From Portugal to Andalusia

We spent two days in the quiet Portimão bay, near the very picturesque village of Ferragudo, and then we weight the anchor at midday on August 30. There’s a heavy mist (we notice it once we’ve passed the breakwater) but light wind, vaguely west. That’s a shame we won’t see much of the impressive cliffs, pierced of huge caves between Portimão and Punta Alfanzina. After painfully slow 20 miles under hard sun, we give up and turn to the direction of Villamoura harbor, to rejoin the crowd. Villamoura is a bit like the Rivera, very classy. The marina is full of luxurious motor yachts and for sure they don’t all belong to Totoloto (the Portuguese lottery) winners, we see so many Porsche cars that we're bored…. We allow ourselves a nice restaurant (well, a pizzeria) to celebrate our first 1000 Miles (no we haven’t been gambling at the flashy casino) and the next day at 2:30pm we take off again for Andalusia. We’ll cross the Portuguese border in the middle of the night and change the courtesy flag for the Spanish one again. At first wind is S-W, then as usual it will veer gradually to end up N-W during the night, F3-4. We expected a long night without wind, just floating around but after a couple hours of weak air, wind came back. We reach Rota the next day at noon, 95M further.
Rota is a small friendly touristic place with some old castles and churches. Its interest is for us that it’s located only 25 min away by ferry from Cadiz, an old city we wished to visit without staying at its gloomy marina. Funded by the Phoenicians 3000 years BC, it got wealthy thanks to trade with the New World; that explains its rich architecture. For pictures of Cadiz, see the slide show, no doubt we are here in the very catholic Spain: churches, basilicas, cathedrals and religious trinkets at every corner ;-)