Puerto Sherry

Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Thu 2 Sep 2010 17:32
We arrived here from Chipiona and for the first time in ages actually sailed all the way. We only had about a 10 mile journey to do which was good because we only had about 6 knots of wind, but at least it was in the right direction for once, so as you can imagine it was a slow drift - it took us about 4/5 hours!!
Plan A was to spend the time in the marina at Puerto Santa Maria which is a bit further up the Rio Guadalete and very close to the town but, the marina was very small and we would have needed to moor either on the long jetty on one side of the marina and dinghy over or on one of the hammerhead jettys but these were all full. The space in the finger berths was going to be far too tight to manoeuvre in. Where we are staying is a big purpose built marina about 2 miles walk from town along a pretty beach road. On our first trip in, the night we arrived, it took us ages to find the centre and even then we only saw a bit of it.
As we had planned to do some sightseeing visits from here we went to find the tourist office the next day and came across a lively and bustling town centre, with a very local and lived in feel. There are still very few English tourists in this area so our ability to communicate in Spanish is being well tested. When we were home in August I bought us a 'teach yourself Spanish' book and cd set but so far we have only done unit 1, and our language is limited to 'hello', 'how are you' and 'my name is... '- not a lot of use when you are trying to order your lunch!! By the time we are home next we may have managed unit 2 as well!!
The town itself is part of the Sherry Triangle which links it to Sanlucar de Barrameda and Jerez, and it was from here that the barges left to ship the sherry overseas. Christopher Columbus also came here and this is where he met Juan le Cosa, the sailor who would be his pilot on his voyage in 1492 and who, in 1500, drew the first map of the world. There are several bodegas, sherry warehouses, in the town centre surrounding a very impressive bull ring. This was built in 1890 and has a look of the coliseum in Rome about it.

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Last night we tried a bit of local flamenco in a bar in the town which was recommended by the man in the tourist office as being 'non-touristy'. The bar itself was at the end of a very quiet road, and slightly of the beaten track, but very noisy and full of locals when we arrived. We ended up standing at the bar all night as all the tables were taken. Last time when I wrote about the flamenco in Seville I said that it was dramatic and ever so slightly melancholy - well this took melancholy to a whole different level altogether!! There was one man singing and clapping, and one playing the guitar, but no pretty ladies in lovely dresses, much to John's disgust. The audience were all quite old - we were the youngest by a long way- and although they clearly loved the singing - they were cheering and clapping and stamping their feet, it sounded to me like someone had stamped on his toe very hard and that he was in mortal agony - honestly he made the Smiths seem upbeat and cheerful. In addition to the noise there was also the facial expressions which had to be seen to be believed - he looked as though he was suffering from serious constiptation!! The photo unfortunately does not do him justice. That said, the evening was interesting and we got to practise our Spanish chatting to the locals, one of which admitted that understanding Spanish is of no use at all in understanding flamenco singing.

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