Cabopino, a marina behind the Artola dunes

Cabopino is the last address in Marbella before the Mijas line, and it is defined by what cannot be built on rather than by what has been. The Dunas de Artola were declared a natural monument in 2003 and cover a little over nineteen hectares of embryonic, fixed and fossil dune running down to the water. Behind them sits a low, whitewashed marina; above them, a golf course on Artola Alta. Administratively this is the far end of the Las Chapas district. There is no town centre and no ambition to build one.

The built stock reflects a pocket that filled in around a port rather than around a road. Closest to the water are low apartment blocks and townhouse terraces, mostly white, mostly two and three storeys, arranged as small communities with their own pools. Uphill, around Artola Alta and the golf, plots are larger and villas appear. Almost nothing here is high-rise, and almost nothing is genuinely new — the protected boundary and the finished street layout mean supply changes hands rather than expands. Renovation, not development, is how this pocket refreshes itself.

Day to day the marina is the centre of gravity. Its quayside restaurants trade well into the shoulder seasons, the fish is landed rather than driven in, and the walk from a berth to a coffee is under a minute. The beach either side is broad, and one of the few nudist stretches in the municipality is beside the port. Cabopino Golf runs to 5,170 metres over eighteen holes — three par threes, two par fives and thirteen par fours — and is irrigated with recycled water. In February the dune boardwalks belong to dog walkers.

The caveats are worth stating plainly. Everything is reached from a single junction on the A-7, and in August the queue for it is the local weather. The marina is small, so a berth is not something you buy on demand. Protected land next door means restrictions rather than views alone, and any works within sight of the tower attract more scrutiny than the same works two kilometres west. Paula's read is that Cabopino sells on atmosphere and holds its value on scarcity, and that buyers who need shops and schools within walking distance should look at Elviria instead.

The vocabulary is deliberately Andalusian and deliberately low. Around the port, whitewashed render, flat and pantiled roofs, arcaded ground floors and small windows produce a village silhouette rather than a resort one; most blocks stop at three storeys. Behind and above, 1980s and 1990s townhouse terraces step up the slope in white rows, and detached villas appear on the golf side at Artola Alta. Plots are modest by East Marbella standards and often irregular, which is why extensions here tend to go up or inwards rather than outwards. Almost every property is part of a small community.

The marina keeps the place alive out of season: several of its restaurants trade through the winter, which is not true of the beach clubs a few kilometres west. Mornings are the dune boardwalks and the golf; afternoons are the quay. There are no schools in the pocket and only a small parade of shops, so the weekly supermarket run is a drive. Sound is boats, gulls and, in August, the queue for the roundabout. The eastern boundary with Mijas is a stream and a dune ridge, which keeps the horizon low.

It suits boat owners, golfers who want their course three minutes away, and second-home buyers who value quiet and a short walk to water over shops and schools. It suits winter users, because the marina restaurants stay open. It does not suit a family that needs a supermarket, a pharmacy and a school gate on foot, nor a buyer who wants a large modern villa on a flat plot — the plots here are constrained and the stock is mostly older and smaller. Anyone planning to extend should read the protection rules first.