Huelva, Punta Umbria and Isla Cristina, on the Costa de la Luz, are situated in the
southwestern corner of Andalusia
Fishermen prepare their boats on the shores of the River Odiel, Punta Umbria.
Fishing debris on the water's edge of the Rio Odiel, Punta Umbria.
For those of you just tuning in, this is Rich.
March comes in like a Lamb.
Sara pays homage to Picasso. |
EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNAL March 22, 1999
Punta Umbria
The Beach
The beach is empty, save for a collection of acrobatic teenagers,
turning handsprings on the hard-packed sand, where the ocean bathes a mosaic of broken
shells. The Costa de la Luz is cool with Atlantic breeze. Punta Umbria is a
blanket of empty sand, with low sun and the white noise of the surf.
This land-jetty divides the ocean from the mouth of the Rio Tinto and
the Rio Odiel estuary, which spreads like branches into the port of Huelva. Punta
Umbria sits on this promontory next to bird-rich wetlands. It was here that
Columbus’ Las Carabelas met the beginning of the expanse that was to be their
1492 uncharted territory.
Founded by the Phoenicians, Huelva had its grandest days as a Roman
port. It was almost completely destroyed in the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Today it
is an industrial city, sprawling around the quayside where the Rio Tinto meets the Rio
Odiel. South of the city, at Punta del Sebo, stands the Monumento a Colon
(Columbus Monument), created by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1929. On significant
anniversaries of the discovery of the Americas, money pours in from former Spanish
colonies and the United States for monuments and expositions of commemoration.
Whitney’s monument was never completed, and today it stands rather bleakly on a huge
pedestal, an almost blank pillar of stone.
Further west, just moments before Portugal’s frontier is Isla
Cristina, the denouement of the Costa de la Luz’s long stretch of white
beach. The wind is buoyant. Rich independently launches the kite and Zens the afternoon
with loop-de-loops.
Mazagon stands at the centre of miles of windswept dunes. They
shift at whim. Corks, stranded and territorial, lean with direction. Their roots are long
and deep, clinging to the shifting sand. The pine canopies flank the dune-edges like
broccoli. Everything is green and white, with a cobalt upper-half. |
Punta Umbria and Isla Cristina are tiny fishing resorts- part of a long, windswept
stretch of beach on the Costa de la Luz, about an hour southwest of Seville
Clay pots are used as weights for fishing nets or to catch tiny squid.
Stephanie basks in Andalusian sun, Costa de la Luz.
Rich independently launches his two-stringed kite at Isla Cristina.
Magic hour, Costa de la Luz. |
