We managed to make it under the suspension bridge
and back to the bright lights of Ayamonte.
Welcome back to Ayamonte!
With a bit more time to explore, Ayamonte turned
out to be pretty and laid back. Supermarkets were plentiful and fish/shellfish
was cheap and we dined on cut-price prawns as often as I could get away with it
(5.99€ a kilo!).
David and the children spent a day going back to
Mazagon by bus to collect some post that had only just turned up. It should have
been there when we first arrived in Mazagon, never mind a month later!
The main square in Ayamonte.
Sunset over Ayamonte marina.
We settled back into a routine of working (for
me), school, boat jobs and laundry.
One of our art projects involved painting
terrapins from natural paint that we made from rocks that we’d selected
carefully for the purpose in Pomerão and Sanlúcar.
The pictures were superb but I don’t think the
kitchen knife we used to generate pigment powder is ever going to be the same
again.
Another day the crew was dispatched to purchase a
new washing machine.
Our twin-tub washing machine.
I’m sure that this form of child labour would be
illegal back in the UK, but hey…the
children now take better care of their clothes and their things get worn more
than once before washing!
David flambé and other
recipes
Mike, Mandie, John and Frannie came (from
Portimão) to visit for a couple of days. We tracked down large quantities of
fish and seafood for supper, lazed on the beach at Ilsa Canela (the Cinnamon
Isle), introduced John and Frannie to the delights of ‘Who’s in the bag?’,
talked junk well into the night, and drank far too much... The recipe for a
perfect weekend with friends!
We had an exciting hour on board when David
flambéed himself while trying to light the Tilly lamp with what had been sold to
me as meths turned out not to be (if you get my drift). As David's arm went up
in flames and he went over the side into the marina, the rest of us tested one
of the fire blankets for real. Luckily there was no real damage done – just a
few surface burns on David's arm (and a roasting from me later about when and
where he lights the damn thing...). He’s moaning now that I didn’t take any
photos of the event and his blisters for the blog (some people will do anything
for their 15 minutes of fame). The search for ‘real’ meths
continues.
Crab racing, whiskey and more
prawns
The children made friends with Anouk, who was
staying next door on her grandparents’ boat. Catching crabs and racing them
almost reached the status of a national sport on our pontoon – that and Nintendo
marathons.
This was ‘Lewis’ – apparently all of the racing
crabs had names.
Meanwhile, David earned a crust (well a bottle of
Jonnie Walker Red Label, actually) for re-writing in English (from the original
Portuguese/Dutch translated into English using Babelfish) a contract for
architectural work to be done on a property owned by Anouk’s grandparents.
Jim and Jules (MBOLO) had arrived in Ayamonte and
we spent an evening catching up with them (over a large bowl of prawns, for a
change).
We all had wind!
No, not a digestive complaint, but the stuff that
lets us get from place comfortably while able to talk to each other – and for
free! We had a superb sail from Ayamonte to Rota, with a steady 10–15 knot north-westerly wind that
allowed us to get both sails up and make a comfortable 7–8 knots with a
10-degree heel. Neither Bethany nor I (for once!) complained that it was too
‘tippy’ and not even Bryn was seasick! It’s a good job that we were able to
sail, as our engine mysteriously started getting hot and leaking water.…Mmmm,
been here before…
