Olhao to Ilsa Cristina (into Spain)
07 July 2014
Stu & Shar
The following morning Coll, Shar and I walked into town while the boys slept, what started off as quite a grubby place down the port end turned into a beautiful little town which got better as we wandered down the back streets...heavy influence of the 'Moorish' people (see photos ), they were a people who originated out of Africa and conquered the Iberian coast in the 8th Century. After our wander around town (and the 'normal' coffee stop), I had a quick haircut by the local barber (good job) and back to the yacht. We headed off late morning and again we were lucky and had a following breeze. As we crossed the border back into Spain it was blowing quite hard, with us flying along a 8.5 knots with the dinghy in tow !!!...On entering 'Ilsa Cristina' we anchored well outside the channel under the 'fake lighthouse' (see pics), but were still the target of the multitude of fishing boats that came into and left the harbour overnight. I have not seen a place as busy as this from a fishing point of view, with some of the boats clearly changing course out of the channel to pass within metres of us and then turn back so they could clear the harbour wall, why is anyone's guess, maybe they didn't like cruisers. Ilsa Cristina was not a good stop over, the vibe of the town was bad and people seemed quite agitated and unfriendly...its amazing how you can move a few miles from one village to another and have a totally different experience......we also had Jack do a disappearing trick for most of the night after an ear bashing from me over not helping out. (this behaviour is normal for Jack...but caused Shar and Coll some worry and grief). Jack unfortunately hasn't made the most of this trip and has spent most of his time sleeping, playing on his phone or stressing over the bad Wifi in the marinas when he couldn't 'message' his friends on Facebook....sign of the times with a lot of today's Kids....very, very sad, I must admit it certainly got up my nose, I hoped he would have embraced the trip and got involved more, he is missing out on so much.