36:44.75N 06:25.8W

Monday 25^th August

We left the anchorage early on Friday morning and motored to Chipiona marina, having decided to forget about Rota for the time being as they were so unhelpful regarding a place! We arrived here to find a real gem of a town albeit full of Spanish tourists.

The marina staff were more than helpful and we have been given a lovely spacious hammerhead place with enough room to have the dinghy on the pontoon. We have enjoyed being here so much that we have stayed 4 nights. The marina is lovely and quiet and the showers and toilets fine; it has a good laundry with instructions in English, which I made use of this morning.

The town is charming; there are numerous tiny streets with two or three storey buildings, most with wrought-iron balconies and tiled courtyards and entrance passageways. The front is pedestrianised and has the usual small booths selling jewellery and cotton clothing etc. Numerous cafes and bars line this whilst the beach has wooden walkways, showers, toilets, plenty of litterbins and some sun beds to rent out. Most of the Spanish tourists come from Seville for a month in August and the beach is a mass of coloured umbrellas and beach chairs with several generations of families together. We have seen the ‘oldies’ sitting in large circles complete with umbrellas playing some kind of bingo, as many as 20 people!

In the town itself there are some glorious examples of Moorish influenced properties several churches with brightly coloured tiles on the outside and minaret type towers for bells. The bougainvillea and hibiscus plants are everywhere, growing to 20 feet up the sides of the taller buildings and the various squares have huge palm trees to provide shade. Some of the streets are wide and tree lined and it is here that several up-market hotels are located. However there are also loads of ‘hostel’ type accommodation opportunities – these appear to be large houses – a bit like our B and Bs at  home, with small tiled shaded courtyards with garden furniture for guests to sit out in.

We have hardly heard an English voice for over a week! Although we did meet an Australian family on board their catamaran ‘Meander’ – it was interesting to hear all about their travels having left Fort Lauderdale in May and come to Europe via the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Azores.

We are planning to leave here tomorrow and sail up the River Guadalquivir a few miles to anchor near a town called Bonanza!

(See pictures of town separately.)

Jacky and Rob