The pilot book advised not to attempt an entry to the Guadiana with less than half the tide, which worked quite nicely for us, as we were at two thirds of the tide on arrival at the channel. There were some strong currents and eddies outside the piers and in the early parts of the river but these eased as we progressed. On the west side (Portugal) there was a long sea wall, which was wide enough to park cars and it was nose to tail with them. On the east side (Spain) it was much shallower and there were a number of small sand banks, where people had moored small boats and erected their umbrellas and barbecues. Some didn't look like they had long to go before they were submerged by the tide. We approached and passed by the marina at Vila Real de Santo Antonio, on the Portuguese side. The town looked quite colonial and very picturesque. It was rebuilt in the 18th century, following destruction by an earthquake and tidal wave, which decimated Lisbon in 1755. The town follows a strict grid pattern of wide avenues and squares, paved with black and white cobbles in intricate patterns. Unfortunately we wouldn't get to see this. We continued up river, with the expansion bridge in front of us, with nothing much but sand and shallow bays on our starboard side, until we reached the entrance to the marina at Ayamonte. Turning in we had our first sight of the town, all pretty white buildings but we needed to locate our allocated berth (F31). We spotted F pontoon easily enough but couldn't see any numbers, so headed slowly down the nearside of the pontoon. Eventually I spotted 27, so we were on the right side of the pontoon but had gone too far. Time to reverse out and try again. Pete brought the boat in lovely, reversing into the berth but I made a hash of securing the midship line to the forward cleat and stopped the boat too hard, causing the bow to swing out. Luckily there was no other boat beside us and no damage was done, other than to my pride. We headed to the marina office to check in, a rather laborious process with a lot of form filling, then we were off to explore the town and grab a beer. Ayamonte is a village of Greek origin, with lovely tiled squares, decorated with colourful, mosaic tile walls and seats, surrounded by bars, cafes and restaurants. It's not a touristy place though and everywhere is filled with locals shopping, eating and drinking. There was a market on, with the stalls in little white huts with a red roof. Come the evening, everywhere was decorated with fairy lights too, making it a magical place. We chose a bar down a side street to have a beer, two in Pete's case and to watch the world go by. An old gentleman had fallen asleep in his seat against the wall and was lolling with his head on his chest, waking every so often before nodding off again. We returned to the marina to have a shower and get changed to go out for dinner. We wandered through the streets and the squares for an hour, perusing menus and outlook, much to Pete's annoyance. Our first choice never opened, strange for a Saturday night, especially as it had been open in the afternoon. However, we later learned that it's common for the Spanish to go out for dinner at 9 or 10pm, so perhaps the restaurant just opened later. Our second choice was fully reserved so we plumped for a place on the corner of the main square, with a view of the market and fairy lights. We ate iberico ham and croquettas to start with, then I had the iberian black pig cheeks in red wine and Pete had paella and we shared a bottle of excellent albarino, once Pete had drunk his obligatory grande cerveza. We struck up conversation with a French couple at the next table. She was very chic and she was trying to get her husband to smile for a photo. I laughed which made him laugh and she captured the moment, thanking me. It turned out that they also have boats, although motor ones, as she had suffered sea sickness when they tried a yacht instead. They gave us advice about places to visit, or not and about traversing the Straits of Gibraltar. Pete and I finished our evening sitting in the cockpit, drinking a little more wine and listening to our sailing playlist on spotify. A pleasant end to our first day in Spain. This is what we have been searching for, authetic places, frequented by locals, not tourists, where people don't speak much, if any, English.
Next morning we slept a little late, believing that we were restricted in leaving the Guadiana in the same way as we had been on the way in and that we wouldn't be leaving th marina until at least 1.15pm. However, the Dutch couple berthed nearby had already left. We needed to get diesel, in case we ended up having to motor and there is no fuel pontoon at the marina. Well, actually there is but they have never got round to putting any fuel pumps on it! The nearest fuel station, open on a Sunday morning, was about 1km away, quite a way to carry 2 x 20 litre fuel cans when full. We noticed that the boat next door had some wheels, so we borrowed them, making the refuelling task much easier. We managed to return the wheels about 15 minutes before their owner turned up. Pete did own up and the man was quite happy about it. It was now just after low water and another yacht departed the marina, so we decided to go for it too, gaining ourselves a couple of hours. We were down to 0.6m under the keel at one point leaving the marina but after that it was fairly straightforward and there were no eddies at the river entrance either. We had the sails up quickly after passing the breakwater but the sailing only lasted for 8 minutes before the wind died. We didn't really know where we were heading today. The more picturesque places were too close by and Mazagon sounded rather industrial. We were hoping to find an uncharted anchorage to settle for the night. For an hour, we headed out across the bay under engine and then the wind increased to 7 knots south easterly, enough to beat into, on a starboard tack. With the sails up, we were now going where the wind allowed us to go, which was the right general direction, if not quite as far to the south as we might have preferred. The wind slowly came round to the south so we could gradually pinch up. However, it seemed we were heading for Mazagon, like it or not. We sailed by all the tankers sitting at anchor outside the port and deliberated whether to go into the marina, anchor in the tidal river, beyond the marina, or look for a place off a beach. We were into the channel and heading for the anchorage upriver, where we could see a number of yachts already settled, before spotting another yacht (German) at anchor well off the beach, south of the marina and decided to join her, although somewhat closer inshore. It was 1815 and we'd had 5 hours of great sailing. The cockpit was facing the beach, not the port, so it wasn't as unpleasant as anticipated. I cooked a chicken and bacon risotto for tea and we had a little beer and wine, as the sun continued to shine down on us. It was fairly comfortable at anchor until around 4am, when the local fishing fleet headed out, causing a swell and the boat to rock. As a result, we were up at first light and off. We counted no less than 30 boats trawling an area of 2 x 2 miles, up and down and they do this every day. It's no wonder fish stocks are decimated and the sea bottom is being destroyed. If you want to know more about this, there's a very informative documentary on Netflix called 'Seaspiracy'. It's something of a horror story. We were treated to a beautiful sunrise as we left the bay.

Today (Monday) we were heading for Chipiona, a small town one headland north of Cadiz and about 30 miles south of Mazagon. There was no wind all day, so we had to motor. After only 25 minutes a man overboard alert came out on the DSC radio. Pete plotted the co-ordinates on the chart but the incident was 13.8 miles south of our current position, so there was nothing we could do to assist. The sea was flat calm, no swell and no wind, so we assume the MOB wasn't spotted immediately, as it would probably have been a fairly straightforward recovery. We could still hear search and rescue helicopters 2 hours later though, at which point we could also see the search and rescue boat, so it wasn't looking good, a depressing thought and a reminder that, as sailors, we always need to be vigilant. Motoring can be boring and I took the opportunity to go below and catch up on the blog and write some reviews for Captain's Mate (Cruising Association app). We arrived at Chipiona at 1320 hours and erected our canopy as soon as we were in the berth. It was 37 degrees centigrade and we needed somewhere to hide from the sun and the intense heat. We hit the marina bar for a cold one before returning to the boat. We eventually resorted to lowering the swim ladder and getting in the water in the marina, to cool down a bit. Around 5pm we took a walk to a Carrefour Express to buy beer and tonic water. As we entered the marina, we met another English couple and chatted to them for a while. They have managed to get Portuguese residency, so are able to avoid the 90 in 180 day rule, which is dogging most British cruisers since Brexit. Anyway, it was time for tea on board. There was a German boat 3 berths away from us and they actually had a grey parrot on board. I have seen plenty of dogs and a few cats on yachts before but it's a first for a feathered friend. After tea we deemed it cool enough to bother going for a shower, after which we went out to explore the old town. The English couple had said it wasn't of interest but we should walk along the seafront. How people's opinions can differ! We loved the old town, with its narrow, bustling streets, bars, restaurants and shops. We walked around for a while before taking a high stool at a barrel and eating langoustines (Pete) and iberico jamon (me), washed down with rioja, even though we had already eaten our tea on board. It was just too appetising to resist, especially in such an atmosphere. The lady who served us couldn't speak a word of English but we ended up having a great time with her. She asked us to stay for flamenco but it was going to start too late for Pete. We headed back to the boat, via the seafront, which held nothing for us and relaxed in the cockpit for half an hour before retiring. It was still uncomfortably hot but we eventually managed to sleep, on and off until the air cooled in the early hours. We then slept until 9am and still appeared to be the first people to wake in the marina.

Tuesday was but a short trip, round the headland to Rota, which is on the north side of the bay opposite Cadiz. We refuelled the boat and eased our way out of the marina, at low water. It was refreshingly cloudy today, with a light breeze, which would allow us to sail, if not quite in the required direction. We set out on a port tack, to take us a way beyond the west cardinal buoy. We had about 7 knots of wind and were maintaining 4 knots boatspeed. We then needed to tack to bring us back towards land. The wind dropped and we were only doing 2.6 over the ground. We held our patience and eventually increased our speed to 5 knots, much more satisfying. There was a call for us, Muirgen. on the VHF, which turned out to be another British yacht, coming towards us, requesting that we pass starboard to starboard, as he was struggling to hold his line. We happily obliged and waved as we crossed. After 4 hours of sailing, which is a long time for a 10 mile straight line trip, we dropped the sails and motored across the bay to an anchorage off the beach, between Rota marina and the Naval base. We could just make out the silhouette of Cadiz and the suspension bridge in the distance, through the haze. We had lunch at the typically Spanish time of 3pm. I lowered the swim ladder and dipped a toe in the water and was pleasantly surprised by the temperature, which had increased dramatically since Lagos and our last swim. It was perfect, refreshing but not so much as to cause a shock when getting in. There was a strong onshore current, so it was hard work swimming to the bow of the boat and a breeze coming back. We spent a couple of hours dipping in and out of the water, between sunbathing and Pete scrubbed the boat's bottom and checked the prop. A lovely day, all in all. Now we look forward to the arrival of our friends, Tim and Sarah, tomorrow. The anchorage was fairly comfortable until around 4am, when the swell increased and the fishing boats went out from Rota. We didn't get much sleep from then on and departed the anchorage as soon as it was light and headed into the nearby marina, to await Tim and Sarah's arrival and do some washing.

In the afternoon, we headed to the beach, mainly to swim and cool off. The beach wasn't busy at all and the water was lovely. Tim managed to drop his phone in the sea, after taking video of us all, so we had to conduct a circular search with our feet. I was just about to give up when my right foot landed on top of the phone. Pete dived down to pick it up and it was happily still working. Something nipped Sarah on the leg, probably one of the many small fishes. Then the same happened to me, twice. We went to dry off on the beach but it was too hot, so we were soon back in the water again, sitting up to our waists or lying down. We called for a beer / gin and tonic, on our way back to the boat and then went for a shower, discovering that our swimwear was full of sand. We dressed in cool clothes and headed into the backstreets of Rota to find a restaurant. We avoided the modern promenade and beachfront on the west side of Rota and explored the narrow streets and little squares. We found a little place, La Silla Azul, with outside tables, who kindly removed a reserved sign so we could eat. Sarah and I had a refreshing aperol spritz and the boys had their usual beers. The food was exquisite. Tim and I had mussels, very plump ones, served cold in their shells and topped with finely chopped onions and other items. It was almost like bruschetta topping; delicious. Sarah had burrata with roasted vegetables and Peter had octopus cerviche. We all tried each other's dishes and they were all equally tasty. For main course, Pete had grilled octopus (yes, he loves octopus) and the rest of us had pork cheeks braised in Jerez wine. Back on board, we went straight to bed and were all soundly asleep in seconds. It was a very slow start next morning and it was after 10am when we went back into town to provision, before motoring over the bay to the marina at Cadiz.

It was seriously hot in Cadiz, so we decided to remain on board and undercover until the early evening. We put the swim ladder down and had a dip in the marina to cool off. Ourswimming pool area increased when the neighbouring boat went out to moor up in the bay. Around 6pm, we walked into Cadiz and wandered around the old streets, taking in some of the sights, including the cathedral, where we paused for a refreshing beveridge. We stopped at a tiny, on-street tapas bar to eat and share a bottle of wine, before locating a taxi for the ride back to the marina. When we arrived, there were blue flashing lights everywhere, with several police cars and buses. We walked by the search and rescue boat and could see about ten young African men on board, wrapped in red blankets and sipping hot drinks. There had obviously been a migrant boat intercepted or rescued. We returned to the boat and went to bed, only to be awoken around 3am by the departure of the migrants on a bus and their boat being towed away. We noted in the pilot book the phone numbers to call if we see a migrant boat in distress, as we proceed from Cadiz through the straits of Gibraltar.