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.
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