Anniversary in Ayamonte and Classy Plaza People
37:12.7N 07:24.4W
Friday 18th September was six years to the day since we were married in Oakham on a fabulous sunny day. The weather today is the same and with little wind we are having to motor.
The pilot book says Ayamonte has Greek origins although we did not stay long enough to find out what they were. We found a clean, pretty town decorated with coloured tiles on walls, seats and plinths. The ambience is softened with swaying palm trees some having jasmine trained around them like a sweet smelling skirt. In the car-less streets various small shops thrived and satisfied the relaxed and interested gaze of the locals and visitors. We bought some red fabric to repair our small ensign in a well-stocked fabric shop. Cool narrow streets led to clean open plazas full with well-dressed people of all ages.
One little girl wore a dark blue chiffon dress with a white lace collar and an elderly lady in mid blue caught Rob’s attention, “Look hun, she’s wearing a coat dress.”
We sat at a bar in the main Plaza la Laguna and watched hundreds of children playing on wheels. Scooters, roller skates and blades whizzed around and sometimes took a tumble only to get up again very quickly so as not to lose face. Something I have not seen for years but to which I was party when I was young, was pairs of girls ‘walking out together’ pushing their custom built dolls prams just like mum.
A little boy was mesmerised by the accordion player and jiggled and clapped to the rhythm to the delight of his mother and us voyeurs. We lingered in the happy atmosphere of it all and imagined what it would be like to live in an apartment overlooking this social, pleasant place.
Back at the marina we chatted with a Dutch couple who live aboard their steel yacht which they fitted out themselves for their own circumnavigation from 1981 to 1988. We pondered on how the world has changed. Then they called in along the north Caribbean coast of Venezuela and missed crime ridden Colombia, we will be doing the opposite since the Colombian Government in ‘clearing up’ their country have pushed many of their gangs into Venezuela which is now a very troubled place to live.
Overnight I watched a dredger at work in the marina under a starlit sky and a lorry arrived to empty the waste bins automatically in seconds while the population slept. A well loved and cared for little place, Ayamonte, it is the western most seaside town in southern Spain.
By contrast – Mazagon – What Happened There?
37:07.92N 06:50.13W
Nine of the marinas on the south coast of Spain, including some in the Med, are run by the Agency Publica de Puertos de Andalucia. Ayamonte is one, so are Mazagon, Chipiona and Rota. They are standard alongside pontoons with water and electricity supplied. Two marineras have told us that while it used to be the policy of the Agency to provide WiFi it is no longer so and the staff are forbidden to let visitors use theirs in the office.
This, it would seem, is a political decision and a very stupid one. Without doubt this is a step back in time which makes the marinas less than popular for more than an overnight stay. It is as if the Agency wants to put off the passing yachtsman, it certainly has that effect. Unlike in Galicia and Portugal where there are happy gatherings of yachties who can meet, chat and socialise and keep in touch with home and the current weather situation we came across half empty marinas, with few foreign ensigns and an exodus in the mornings.
The staff at most of the marinas we came across were helpful and apologetic and willing to speak English to us, however, all sense of civic pride, hospitality, history, worldliness, altruism and enterprise has gone from Mazagon, as if desiccated by the heat.
The humourless, gum chewing marinera couldn’t even be bothered to tell where the facilities were, provided no map of the town and when she asked “So do you want a gate key?” it was as if to say “Cos there’s sod all here to look at”. “Wifi is at the cafe.” She replied after we asked. No it wasn’t and nor had it been for a while judging by the tone of the waitress who sounded as if she was sick of relaying the sad news.
Fortunately Mike and Susy came in on Toy Buoy so we had a pleasant time chatting with them for a couple of hours.
They left early the next morning but we had decided to have a look around town since this was the town from which Columbus sailed in 1492 and we thought there might be some commemoration of this fact.
There has been a massive financial investment in this large marina but now the shops are mostly empty, mature palm trees are dying for lack of water, dilapidated dinghies in the locked club nautico are dying for lack of water as well, the port building designed like a boat covered in tiles is derelict and torn drapes on the round gazebo float in the wind like a scene from the nuclear poisoned world in ‘On the Beach’.
The town was no better. We made our way up unfinished concrete steps which doubled as a stinking drain to find the Tourist Office closed at weekends, hey guys, wake up this is still the high season.
“A real one horse town,” Rob said. An inward looking place we felt as folk at cafe’s eyed us with suspicion. Attempts to create a place of interest around the pretty lighthouse had fallen on the dry ground of apathy and disinterest. Under the lovely shade of umbrella trees the grass was being watered in a public park area where only one little girl swung to and fro in the play area.
We felt driven away and glad to leave. Maybe Columbus did too but for different reasons.
Chipiona Arrival with an Abundance of Helpful ladies
36:45.2N 06:26.2W
As we motored on yet another windless day (not complaining) I said to Rob “Remember what Mike said last night, that we can fish at any speed, well let’s give it a go shall we.” A few minutes later with our prettiest lure caught in the mouth of our first bonito, I hung over the stern, keep net in hand, wondering how much the little feller weighed and whether there was a chance I might be flipped clean over the stern.
Rob had read that one of the kindest ways to despatch fish is to pour alcohol over the gills, in this case Malibu as it is the bottle we attack least. It was a beautiful looking fish and very passive even before its tipple. So tender to fillet too and enough flesh to last us two days. No waste there as that would be wrong.
In Chipiona our faith in humanity, at least APPA humanity, was quickly restored with an efficient marinera who was keen to use her English and most apologetic about the Wi-Fi situation and the inflexibility on prices, ie no reduction for staying a few days and none of those lovely buy so many and get one free offers of which I am fond. Also if they do not have a berth for our length and have to put us in a longer one then they charge for the length of berth, not boat.
Settled amongst clicking fish, cleaning our hull, and the evocative rasping of the cicadas we were fine for a few days.
We met Tracey and Mark while sitting relaxing outside the little bar by the marina one evening. They had sold their celebrity restaurant in the UK, bought a catamaran with an unfortunate name, ‘Wet Dreams’ and set sail with little experience for the Med. Over the next months our paths would cross again and the fact they came to sailing from a completely different life path to us proves that sailing is for everyone who is interested, willing to learn and bitten by the bug no matter what their age or background.
At the tourist office the lady gave us information on bus times to Seville and Cadiz, maps of the area and advised us to find the travel agent in the main pedestrian precinct to book a hotel. She also advised there are chameleons living wild at the other end of town and suggested places we might like to visit.
A while later we were booked into the Murillo hotel in Seville from the next day for three nights. On the way back to the marina bar we located the coach station and timed our return. The bar had wifi but for some reason sent two of my blogs and blocked the others. We could not open, send or save them so I re-wrote them but the problem remained and we became suspicious attempts were being made to hack the computer. So we stopped our efforts.
Rob spoke to Mailasail on our return from Seville but they could not help us until we had a good internet connection so they could take over our computer and rectify things. Catch 22 situation.