We have now been back on board for another fortnight!

We flew out from Southampton to Faro on Monday, 25 July. The flight was early, so was Antonio, our driver, and we were back on board in Ayamonte by 2100 in time for tapas ashore.

The next day was domestic – collecting the laundry left a fortnight ago, provisioning etc – before setting off on Wednesday to go some 20 miles up the Guardiana River with the tide.

We spent the first night at Sanlucar on the Spanish side, as above, looking over to Alcoutim in Portugal. We were lucky to find a space on the six boat pontoon. The other five spaces were occupied by live-aboards, one of whom had been there for over 2 years.

Sanlucar (above) is possibly more attractive than Alcoutim, but the latter has more provision shops, facilities etc and the view is better, so on Thursday we moved across the river to the pontoon on the other side.

The next three days became lazier and lazier. We can understand how people can stay for months living on their boat up the Guardiana river – it was all very friendly and sociable and we gathered that in the winter it was even more so! Most days we swam at the delightful Praia Fluvial – the river beach, up a little creek with a sandy shore and water temperature of 30°.  One day we joined the Communist party for a lunch of gazpacho and sardines by the beach.

The ten minute walk from boat to beach was superb, through a valley by the creek with bamboos close by the water and azure winged magpies flying overhead in the tall eucalyptus and pine trees. We passed grapes, ripening figs and pomegranates, and orange groves.

Finally, after 5 days, we tore ourselves away and headed back downriver, anchoring just above the border bridge to await enough rise of tide to cross the bar and make the short passage to Isla Cristina.

The marina at Isla Cristina is fairly ordinary and the surrounding area rather scruffy, however the older part of town is more interesting and the town is home to a huge sardine fleet. We watched massive quantities – many tonnes - of sardines being hand sorted by size into 7.5kg boxes which were then auctioned on an electronic board. You could get a couple of boxes (15kg) for about €25, but for 50 or more boxes the price came down to around €6 per box.

Tide times meant an early start at sunrise on Wednesday, 3 August for the 70 mile passage across to Cadiz. With hot sun and the wind behind us, F3-5 for most of the time, it was a pleasant relaxed sail, apart for the need for constant lobster pot watch.

We spent a day ambling around the streets in Cadiz and taking an extended lunch at a tapas bar in the back streets, far away from the English passengers from the Queen Victoria cruise ship in port. Climbing the highest of the watch towers gave superb views over the town as well as an interesting commentary in the camera obscura.

From Cadiz it was only 5 miles NW to Rota – a motor with no wind. Just next to the town is the huge American naval base with the grey bulk of the warships looming, and junk US forces radio on FM. However Rota itself is an attractive little town with a strong Moorish influence as shown by the castle courtyard above. We arrived on the day of a music festival. Celebrations went on into the small hours, however the predominant sound was not loud music, but thousands of people talking and enjoying themselves until around 0530. At 0930 the town was silent!

After a couple of nights in Rota we beat north to Chipiona. A pleasant touristy seaside town at the entrance to the river Guadalquivir running up to Sevilla. Like Rota, the beaches were absolutely crammed with humanity – umbrellas, chairs, tables etc all laid out. We had chickened from the crowds in Rota, but decided that we had to brave it here and swam with the masses in water at 30°C.

We will spend a couple of nights here and then probably Magazon.