire. We will definitely have to come back next year so I can try it. Also, a note to readers from London, there needs to be a concerted effort to get our beloved Mayor Bozza stuck on it so we can cut him loose and drop him into the river!
Some more pictures from up the hill.
We really must stop putting pictures of our lovely Rival up though
This rather pretty flower had a very pungent smell and when crushed, the leaves smelt exactly like Friars Balsam. We didn't take any with us though as we hope we wont get any colds.
Typical view of the river from the zip wire starting point.
The view across to Alcoutim
We duly crossed back to Portugal and started a very boozy afternoon and evening. We had elected to eat ashore but wished to cool down with a nice chilled Vino Verde in the bar overlooking the river. Three or four of those later and we went down to Sarah G to change for an evening meal. The change effected, we wandered back up the hill and selected a nice looking restaurant and had some delicious food which introduced Matthew to the way the Portuguese can cook pork. Another excellent bottle of wine was followed by another before the meal was done. We finally finished the evening with small glasses of the Gonzalez Byass brandy LePanto! Very boozy as I said!
We had to make a fairly early start the next morning to catch the best of the ebb tide down the river. Thus, at 0730 we cast off and pushed into a brisk southerly down the river. It had been blowing from the north going up so we were very annoyed to be cheated out of our sail down the river. The thunking of the engine didn't do much for our hangovers either.
No sooner were we past the bridge than the wind died and the ebb tide strengthened. The exit from the river was quite exciting (read hair raising in a yachtie way). As we passed along the breakwater the tide really strengthened and it became clear that we would not easily be able to push against it. We must have been doing something like ten knots over the ground. It was at this point that the swell built up and we had a very bouncy half hour passing over charted depths of something less than a 1.5 meters. Sarah G draws 1.4 meters so at dead low water we would have been effectively on the bottom with a 1 meter swell to add to the equation. Thankfully, the depth never dropped less than 4 meters and we quickly found our way over the bar and into deeper water. Sadly, the windless situation continued and we had a roly 25 mile motor to the entrance to the Ria Formosa.
The flood was running strongly into the Ria which made for some fun getting in. Lots of whirlpools and such like as well as doing around ten knots over the ground but no swell to make it interesting in the yottie sense this time. We anchored off Culatra.
Usually, one is too busy doing yottie stuff to get pictures when things are interesting but as it was not too "interesting" in the entrance to the Ria I have a picture here of the whirlpools though the camera can never do them justice.
And then to the peaceful anchorage.
The next day, Matthew's last full day, dawned sunny and warm so we rowed ashore and walked across the sand from Culatra village to the other side. As in 2011 the beach was pristine and deserted. We walked east for quite a while but didn't quite make the entrance at the other end of the island. A brave Matthew went in for a swim but the briefness of it was a testament to the fact that the water was really not that warm. Audrey and I most likely won't swim in the sea till we get to the Caribbean.
We wandered back doing the stuff you always do on beaches until we crossed back to Culatra village and another big lunch in one of the cafés there. As ever, too much beer and wine was consumed but we enjoyed it.
Matthew had to get over to the mainland to catch his flight and we planned to go with him and do the tourist thing in Faro. However, a strong westerly was blowing up and we thought it better to stay aboard and judge what would happen with the wind before committing. As will be seen, that was a wise decision.
Poor Matthew boarded his Sleazyjet flight and was back in Blighty a few hours later. We now have to start the next stage of preparations before a probable voyage to Ponta Delgada the biggest of the Azores islands.
Sunday 19 May 2013
A Less Well Known Aspect of Cruising
A slow passage between Barbate and Cadiz and Audrey reported that the heads was not pumping out. It was of course more than happy to pump water in. We have a spares set for it and it quickly became clear that we would have to remove the entire thing before being able to work on it. Matthew and I got it out and I donned some heavy duty marigolds and started undoing screws. The first bit was to take the inlet assembly off the back of the diaphragm pump. Next I gingerly undid the six bolts holding the diaphragm assembly. We had taken some care to get all the water out of it but the inside of this was of course full of scale and decades of use – I will say no more! Each part was then washed in sea and then fresh water. We decided to replace all the spare bits we had. There are numerous springs to push flap valves and such like into the correct positions and it transpired that the inlet spring was indeed broken. I think that this was what had caused the initial problem.
Matthew captured the moment with one of the more disgusting bits of the contraption.
We did however find that our initial fiddling had sheared off the nylon nut which held the main pump spring assembly in which was why it was not pumping at all. Of course, the spares kit did not include this nut. We visited a Ferreteria who sold us the smallest screws they had along with some epoxy glue. We returned to the boat with trepidation and a determination to search for the smallest drill bit we had.
Matthew did some heroic work with the cordless drill and we got the two broken bits of the nut back together. We did use liberal doses of the epoxy but it refused to adhere to the nut at all. The instructions (in Spanish and Portuguese) said it would not work with polyethelene and I suspect that the nut was made of something like this. The important bit was that the screw was holding it all together. With some trepidation, we put all the bits back together and rebolted the whole thing down and reconnected the pipes. Disaster – the bronze plunger to which you need to attach the flushing/pump handle had it's hole at completely the wrong angle.
I was once again given in a lesson in how much practise makes perfect. I had the whole thing off and disassembled in fifteen minutes this time. Thankfully, a quick reversal of the actuator arm and all was well once it was reinstalled. What was more, water would pump out even if it didn't seem to want to pump in. I then disconnected the inlet hose and primed it and all was well! I think that the original problem was the spring on the inlet valve which was not opening or closing a bit of it. It must also have been weak for a while as it is now much more enthusiastic about pumping water both in and out of the bowl.
It is hard to describe the feelings through this whole adventure. Not having a working toilet on a boat is terrible even though you only use it at sea or when at anchor and even then, the waste goes into a holding tank only to be pumped out when out at sea. Peeing in a bucket may have been OK for Nelson's navy but it is definitely not OK for us. However, marine toilets are potentially disgusting things and have all sorts of reservoirs that are not found on land based toilets, thus any maintenance work is a horrible affair and is put off as much as possible until it goes very wrong. We hope not to have to do such a thing for the rest of the cruise!
Matthew captured the moment with one of the more disgusting bits of the contraption.
We did however find that our initial fiddling had sheared off the nylon nut which held the main pump spring assembly in which was why it was not pumping at all. Of course, the spares kit did not include this nut. We visited a Ferreteria who sold us the smallest screws they had along with some epoxy glue. We returned to the boat with trepidation and a determination to search for the smallest drill bit we had.
Matthew did some heroic work with the cordless drill and we got the two broken bits of the nut back together. We did use liberal doses of the epoxy but it refused to adhere to the nut at all. The instructions (in Spanish and Portuguese) said it would not work with polyethelene and I suspect that the nut was made of something like this. The important bit was that the screw was holding it all together. With some trepidation, we put all the bits back together and rebolted the whole thing down and reconnected the pipes. Disaster – the bronze plunger to which you need to attach the flushing/pump handle had it's hole at completely the wrong angle.
I was once again given in a lesson in how much practise makes perfect. I had the whole thing off and disassembled in fifteen minutes this time. Thankfully, a quick reversal of the actuator arm and all was well once it was reinstalled. What was more, water would pump out even if it didn't seem to want to pump in. I then disconnected the inlet hose and primed it and all was well! I think that the original problem was the spring on the inlet valve which was not opening or closing a bit of it. It must also have been weak for a while as it is now much more enthusiastic about pumping water both in and out of the bowl.
It is hard to describe the feelings through this whole adventure. Not having a working toilet on a boat is terrible even though you only use it at sea or when at anchor and even then, the waste goes into a holding tank only to be pumped out when out at sea. Peeing in a bucket may have been OK for Nelson's navy but it is definitely not OK for us. However, marine toilets are potentially disgusting things and have all sorts of reservoirs that are not found on land based toilets, thus any maintenance work is a horrible affair and is put off as much as possible until it goes very wrong. We hope not to have to do such a thing for the rest of the cruise!
La Linea to Chipiona
The first part of our cruise started auspiciously enough. My Brother, Matthew had flown down to Gibraltar to crew with us as far as Faro. We gave him a day to get used to be in southern Spain and then another day to visit the Upper Rock of Gibraltar. The next day, a Friday, and we took our final departure and the real beginning of our cruise.
It felt a bit strange to visit the office at Puerto Alcaidesa for the last time and pay our final two days stay along with the bit of electricity we had used. Although we had been there for over a year longer than previously planned along with all the frustrations that entailed, it had been a good place to leave her and we had become surprisingly fond of La Linea itself. Still, we were absolutely ready to start and gentle easterlies were forecast though it was likely to be breezier around Tarifa as usual. As it happened, there was no wind at all in the Bahia de Algeciras and we motored all the way to Punta Carnero. From there the wind picked up and by Tarifa, we were running before a characteristic force seven which held most of the way to Barbate though it did ease once past Punta Caramiñal.
This picture shows us leaving the Gibraltar area.
All along this coast they have rigged tuna nets or Almadabras as they are called in Spain. These are very large and very strong nets in which they catch migrating tuna. I understand that it is quite a sustainable way of catching them as you can chose which fish to take and leave the small ones unlike in a purse seine net. From our perspective, you have to look carefully for the cardinal marks which show the area to avoid as they are only laid in designated areas. The trouble is that a mark on a chart showing the buoy gives you an entirely false idea of their size. You are looking for the great big thing that they use to mark rocks for big ships whereas the reality is a puny little stick which you are lucky to spot from a couple of hundred meters away. Still, we passed the Tarifa nets and the Zahara do los Atunes nets but could not pick out any of the marks for the Barbate nets until we were almost on top of them. The climax to this came as we were closing the entrance to Barbate when we spotted the northernmost buoy just where it should be but right in our path for the harbour entrance.
For the unitiated, a cardinal buoy is used to tell you to avoid an isolated danger and is coloured, shaped and lit according to the cardinal points of the compass (hence their name). A north cardinal mark tells you to pass to the north of it, an east to the east and so on. They have two cones at the top which make recognition in daylight very easy. Once again, the north cardinal has both pointing up, the East has them opposed to each other with the points away, a south both cones pointing down and a westerly one with points together. The lights are continuous flashes for north, three flashes for east, six flashes for south and nine flashes for west. The colours are more complicated and I find them of less use as you can spot the orientation of the cones from further away. Brilliantly simple but only if they are used correctly. Spanish tunny fishermen do not maintain theirs to the same exacting standards as Trinity House does.
After the adventure of the Almadabras, we enjoyed our first night away from La Linea on Sarah Giddings for 18 months though the town is not that special. It does however sit under a very significant headland for Brits, the next point is none other than Cabo Trafalgar.
The next day, we set off for Cadíz and first rounded Cabo Trafalgar. There are no pigeons that I could spot though lots of migrating swallows. The wind continued to blow from the east and we got sail up past Trafalgar though it was clear that it was going to go light once we were well clear of the effects of the Straits. Light it did go and we had to motor the last fifteen or so miles to Cadíz. We did however get to sail past some more Almadabras while passing Cabo Roche. They were working these nets so all was easy to spot and avoid.
I am rather proud of this picture looking back to Trafalgar after rounding it.
The approach to Cadíz is a rather long one from the south but none the less dramatic for that. The coast is very low lying and slowly, the tower blocks of Cadíz rear out of the flat sea and take on a more defined shape. There is a small harbour ten or so miles to the south called Sancti Petri which we decided must be the dedicated to the patron saint of microbiologists. Cadíz is a large port so you have to start contending with large shipping again but nothing like the scale of Gibraltar/Algeciras. Once you are off El Castillo San Sebastian, things take on a whole new angle. The city is off to starboard and looking every bit as dramatic as you would hope and just then you spot that the vast cruise ship is now on the move and you hastily move out to the edge of the, for once, well marked channel to give it and it's thousand or so guests room to get out and head on to whichever town is their next stop. We didn't know as they had not yet updated their AIS with their destination.
It is slightly, but not very disappointing that the marina for Cadíz is out past the container port and so a fifteen minute walk to the city. The cruise ships get to dock right at the bottom of the jetty with easy walking to the turismo and guided bus tours. We walked past the Dutch ship docked and felt very superior in our scruffy clothes knowing we had got here in our yacht rather than a huge floating hotel. The fact that Sarah Giddings might be described as a floating caravan did not once cross our minds!
Cadíz is an amazing city. It benefited from the fact that the Rio Guadalquivir silted up in the eighteenth century which meant that all the trade with Spain's then empire moved to Cadíz making the city very rich at a good time architecturally. It has of course been in decline since then but has this wonderful aura of relaxed dilapidation. It is also a very old place and there have been people living there for over twenty thousand years as was shown to us in El Museo de Cadíz. Phoneticians gave it the name Gades which has survived through Greeks, Romans and Moors to today.
I have always liked the walk out to El Castillo de San Sebastian. Apparently the castle was used as Fort Royal in the Pirates of the Caribbean.
Other highlights of our visit were finally trying fried fish which was invented here rather than in the UK. Once can't help wondering if Drake brought the idea back with him after raiding the city in the fifteenth century. After having walked enough, we treated ourselves to a huge tapas lunch in a suitably busy bar. The highlight though was the group on the table next to us. There was what looked like a daughter entertaining her parents. The daughter drank beer, the Mother had a glass of wine and then went onto coke but the Father polished off an entire bottle of Tio Pepe sherry.
The next day, we set aside for a visit to the Gonzales Byass Bodega in Jerez. The tour was reasonably interesting but it would have been better if it had included a bit more technical stuff about how to make sherry rather than a limp film supposedly showing how the founder of the bodega named his best fino sherry after his uncle Pepe. Still, the tasting and subsequent blow out on their best oloroso sherry and brandy afterwards were very enjoyable. I know that it is very difficult to make fino sherry but really, some of the really old solera olorosos are the absolute equal of the best vintage port.
An atmospheric view of the Bodega.
The next day entailed a short hop round to Chipiona just at the mouth of the Rio Guadalquivir. This is a purely Spanish holiday town and so is very nice though most boaty types use it as a kick off point for the sixty mile trip up the river to Sevilla. Sadly, we didn't have time for this so spent a day just walking round the town and also searching for a supermarket. We also, completely stripped, serviced and rebuilt the toilet but that is another story.
There is a lighthouse marking El Punto del Perro which is especially elegant as lighthouses go.
This final picture shows a very ancient method of fishing they have preserved called coralles. Essentially, the stone walls are awash at half tide and are porous. At high tide, the fish swim in but are then trapped after half ebb allowing them to be easily caught. Similarly, shellfish can be harvested at low water and the protected area inside the corral makes for a good environment for them.
It felt a bit strange to visit the office at Puerto Alcaidesa for the last time and pay our final two days stay along with the bit of electricity we had used. Although we had been there for over a year longer than previously planned along with all the frustrations that entailed, it had been a good place to leave her and we had become surprisingly fond of La Linea itself. Still, we were absolutely ready to start and gentle easterlies were forecast though it was likely to be breezier around Tarifa as usual. As it happened, there was no wind at all in the Bahia de Algeciras and we motored all the way to Punta Carnero. From there the wind picked up and by Tarifa, we were running before a characteristic force seven which held most of the way to Barbate though it did ease once past Punta Caramiñal.
This picture shows us leaving the Gibraltar area.
All along this coast they have rigged tuna nets or Almadabras as they are called in Spain. These are very large and very strong nets in which they catch migrating tuna. I understand that it is quite a sustainable way of catching them as you can chose which fish to take and leave the small ones unlike in a purse seine net. From our perspective, you have to look carefully for the cardinal marks which show the area to avoid as they are only laid in designated areas. The trouble is that a mark on a chart showing the buoy gives you an entirely false idea of their size. You are looking for the great big thing that they use to mark rocks for big ships whereas the reality is a puny little stick which you are lucky to spot from a couple of hundred meters away. Still, we passed the Tarifa nets and the Zahara do los Atunes nets but could not pick out any of the marks for the Barbate nets until we were almost on top of them. The climax to this came as we were closing the entrance to Barbate when we spotted the northernmost buoy just where it should be but right in our path for the harbour entrance.
For the unitiated, a cardinal buoy is used to tell you to avoid an isolated danger and is coloured, shaped and lit according to the cardinal points of the compass (hence their name). A north cardinal mark tells you to pass to the north of it, an east to the east and so on. They have two cones at the top which make recognition in daylight very easy. Once again, the north cardinal has both pointing up, the East has them opposed to each other with the points away, a south both cones pointing down and a westerly one with points together. The lights are continuous flashes for north, three flashes for east, six flashes for south and nine flashes for west. The colours are more complicated and I find them of less use as you can spot the orientation of the cones from further away. Brilliantly simple but only if they are used correctly. Spanish tunny fishermen do not maintain theirs to the same exacting standards as Trinity House does.
After the adventure of the Almadabras, we enjoyed our first night away from La Linea on Sarah Giddings for 18 months though the town is not that special. It does however sit under a very significant headland for Brits, the next point is none other than Cabo Trafalgar.
The next day, we set off for Cadíz and first rounded Cabo Trafalgar. There are no pigeons that I could spot though lots of migrating swallows. The wind continued to blow from the east and we got sail up past Trafalgar though it was clear that it was going to go light once we were well clear of the effects of the Straits. Light it did go and we had to motor the last fifteen or so miles to Cadíz. We did however get to sail past some more Almadabras while passing Cabo Roche. They were working these nets so all was easy to spot and avoid.
I am rather proud of this picture looking back to Trafalgar after rounding it.
The approach to Cadíz is a rather long one from the south but none the less dramatic for that. The coast is very low lying and slowly, the tower blocks of Cadíz rear out of the flat sea and take on a more defined shape. There is a small harbour ten or so miles to the south called Sancti Petri which we decided must be the dedicated to the patron saint of microbiologists. Cadíz is a large port so you have to start contending with large shipping again but nothing like the scale of Gibraltar/Algeciras. Once you are off El Castillo San Sebastian, things take on a whole new angle. The city is off to starboard and looking every bit as dramatic as you would hope and just then you spot that the vast cruise ship is now on the move and you hastily move out to the edge of the, for once, well marked channel to give it and it's thousand or so guests room to get out and head on to whichever town is their next stop. We didn't know as they had not yet updated their AIS with their destination.
It is slightly, but not very disappointing that the marina for Cadíz is out past the container port and so a fifteen minute walk to the city. The cruise ships get to dock right at the bottom of the jetty with easy walking to the turismo and guided bus tours. We walked past the Dutch ship docked and felt very superior in our scruffy clothes knowing we had got here in our yacht rather than a huge floating hotel. The fact that Sarah Giddings might be described as a floating caravan did not once cross our minds!
Cadíz is an amazing city. It benefited from the fact that the Rio Guadalquivir silted up in the eighteenth century which meant that all the trade with Spain's then empire moved to Cadíz making the city very rich at a good time architecturally. It has of course been in decline since then but has this wonderful aura of relaxed dilapidation. It is also a very old place and there have been people living there for over twenty thousand years as was shown to us in El Museo de Cadíz. Phoneticians gave it the name Gades which has survived through Greeks, Romans and Moors to today.
I have always liked the walk out to El Castillo de San Sebastian. Apparently the castle was used as Fort Royal in the Pirates of the Caribbean.
Other highlights of our visit were finally trying fried fish which was invented here rather than in the UK. Once can't help wondering if Drake brought the idea back with him after raiding the city in the fifteenth century. After having walked enough, we treated ourselves to a huge tapas lunch in a suitably busy bar. The highlight though was the group on the table next to us. There was what looked like a daughter entertaining her parents. The daughter drank beer, the Mother had a glass of wine and then went onto coke but the Father polished off an entire bottle of Tio Pepe sherry.
The next day, we set aside for a visit to the Gonzales Byass Bodega in Jerez. The tour was reasonably interesting but it would have been better if it had included a bit more technical stuff about how to make sherry rather than a limp film supposedly showing how the founder of the bodega named his best fino sherry after his uncle Pepe. Still, the tasting and subsequent blow out on their best oloroso sherry and brandy afterwards were very enjoyable. I know that it is very difficult to make fino sherry but really, some of the really old solera olorosos are the absolute equal of the best vintage port.
An atmospheric view of the Bodega.
The next day entailed a short hop round to Chipiona just at the mouth of the Rio Guadalquivir. This is a purely Spanish holiday town and so is very nice though most boaty types use it as a kick off point for the sixty mile trip up the river to Sevilla. Sadly, we didn't have time for this so spent a day just walking round the town and also searching for a supermarket. We also, completely stripped, serviced and rebuilt the toilet but that is another story.
There is a lighthouse marking El Punto del Perro which is especially elegant as lighthouses go.
This final picture shows a very ancient method of fishing they have preserved called coralles. Essentially, the stone walls are awash at half tide and are porous. At high tide, the fish swim in but are then trapped after half ebb allowing them to be easily caught. Similarly, shellfish can be harvested at low water and the protected area inside the corral makes for a good environment for them.
Brief Update
We have just arrived at Vilamoura. It feels a bit strange to be in a marina village ghetto type of place after being anchored for so long at Culatra in the Ria Formosa and hardly even able to get ashore. Still, showers and laundry await to depong us properly. We are spending two nights here at least and have good wifi so I promise to get some proper updates out as soon as possible.
Wednesday 8 May 2013
Been Off Line For A While
Getting access to WiFi has been a bit difficult recently but we have been making good progress and enjoying ourselves a lot. I will update soon with pretty pictures of our sail down the Strait of Gibraltar, visit to Cadiz and Jerez de la Frontera. We are in Chipiona at the moment and have spent a second day here mostly repairing the heads.
There will have to be a detailed blog post on that so watch this space!
There will have to be a detailed blog post on that so watch this space!
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