The update page this month is not very long as we have been wintering in Ayamonte in Spain for the last two months, with a trip home at Christmas and a few excursions in the area. The flag alongside is the Andalusian flag. Mike has been busy with various maintenance jobs but he will tell you about that on his page. We had a great time at home and met up with many friends and family and we didn’t even mind the bad weather really. We soon got used to the cold and rain again in England although at the time of writing I am sitting in the cool down below on the boat while Mike is sweltering in the sun on deck doing maintenance on the main bilge pump!

Ayamonte is on the river Guadiana which divides Spain and Portugal, and is in the province of Huelva in the region of Andalusia. The Atlantic coast of Andalusia is little known compared to the Costa’s on the Mediterranean side and is less developed in comparison. It is known as the Costa de la Luz (Coast of Light). There are some tourist resorts locally such as Isla Canela and Isla Cristina in Spain and Monte Gordo in Portugal along with a few golf courses, all again out of our reach financially, but overall, the area is still unspoilt.

On both sides of the river there are extensive salt marshes (marismas) and we have been lucky enough to see storks, herons, egrets, stilts and flamingos in abundance on our cycling and walking trips so far.

Ayamonte has a population of about 18,000 and still retains its medieval centre with narrow streets and historical buildings. The marina is secure and the charges reasonable (with only one drawback, the lack of a laundrette) which was why we decided to leave the boat here while we went home.

It is so easy to cross the river to Vila Real de Santo António in Portugal on the ferry, although there is a modern motorway bridge just north of the towns. The ferry only costs €1.45 each way and 80 cents for your bike. We have been across to Vila Real a few times, also to Castro Marim just upriver, which has not just one, but two forts guarding the town. We caught the bus to the airport at Faro from Vila Real. There is a railway link but the railway station is about 1/2 mile away from the ferry in the middle of nowhere. It seems strange to us as the bus station is right next to the ferry, and the railway used to run right up to them both as the line and buffers are still there! The town was completely destroyed in the earthquake of 1755 and was rebuilt within 6 months on a grid system. The street are filled with shops selling fabrics, bedding and linen. Apparently they are very cheap in comparison to prices in Spain therefore the Spanish cross over frequently.

Faro is the capital of the Algarve and although we only had a day there we found it interesting, and the old part of town was surrounded by Roman walls. The Christmas decorations in the streets of Portugal are spectacular, much more so than in Spain. In fact, Christmas itself is very low key in Spain. Families eat together on Christmas Day, but children do not get their presents from Father Christmas that day, but from the Three Kings who arrive in towns and villages on horseback or in horse drawn carriages on the night of the 5th January - Kings Night. In fact, Father Christmas is somewhat frowned upon as being irreligious, although there was talk in the local paper that more and more young mothers were in favour of him delivering the presents, if only so that their children would get their gifts earlier and be able to play with them longer, and their parents would have a more peaceful time before they went back to school on the 7th January! Our two friends Paul and Phil from Sea Spirit spent Christmas with Phil’s sister in Alicante and returned to Ayamonte for New Year. When they went out on New Year’s eve every bar and restaurant was shut! They had to see in the New Year on the pontoon. They have just started their own web page. Check it out here.

We did have one humorous moment on the way home. The cheap piece of carpet in the saloon of the boat was not standing up to the constant passage of feet all the time and was wearing badly. There are no such things as carpet superstores in either Portugal or Spain, only rolls of stair carpet or rugs in some furniture stores, which wasn’t wide or tough enough, so we decided to buy a piece back home and send it back to ourselves by post if necessary. We duly bought a 3 metre by 1 metre strip of industrial carpet for £20 which should last a bit better but found it would cost at least £28 to post it to Spain. After checking with Easyjet we found we could take it on the plane as an extra bag for only £8! Great. We managed to bring that, all our Christmas presents and clothes, other things like tubes of mastic and a tin of paint for the masts, and still kept within our weight limit of 40 kilos between us. We duly checked in our bags at Newcastle, sent the carpet through the ‘outsize luggage’ check in and got on the plane. At the other end our two bags came out of the carousel first. Brilliant, we should get through quickly. Then the luggage carousel kept breaking down and a little man kept climbing up through the rubber doors to disentangle cases. We started to worry that it was the carpet rolling back down the chute and causing the blockage. After many minutes of stop start and the man coming back up the chute everyone had got their luggage and we were left looking in vain for anything resembling our most important item as the empty carousel finally stopped for the last time! Then Pat looked behind us and said “What’s that over there?” towards a bench with a large sign - ‘Outsize Luggage’ The carpet was sitting there so patiently. It had probably been there even before the ordinary things came through! Are we thick or what?

We have also twice sailed about 20 miles upriver and visited Alcoutim on the Portuguese side of the river, and Sanlúcar de Guadiana on the Spanish side, . Both are quiet little towns, villages really, facing each other 300 yards across the river. Again, a small ferry runs between the two, although the boat owners use their own dinghies. The thing that is useful is the one hour time difference between the two countries. If you have forgotten to buy something in a shop on one side, you can pop over the river for it as the shop on the other side is still open, or is due to open up again after the siesta! We don’t really know which time to keep. Mike is still on Spanish time, Pat has changed back to Portuguese.

We have also met up with our old friends from Hartlepool, Bruce and Ally, from the yacht Kath, who set off a year before us and yet only reached here in the autumn. We know that some people have questioned our slow progress but we are not in a race. We are here to enjoy the journey, not race full pelt missing everything.

All along the river Guadiana are small villages and we cycled to one on the Portuguese side, Laranjeiras, where we bought a carrier bag of oranges fresh from the tree for only €2 from an old lady by the roadside. Pat was tempted to try and buy a dog there. A despondent little fellow chained up as a guard dog made not one bark as he excitedly nearly wagged his tail off when we approached. He was lovely. He just needed to be noticed! Lots of sailors have pets on board. Many dogs and a few cats. The main advantage of having a dog (apart from having something furry to pet) is as a deterrent to would-be thieves (although that little fellow wouldn’t have been much use)! The downside is that you could not leave them on the boat for a long time, also they have to be trained to use an area to poo and pee and we haven’t got a lot of room on deck for that.

We have seen flocks of azure-winged magpies up and downstream of Alcoutim and there are supposed to be red-rumped swallows, golden orioles and bee-eaters but we haven’t seen any of those up to now. The magpies are a dusky blue colour from above. There is a flock of cattle egrets which roost above the village too. It is a wonderful area for a holiday for anyone. We would recommend it.

You can get further up the river almost to a large town called Mertola but the way is very tricky with sandbanks and rocky outcrops. Halfway there is an old mining village called Pomaráo on the Portuguese side. This part of the journey is not so bad except for the approach to Pomaráo itself, where there is a large sandbank. This is the river where, in 1997, there was a flash flood (it is rumoured that the authorities on both sides inadvertently opened their own sluice gates at the same time during heavy rainfall) and many boats, both at anchor and on pontoons, were washed away. We decided to risk going up to Pomaráo and, armed with a hand-drawn chart, ventured upstream with the tide. All went well on the journey until we reached the sandbank. It must have moved since the chart was written as we followed the route exactly then we heard that familiar, but excruciating, sound of keel on a gravelly bottom! Within moments we were stuck fast. The still incoming tide, even nearly 30 miles inland, was still quite strong and kept pushing us harder onto the bank. Mike will tell you the rest of the story on his page.

We had just been saying that we have been aground in three countries since we have had the boat - twice in Scotland (Loch Ryan and the river Tay) - once in England in Portland Harbour (just touched bottom, not stuck in the mud!) - and once in France on the river Jaudy (as reported here in June) - but we’d never been aground in Portugal or Spain! We have decided that as we were right in the middle of the river this incident counts as both countries at once so we are not due to go aground again until we are out of Spain!

We stayed at Pomaráo, an old mining village, for two nights. There is nothing in the village apart from one bar which was not open while we were there. Apparently various trucks come a couple of times a week with fruit, vegetables, meat and provisions. A little too far out of the way for us, but a Dutchman we met on the pontoon told us he had set out to sail around the world, sailed up to Pomaráo and met the love of his life, got married, and had been there for four years! The only thing of interest in the village was the dam and reservoir above it. It is supposed to be a hydroelectric station but there is neither water or electricity on the pontoons there.

We enjoyed a walk up to the reservoir but saw no wildlife there at all other than some sheep, one rabbit, a few swifts and some pigeons. There were no water fowl at all so the reservoir may not contain any fish. We read some reports of heavy metal contamination in the water from the old mines further upriver, but then the reservoir water is used for irrigation in the Badajoz province in Spain. We don’t know.

We are going back to Ayamonte in the next couple of days to enjoy the annual Carnival then, when Mike has obtained some plywood from somewhere, we may come back up here to do some more jobs on the boat.

See you at the end of February. We may be somewhere else or we may still be here - who knows?

Photos below as usual.

PS. At the time of writing, Sunderland are out of the bottom three for the first time for ages - thank goodness!