A week in Rota

On Sunday I was alone doing a long walk through Rota, since the captain wasn't feeling well. I was eager to see if I still like it as much as I did 8 years ago. I went to check on Mercado publico, and it was still pretty. This is how it looks inside...

and this is one of the entrances.

In town there were many pretty house entrances.

I walked to Palaco La Luna...

...with beautiful inner court...

... and very pretty staircases.

I think I photographed the same church entrance as 8 years ago, only this time it was shaded.

I found these funny plant pots, different faces with different hairdos.

On the SW side of town there is a miles long beach.

I didn't have to go far to see the wildlife - there were seagulls and sanderlings right on neighbouring pontoons, and big fish all around the boats.

Captain was getting worse, so we decided to stay as long as we have to for him to get better. So it was mostly me who got around. One day I decided to walk all the way to botanical garden. I walked along the promenade...

..to the boardwalks. It is a lovely area of pine woods and shrubs along the coast, where there's suppose to live plenty of chameleons. Needless to say I was all eyes and I was walking like in slow motion.

Day was hot and walking in the shade was really nice.

Unfortunately I didn't see any chameleons, just couple of really fat pigeons...

...and few flowers. But I was sure to get to see some chameleons in botanical gardens, so I wasn't too disappointed.

There are several accesses to the beach.

Both the boardwalks and the beach are fenced off so chameleons have their peace and quiet.

As I after a while got to the gate of botanical garden, I was sad to see that it was closed. The note said something about "for protection of chameleons". So maybe they're mating, I wish them all the luck and success, but was still disappointed that I didn't get to see any.

As days went by it got very autumnal, it was humid and chilly in the mornings, but we still got some sun during the day and sometimes a beautiful sunset in the evening. 

Maybe out of solidarity to the Captain I got a cold as well, not as bad as him though, so I was still able to cook plenty of tea for us both besides taking care of household. And almost every day I made a stroll, at least to the grocery shop and often also to the shore. On Friday I noticed all the waves on the sea and it was immediately clear why the boat was dancing and pulling at the lines the night before in otherwise so calm marina. I guess the swell could be the remains of hurricane Lorenzo that landed on Azores only two days before.

For most of the week we were probably the only people on any of the boats in the marina. The slips on our pontoon are also mostly empty, except for the birds and one other boat.

Today Captain discovered this scary creature next to our boat - the box jelly fish. I know not all are deadly like the ones in Australia, but they all have a very painful sting. I couldn't figure out which sort it was, it might have been the Mediterranean box jelly fish, it looks very similar. One more reason to not to swim in the sea here besides low temperature.

Since Captain was feeling much better today, I took him all the way to the boardwalks. And at least his eyes must be much better because he spotted three chameleons! I wish I would spot at least one, but I was soooo happy to at least see them! This is number one...

...and in different light  - can you see how his tail is curled around the branch?

This was number two, it was a bit further away.

And this was number three. At times like this I do wish to have a much better camera, at least with much stronger zoom.

With this, I think, our mission in Rota was successfully accomplished.

We did some provisioning today and the plan is to sail off tomorrow in direction Canary islands. Unless any of us is feeling much worse or any other disruption happen. But the weather will be good and we're both looking forward to much warmer temperatures there and to see our friends again - Spindrift and Dream Time. So wish us an easy passage and good sailing, we'll let you know when we're there.