Swallow's adventures

On 09/05/17 at 0700 we departed Ayamonte and headed for Rota about 65 nautical miles away. Accompanied by Ula and Millie the river spat us out of the entrance and we waved goodbye to Portugal, which we have become very fond of. Coming away from Ayamonte was rather shallow so we waded through pot soup! We had light winds to start with but in the afternoon we had to reef the main sail and had a good sail although it was very uncomfortable due to a large amount of chop, not good when you have raging toothache! For once the 'Windy' app was spot on. The approach into Rota was pretty horrendous, like being thrown around in a washing machine,; we finally tied up at 1900 and were thoroughly exhausted.

Our first priority in Rota was to find a dentist for me; good old Google came up trumps and found a dentist within walking distance of the marina; I had to have a root canal filling and the nerve taken out from under my tooth; I managed to bite the inside of my cheek under the anaesthetic which left me with a different pain in my mouth for days afterwards; but hey my toothache has gone now so it was well worth it- dental work in Spain is much cheaper than at home. We had dull weather and a bit of rain here, so there wasn't a lot going on in Rota, although it was an attractive town with a lovely beach.

We took the bus to Cadiz, a colourful, vibrant city with lots of history, it reminded me of Lisbon; this city is dominated by over 120 lookout towers dating back to the eighteenth century, all of different style, which were used by the various merchants who watched for their ships to arrive . We went up the tallest of these towers, the Tavira Torre, the views were amazing; at the very top there was a camera obscura, in a darkened room we were able to see a 360 degree view of the city via a giant round mirror and the guide focused close in on various landmarks across the city, she even zoomed in on people putting washing out on the roof terraces, very entertaining. We ended our day here with a lovely tapas meal.