Friday 21^st March – Chipiona - Rota

36:36.917N 6:21.232W

Today we got up early to find the skies had cleared and the winds had eased, so, we quickly settled our account and headed off for the short hop down the coast to Rota. 

We motor-sailed gently along the coast enjoying the sunshine after the last few days of heavy rain.

We arrived in Rota at lunchtime and have settled in this afternoon – checking out the facilities and having a brief walk into town.  We plan to stay here a few days, using Rota as a base to explore Seville and Cadiz.

We were feeling very tired and after dinner we planned a DVD and an early night.  Richard scanned through the TV channels to see if we could get any local stations; they were fairly faint but there were many showing coverage of the Semana Santa (Holy Week) processions – it is a prominent celebration here in Andalucia.

During dinner we heard music in town and couldn’t resist going to see.  There was a Semana Santa procession getting underway and we found ourselves a really good spot to see it.  There were a number of floats representing events from the Easter story; the floats are very elaborately done.

It is amazing to see the floats being carried along very narrow streets with sharp corners to negotiate.  The men carrying the floats are beneath the float and unable to see anything; there are a couple of guys at the front of each float helping with directions but one still wonders how they make it.

We have read that the floats can weigh around 2000kg and there are on average 40 men carrying them.  It is a great honour to be able to carry the floats and there are months of practice before the big day.

The procession moves quite slowly, stopping often, and so quite lengthy; we have got back to Pyxis quite late and even more tired!  Perhaps we’ll rest tomorrow.