Rio Guadiana overtaken by a fridge!

The advice in the pilot book for arriving in the Guadiana is to aim for slack water because this means berthing on the pontoons at Vila Real de Santo Antonio is easier.  This meant an early rise for us, which worked out well for getting out of the lagoon too.  We had contemplated a stop at Tavira, only about 15 miles along the coast but timing exits and entrances seemed impossible.  It was still dark when the alarm went off but we dragged ourselves out of the comfort of bed and prepared to leave.  

It was a beautiful dawn.  Sometimes daybreak can be a bit disappointing; a grey mist hugging the horizon, but this morning a fiery glow singed the water.  With barely a breath of wind to assist us we chugged along in the hope that the breeze would pick up as the day warmed.  Our luck was out, though, and by 1100 we were still motoring, south of Tavira, had 10.7 miles to go and two hours until high water.  Just right.  We passed a tunny net and Chris spotted some Garfish whilst on pot watch at the bow.  A huge jellyfish also wobbled by and a patch of water that was “boiling” with fish intrigued us.  We wondered whether they were spawning.  We found our way through the channel markers successfully and berthed on the reception pontoon in the marina on the Portuguese side of the river.  It was siesta time and we had to report to the office at 1500.

All was well until, having reported to the office, we were asked to move to a finger berth.  Of course, having timed our arrival perfectly we were now two hours into the strong ebb flow of the river and we had real fun and games trying to manoeuvre into the space and ended up on a different finger.  We stayed there!  Our plan was to spend just one night here and then venture up the river, which is reported to be stunning.  The weather had other ideas though.  The weather chart at the office showed a fantastic swirl of low pressure, centred over the UK but with a tail whipping along this coast, and a few days of wind had white horses galloping along the river and after a second night we decided to pop across the river to Spain’s marina, Ayamonte.   

The ten-minute crossing of the river was uneventful apart from the fact that we lost an hour, just like that!  The marina, managed by the Junta de Puertos de Andalucia , was close to a lovely town square, planted with palm trees and surrounded by bars and restaurants.  We enjoyed wandering the meandering cobbled streets and treated ourselves to a meal out one rainy evening.  Eventually, the weather calmed a little and we decided to head up river.  The marina was more sheltered than we realised and once out in the river we found ourselves having to motor against a northwest, 17 knot wind!  It was a bit choppy, but not as many white horses as the previous few days!

Our first landmark was the elegant suspension bridge whose wires were singing an eerie song in the wind.  The Spanish side of the river is sparsely inhabited but on the Portuguese side a number of villages provide free moorings and even one or two pontoons with electricity and water!  We were aiming to reach Alcoutim (Portugal) and Sanlucar (Spain) some 18 miles upstream, where we hoped to pick up a free mooring buoy.   We guessed that the neatly spaced trees on the slopes were some sort of nuts, maybe almonds.  The hills became gradually higher and provided more shelter in places from the gusting wind and after about three and a half hours we rounded a curve in the river to be greeted by an impressive Spanish castle!  One or two yachts had chosen isolated anchorages but we continued up to the two opposing villages where more yachts and, if necessary, facilities could be found.  It was beautiful.  Picking up the buoy was tricky in the strong flow but on about our fourth attempt we hooked it up.   

The imposing Spanish castle high on a hill overlooking the valley, certainly dominated the scene, but on the opposite side of the river the Portuguese castle also stood, resolute, against attack.  It was a place of stimulating sights and sounds.  Each town had a number of church bells, which chimed, slightly out of synch and of course the different hours.  Their main rivals were the bells hanging round the necks of the Spanish sheep in a field beside the river but a little dog, which we nicknamed the Mayor of Alcoutim, made more noise than anything else as he ran round the village on the constant lookout for anything that moved, to woof at!  

In an ideal world we would have had perfect weather in which to soak up the wonderful atmosphere but we ended up soaking up a lot of rain instead!  For one whole day it poured and we cowered below, reading and playing Scrabble whilst we worried about the scraping noises along the boat caused by the reed canes careering down the river.  At one point a raft was formed on our mooring buoy and the funniest thing we saw was an empty, discarded fridge floating past!  We were thankful that didn’t hit us.  There was very little slack water; one minute we would be facing upstream as the tide ebbed and within 15 minutes we would be turned through one hundred and eighty degrees as the tide turned.  It was quite strange to pop your head up through the hatch to find yourself facing a different way.

We ventured ashore to Alcoutim one afternoon for a bit of a stroll to stretch our legs but without getting the outboard on the dinghy we could not get across the river to Sanlucar because the current was so strong.  It was still cloudy and rain threatened so after exploring the castle we returned to La Premiere.  We were a little worried about the journey back down the river because the rain had washed so much debris into the water that unless we could sail, there was real danger of getting something in the prop.  We spent our third night hoping for the right wind to carry us down river the following morning.