Pedro turned up wit the bait.

Looking at it I had hoped for something a little more substantial than the mini prawns and whitebait, but maybe the smaller the bait the bigger the catch around here ?

Actually it was quite a good idea to have small bait, as the wind had blown up, and the 6 miles out to sea, which was advertised (subject to weather) wouldn’t have been a pleasant experience, nor maybe a safe one. Cadiz bay does not hold vast shoals of tuna/marlin/sailfish, but does have some mackerel/snapper / bream.

So undeterred, and with that anticipation which comes from any fishing trip off set the old man of the sea, accompanied by his trusty cabin girl.

Obviously the fish sit,  or swim around a big navigation buoy right in the middle of the shipping lane, so we headed there.  Down went the feathers, and up came mackerel, snapper and bream.  Unfortunately the wind also came  up, and the pounding we were getting made it, in the words of Pedro, a “little mad”

So with at least some fish we headed to the sea wall, which was a very impressive sea wall, the reason of which we found later that morning.

Down went mini prawns, whitebait, even a few sardines, and up came …nothing.   However it was a reasonably pleasant day in the confines of the inner harbour, the sun shining, the waves lapping and the adjacent warships resting.

We spied a fast boat on the horizon, closing fast, blue lights flashing , and guns trained , ON US !! Yes the safety of the harbour wall was a nationally excluded military base to keep the other 60 million Spanish people safe as well,  and us fisherman were considered an unknown threat.

A few pleasantries later, and Pedro’s ID card being confiscated we returned to harbour. At least we kept the fish.

So a great day out, The old man of the sea lives to fight another day, the cabin girl topped up the tan, and Pedro, apologetic for the weather, took us from a place of national security to the public harbour, where our travelling companions were waiting to whisk us off to some dry-land, wet your whistle establishment