So sailing from Ayamonte to Punta Umbria, this trip teach us a lesson.
We start the trip planned to arrive a little bit before high tide. Because it is a river, and the currents can be strong, we wanted to enter on de end of high tide, when the current is almost stopped and the water is deeper.
The problem with sailboats is that your speed is always depending on the weather conditions and we learn that the tide on the sea and the tide on the river, they are not at the same time, anyways, we arrive there 2 hours before high tide.
The weather was ruff, we had a lot of wind, we wanted to enter the river to seek protection, but the water was very, very shallow. So we stop in front of the canal, thinking "what should we do??? Do we wait in this ruff weather or we risk to run a ground on the canal shallow waters?"...
Finally we decide, lets call the Marina there and ask about the canal, because the deepth was not clear on the maps, and a lot of the comments on the internet they weren't clear.
So we ask...
How deep is the canal?
We have 2 meters of draft and 12 meters boat, do you think is good to go?
And the guy from the Marina goes and say.
Look, I cannot guarantee but, we had have boats bigger that yours, and I know for a fact the last year, they did maintenance on the canal.
...uff... And now?
So we did a very deep breath, and we thought, lets go really slow and follow the canal, if we get stuck, we just have to wait for the tide.
So we start to go in, and we are following the canal on the chartplooter and following the red and green buoys on the water.
And suddenly, the chartplooter was saying one thing, but the buoys was saying a different thing... What do we follow? And the deepth sensor goes 1m under the keel to 0,1m... What do we do, what do we do?
Dam it, lets follow the buoys. We recover the deepth to 0,5m and we were able to pass the shallow waters 😮💨
After that, everything was perfect, we found our protection and a beautiful place a good anchorage, and we had everything we needed. Place to leave the dingy secured, supermarket and a nice small city to visit. The place have a nice natural views and is very calm, we decide to stay for a week, and a leave you the video of that.
Thanks for reading and see you next time, enjoy!
