36:34.8N 06:14.8W

Wednesday 20^th/ Thursday 21^st August

Sailed from Barbate at 1000 turned sharp north out of the harbour entrance and went inside the tuna nets cutting off a good 4 miles. Passed very close to Cap Trafalgar and had a look at a small sheltered anchorage to the east of the headland with a view to stopping there next time we are in the area. We also motored into Puerto de Conil to see what it offered in the way of anchoring – not a great deal of space but again food for thought another time. The wind was on the nose for the whole 30 miles and gradually picked up so by the time we were in the bay of Cadiz it was blowing good force 5. We arrived off Puerto Sherry and decided to check out the anchorage to the west of the long training wall and east of the marina. There were several boats anchored so having mooched around we found a suitable spot and dropped the hook in about 5 metres of water. I had a fabulous swim – water temperature 23.5 degrees – bliss after a hot day. By sunset only 4 boats remained one Dutch, one Swiss, one Canadian and ourselves! We had a peaceful night with only a bit of rolling although I was on anchor watch having assured Rob we had plenty of water under us. I began to get a bit worried when the depth dropped to 2.7 so I had to re-consult the almanac and re do my tidal calculations just to be sure – this was all at around 0000. (Rob slept through it all!)Anyway the depth only dropped another 0.2 so at low we were still over a metre off the bottom.

Pumped up the dinghy and went for an explore on Thursday morning – we couldn’t find anywhere to tie up the tender except the waiting pontoon for the marina so we left it there and set off to look round. What a strange place it is – half finished blocks of houses, dusty building plots and some very nice apartments/ townhouses. Obviously the place has met with a lack of buyers and so has a distinct unfinished almost abandoned air to it. We did find a beach and some cafes to the west of the marina but no sign of any shops. We plan to explore in the other direction tomorrow. Had several swims off the boat during the day the water temperature rose to 23.9 around the middle of the afternoon.

Rob has rigged an anti-roll device by suspending the anchor weight from the end of the spinnaker boom and lowering it into the water – it seems to be working well as it stops the momentum being set up when a bigger wave hits us so we only roll once or twice and then the boat settles again.

No access to WIFI here so saving these messages to send when we get a signal.

Jacky and Rob