Update 17th Feb

6th Feb
We left Ayamonte after watching the carnaval parades the previous days, we didn’t want to stay any longer and miss the weather window for moving further East. The finale of the festivities was the ‘Burial of the Sardine’ and some fireworks – but if we stayed a day longer we would have to stay at least a week longer for the weather. Time to be moving!
So we arrived in Mazagon after six & half hours motor sailing and were ready to take in some of the Christopher Columbus (or Cristobal Colon – as he is known to the locals) history from the area.

7th Feb
Dress Ship and dinner out.

8 – 11th
Mazagon area appears to be quite a poor area with a lot of fruit (strawberries in particular) production under polythene tunnels (as far as the eye can see). Travelling by bus to Huelva and the other places it seemed to be a massive blot on the landscape. And obviously with that amount of fruit production there would need to be the labour force to support the industry – it looks like they’re from the neighbouring continent to the south.

We didn’t feel that Huelva had much to offer and didn’t spend much time in the city but the exhibition at La Rabida with life sized replicas of Columbus’s ships (etc) were very good. Palos, nearby to La Rabida is actually where they left from and is now land-locked but looks like a town of character; we didn’t get off the bus there but will explore there on the way back from the Med.

The wind instrument has not been registering the lighter winds, so with Jaap’s help, I was up the main-mast to check out the old Stowe detector head. It looks like one of the bearing sets inside are beyond serviceable life and will need replacing – in the mean-time the direction works OK and the speed probably reads 5 knt low.

Mon 11th Feb
We left Mazagon to Chipiona and had a good sail for all the way except for the last hour or 2 when the wind had died away and then turned and strengthened. We had put the engine on to help keep the speed up after the wind dropped to about 5 Knt but within about 15 minutes it was up to 20 knt and ‘on the nose’. The wind continued to blow strong and had increased to about 27 knt until we got in and stayed that way for the next few days. It was a bonus that the firing range was not operating so we could take a more direct sail.

11th – 15th
In Chipiona – quite an interesting town with an impressive lighthouse but as in most of the towns there is a bad problem with graffiti and broken glass. No empty pontoon for Balchis; I think it was because the spaces were taken by local boats that had been moved out of their area due to repair works – so we remained on the visiting pontoon for the duration of the stay.
Wednesday we had a fantastic meal in one of the 2 bar / restaurants that are at the marina (to celebrate Jaap’s birthday – [ Sshhhh ! ] )

15th Feb
Chipiona to Cadiz – only a small distance of about 19 miles but Cadiz is a very impressive old town, a lot of history and good connections to get to Seville; so a better place to wait out the bad weather than Chipiona.
A light-winds motor-sail for all but the last hour and a bit – then the wind picked-up in the Bay of Cadiz which was very busy with a couple of Assault-Ships unloading ; loads of landing craft and a few helicopters; and another 3 or 4 war-ships coming out of the river. There had been an exercise further east and south of Cadiz that was finishing on the 15th so we hadn’t expected to see this much activity in the bay.

We had a walk into Cadiz in the evening to get some information on the city and timetables to get to Seville.

16th was spent walking through the city and taking in most of the sights in the old part of town. It’s a shame that Cadiz is reputed to be one of the most under visited cities in Spain (other than during it’s Carnaval) – it has a lot of impressive sights and history to see. However, the weather overnight was wild with 45 – 50 knt winds and the boat bouncing around a bit (even though we are close behind the wall). So - extra ropes and not too much sleep….

It’s now 17th and raining so the walk into town (about 800 metre) and to see the inside of the Cathedral is postponed but the winds have eased to about 24 knt. We will be here ‘til the weather improves and we have been to Seville. Pictures from Ayamonte carnaval to here will be in the next post.