Cadiz to ... Barbate?

[Terry wrote this blog entry because I just don't want to talk about it.]

We left Cadiz at 3:30am this morning for a 56-mile trip to Tangier.  Started badly when we almost got run down by a Spanish Armada Patrol Boat - he kept coming towards me on my starboard bow and all the time I expected him to turn to his port and head down the main channel into Cadiz.  I couldn't turn there because I assumed he would and I'd be right in his path.  He put his searchlight on us and kept a’coming - I did an emergency stop and he just carried on over my bows into what is definitely not safe ground - there's patches of reef in there that I'd certainly hit if I went in.  Must be some sort of "see who's brave enough to do this at 20 knots" game they play.

Anyway, out we went in 18 knots of breeze and Common Sense was humming along at 6-7.  However, the wind got up and up and up and by 10am we were in a gale with 40+ knots over the deck, a couple of peaks at 50+ and no sail out.  I couldn't control the boat and we were getting blown left and right depending on what wave we just fell off.  We'd already made 28 miles towards Tangier and I was reluctant to give it up but turned back anyway.  Then I decided to make for Barbate about 16 miles away and only 26 miles from Tangier.  It was sideways and a bit east so it took 4 1/2 hours to get there, amid much banging, crashing, spray flying and water over the deck.  We went past Trafalgar in a gale, sparing a thought for Admiral Horatio, the Lord Nelson, and thanking him for the fact that I don’t speak French!  Even in the harbour we couldn't dock on the waiting pontoon as there was a huge squall while we were trying with 48 knots coming through and the stern refusing to go in.  We motored around to our slip and that was a much better proposition and we simply eased in there. So much for yesterday's 18 knots of wind weather forecast.  There are two other yachts in here with the same story – got half way and got hammered back into submission like us.

 

The marina looks very much like the Cadiz one in fitout and it is also a victim of the financial times.  Half full and facilities empty.  We are 2kms out of town but on our u-beaut Montague Town bikes we make short work of that.  We went in to find an internet café with wiffy available to see why my Visa card wouldn't work in the marina machine.  Worked fine last night in the Cadiz marina machine?

We had a beer or two in the Galeria café and then wandered up the promenade a bit for dinner.  Settled on a fish café and had a local Barbate version of Paella - with tuna and capsicum strips.  Very nice.  Then we rode home in the dark to the marina.  You wouldn't credit it being the same ocean - moonlight dancing off the gentle waves, soft breeze off the land.  No sign of today's storms.

 

This town is loaded with tourists, mostly British, and also many Spanish.  You can tell the Brits - wind is howling off the ocean, the sand is leaving Spain and heading for the USA and here's a 70-y.o. walking onto the beach with a deck chair!  Straight up, wind or no wind, he was here to sit on the beach and that's that.

It's a bit grittier than Cadiz and certainly not the suave sophistication of Seville.  It's a fishing port with a big tuna industry and some hefty boats here.  Superb promenade that goes for miles, with kids, grandy's, parents, kids on bikes and roller skates, teens in love and teens out looking for love.  There must have been thousands out all along the way.

Once again, what a surprise.  And you can see the coast of Africa off in the distance.