A dinghy adventure up the Ria Guadiana
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Tue 24 Aug 2010 10:43
When we left the river was quite choppy and bumpy, despite us having waited for nearly two hours from when we intended to set off, and the first quarter of the journey was hard work - wind-over-tide for those in the know or, for the non-sailors, very lumpy & slow. After that it settled a bit and we didn't have to hang on quite so tightly!!
As we travelled down the river we saw large groups of storks wading on the river banks and some in flight as well. They really are very graceful and elegant.
After about two hours we arrived in Alcoutim - we knew we had arrived by the large "Welcome to Alcoutim" sign - we had joked about seeing a sign as we would have had no idea if we were there, as it is extremely difficult to judge distances with no landmarks or chart!! We landed the dinghy and went to find a shop - we had come prepared for a picnic with our picnic set but no food as we thought it wouldn't last the trip in the sun. The supermarket, however, was shut until 3pm so we had to find alternative food. We went to a cafe in the town square with the worst decor ever and had a vey nice fish lunch for about £15 - bargain!!
Alcoutim is a very small place so exploring didn't take very long - the tourist map we got had scale of about 1 inch to 80 metres! It was at best about half a mile in each direction. After lunch we wandered to the castle but as it was roasting hot we decided to venture to Sanlucar de Guadiana, the Spanish town on the opposite river bank.
Sanlucar... well, if you imagine a wild west ghost town? The streets were completely deserted, we saw 3 teenagers sunbathing by the dinghy pontoon but apart from that nothing and no-one. The houses were all shut up and there was nothing happening at all. This town clearly takes its' siesta very seriously! After a quick walk round we left to return home. The trip home was better than the trip up river with about two thirds calm and one third rougher at the end.