We had a fabulous overnight sail from Culartra to Cadiz, our destination to meet Suzie & Robbie who are coming to see us at the beginning of their winter break in Spain.
We initially anchored in Cadiz just under the main large suspension bridge because Navily had reported that the holding is good with very little swell, which is exactly what it was and what we needed after an overnight passage.
Cadiz doesn't look much looking in from the sea but we've learnt not to 'judge a city by the sea' lol. What we could see was that a lot of cruise ships stop over for the day and by a lot I mean up to 3 per day!
After a nights rest we up'd anchor and headed across the bay to our next anchorage Santa Maria, next to Puerto Sherry. Suzie & Robbie were staying in a hotel a mile from the anchorage, which was great because we found a spot to leave the dinghy behind the holding pontoon in the marina. Hopefully we won't get asked to pay but we would rather pay for parking the dinghy than a marina berth as they had offered a one but it was £336 for 7 days, way out of our budget.
We had a fantastic week with Suzie & Robbie relaxing, sightseeing, swimming & eating. We also experienced Uber Taxis for the first time and were very impressed. Robbie experienced leaving the beach via dinghy, leaving Suzie & I on the beach to film it whilst wetting ourselves with laughter at how much he was being thrown around due to the wave height. Hopefully the footage is good enough for our vlog.
We all took a ferry to Cadiz main town, which is absolutely stunning with its very old walls and very old buildings, mostly in pristine condition too. In 1587, the English privateer Francis Drake successfully attacked the port of Cadiz, destroying ships, looting supplies & provisions. The raid became known as the 'singeing the King of Spain's beard', which Drake phrased himself. Drake is known as Queen Elizabeth 1's favourite pirate and she herself laid claim to half of any treasure Drake bought back to England.Suzie & Robbie's left for Estepona where they are going to spend the next 3 months and we decided we would go back across the bay to Cadiz for a couple of day but in a marina. There had been a very bad storm in the Atlantic (Lorenzo) that had battered The Azores and which Cadiz was going to be feeling the after affects of, so going into a marina was the best option. This also gave us time to sightsee more of Cadiz.
We finally left Cadiz heading form Babate on route to La Linea, which is going to be our berth for the next 6mths over the winter period.
