Chipiona 28/02/11

Early start – for us – sailing by 0900 after booking out of the marina. Wind immediately died, on with the motor again.  Henry the Navigator, the auto-pilot, takes charge and we sit and read whilst we head towards Chipiona, taking turns to keep an eye out to dodge the lobster pots. These are a complete pain and sneak up on you unless you’re very sharp

The wind picks up to about 15knts and we sail on at about 5 ½ knots to Chipiona. More big ships about but one actually alters course for us today – very rare. It kept increasing in strength to around 20knts and we arrived about  1530 after surfing down the swell for the last hour or so, picking up speed to 6-7knts.

Got the bikes out and cycled around the town – It’s a religious festival day and as quiet as anything but after cycling along the promenade and town for a while we found an old muscatel bodega.  Top bar; the old chap furtled in the back and found a cassette(!) of James Brown.  We sat there, the only ones in the bar,  listening to American funk,  surrounded by barrels of muscatel and manzanilla, in a 200 year old bar- great stuff.

Only four tea bags left. Its now 2120 spanish time and still warm enough for me to be sat on the floor outside the port office getting free wifi!

Plan to stop for a couple of days to have a proper look around the place.

To Mazagon

To Mazagon 27/02/11

Had a fairly early start and the wind pushed us down the estuary, out of the lagoon – it about 5 miles from the marina to the sea and as we left at pretty much high tide there was little current to help.  As we got out to sea the wind picked up and we had a great sail – at about 4-5 knots until  lunch when the wind died and we slowed to about 2 knots – on with the engine and we motor sailed on.  Later the wind picked up again and ended up at about 15-20knts in strength just as we got to the entrance to the Rio Odeil.  This leads up to Huelva eventually, passing a load of oil refineries, but the entrance is quite pretty.  Lots of big ships to get in the way of.  Bad timing as the tide was pouring out and as we sailed up river a good three knot current was against us, making progress very slow.

Mazagon is about a mile up the entrance and is a big and very soulless marina but with good facilities.

We walked up to the small town – it was still as strange as last time we came here. Feeling scruffy and out of touch with the rest of the places we’ve seen.

Even Mazagon can look good with the sunsets we’ve been having.

Still at El Rompido - 260211

What a day!

Where to start? After a leisurely start I bounced off the boat onto the pntoon and went to fill the water tanks only to see our fantastic folding mountain bikes topple slowly into the sea with a splosh and a swear - Carole thought I'd fallen in and was disappointed to find it was only £800 pounds worth of bikes.  Bugger! Well that was one of the words used.  We poked about with boat hooks and  chain hooks but failed miserably to find them.  Eventually Carole persuaded me to admit defeat and go and ask the marina staff for help.  They brought a grapple hook and dredged to sea bottom, 15 foot below, for the bikes and dragged them from the deep. They had been chained together so both came up.  We spent the next couple of hours stripping and washing them in clean water to get rid of the salt.

We'd just finished sorting the bikes out when we heard a chap shouting for help from the far side of the estuary.  We looked around and no one else seemed to be hearing him(!) We, being Bristish ,dropped the mooring lines and went to help -he was a jet ski-er - a sort of sub human species but still in need of help - we ended up towing him up the estuary 4 miles to El Terrol, against the falling tide, just  mamaging to drop him off at the town before we grounded and were stuck.

Got back to El Rompido in time to watch the rugby (England v France - England won) at a local bar with an Irishman, a Welshman, a New Zealander, a Brummie - and a few Spaniards, not sure if they understood what was going on!

Found a great seafood restaurant to celebrate the victory over the French.

Heading off towards Mazagon tomorrow.

Apologies, photos are in the wrong order.

El Rompido 25/02/11

About that sunset – no camera trickery it really did look like the picture – we could see that from the cockpit of the boat.  We just sat and watched the lagoon go dark until the stars came out.  It has to be the best sunsets I’ve seen.

The next morning I spent two hours faffing – good word but you know what I mean, with the engine trying to trace the smell of diesel – not a chance and after running the engine for most of the two hours it didn’t smell either – I give up for now – most boats more than a few years old are best described as “jobs in progress”, so that will have to go on the to do list for a while. 

Meanwhile Carole went off to drop off the washing and ended up finding a series of walks in the next door national park.  We got the bikes out in the afternoon and just cycled around a series of tracks through the forests – full of umbrella pines, prickly pears and some sort of broom – absolutely wonderful.

We had meant to leave El Rompido today, but the setting was just great so we decided to stop another night and then when we found a bar that will show the rugby, England  V France, we convinced ourselves that we need to stop two more nights.  The weather is settled and hot so getting out of this place shouldn’t be too difficult.  But what am I worried about, if the weather turns and we can’t get out of the lagoon we can just stop for a few more days – can’t get used to not having to rush back to work.  Normally by now we’d be dashing back to the home port and sorting the boat out to leave it for a couple of months – weird.

The start

Where do you start with a blog of a trip?  The day you leave or the days before trying to get everything done? The day we left the UK is more fun. 

As a treat we stayed at the Hilton hotel at the airport and wandered to the check-ins the following morning feeling great – much better than the usual stupid o’clock get up and dash to the airport.  The flight was as uneventful as usual – good because whilst Carole loves flying I’m not so keen, landed in the sun and then took the taxi and train to where we’d left the boat – Ayamonte.

We spent the next few days sorting the boat out and fitting new equipment including the battery monitor that Colleagues had got for me when I retired.  This means that we can stop and anchor and keep an eye on the power left in the batteries – need to know when the fridge is going to flatten the batteries so that we can start the engine and charge them up – have to keep the beers cold!

We left Ayamonte on Wednesday 23^rd February after a few goodbye drinks with friends in the town and marina.  We’d planned a short first day to check everything out so intended to go to a place called Isla Canela – it’s actually about 8 miles as the crow flies from Ayamonte but we had to sail 4 miles down the estuary, a couple of miles out to sea to avoid the shallow, hard bits along the coast and then back in again. 

Shouldn’t have taken long at all but after a great sail out of the Guadiana estuary the wind died and we put the motor on.  Carole got out her fishing stuff – means nothing to me and insisted we go slow enough for her to fish.  As we were getting towards the entrance to Isla Canela she caught a fish.  About a 1lb mullet (we think).

At this point plans changed and we headed for an anchorage by the entrance channel to Canela where could get the BBQ going that fixed to the back of the boat.  Anchored up the fish was gutted and on the BBQ within an hour of being caught. The extra time was good because it meant we could ride the incoming tide up the river the short way the marina.

To celebrate the end of a successful first day of our trip we opened the cava and sat on the pontoon watching the sun set – and trying to get a decent picture of us both with the self-timer on the new camera – a retirement present to me from me,  talk about big kids – but funny.  Took some great photos but then lost them – cava and new camera – not a good mix.

We left Canela the next day heading for a pretty soulless place called Magazon – soulless but a good stopping off point – again the wind died and we had the engine running along with the auto pilot – I got bored at this and suggested we stop off at El Rompido a lovely anchorage with a small marina as well but a tricky entrance – you can only get in by negotiating a twisting entrance between banks of hard sand with breaking waves on them.  The pilot books don’t exactly encourage you either but the sea was flat the tide was rising so with worked our way in and stopped at the marina,  The sun set that evening was stunning – an idyllic spot. 

Only problem was that after a lot of work the engine smelt of diesel and it looks like we got a very slight diesel leak – a job for the morning I think.

First attempt

Ayamonte - blog created but in spanish!!