Corsica

Next day, on Monday, we moved to one bay more to the West - to Golfo di Campo. It has a marina and a small town with shops. The anchorage in front of it was packed full.There was NW wind with 25 knots blowing all afternoon and evening and some of the boats had problems with anchoring. Luckily we weren't involved in any accidents. Wind was still blowing strong during the night and on next day. In the morning we dinghied into town and got lots of food, especially fruit and vegetables. In the afternoon we moved to the East part of the bay, that looked a bit less windy and decided to sail to Corsica next day, hoping to still have some of the NW wind. The plan was to get up at 5 in the morning and get there before dark, we planed to sail to Porto Vecchio that was some 80 miles away. So far the plans.

In the evening we prepared everything and went to bed early. But at 2 in the morning the waves started to roll into the anchorage from South and it was too rolly to sleep. Oh my! Where did these waves came from? It was blowing hard from NW now for more than two days! Later on I figured that when strong NW blows from Gulf of Lion and hits Corsica, it comes around the N tip it turns to NW before it hits Elba, but on the S it gets even stronger through strait of Bonifacio between Corsica an Sardinia and then bends upwards along E Corsican coast and sends waves all the way up to Elba. Anyway, since we were already up, we sailed off. Captain took the first watch, he is always a gentleman and lets me sleep. Near Elba the NW wind was still strong and we were sailing, but later wind got weaker and we were motoring or motor-sailing. But although there was almost no wind, waves from the South were still there and were making the ride, and especially sleeping, very uncomfortable.

In the morning I took over and Captain tried to get some sleep. The ride was rather boring, the sea was almost empty, I only met one sailboat and there were couple of larger motorboats and ferries on the horizon. Soon I could see the Corsica Below the clouds.

As we got closer I could see how rugged the landscape was.

We had a blind passenger, probably from Elba.

The day was equally boring and at around 4 in the afternoon we sailed into the bay of Piranellu, it is about 5 miles North of Porto Vecchio. There were rocks at the entrance.

Bay was beautiful, with turquoise warm water. It would look even nicer it there weren't 20 knots of wind from South.

In the evening it got a bit calmer.

As I saw this, I told the Captain I also want an anchor light like this!

We slept long and good.

Next day we sailed bit more South and passed some pretty rocks...

...to anchorage in bay of San Ciprianu. It was even prettier than the one the day before, but there was even more wind. So it didn't even get hot enough so one would be tempted to swim. And there was one more thing against swimming - there were hundreds of motor boats of all sorts speeding through anchorage, with bananas, tubes, water skiers or any other toys attached to them. So even if we did get into water, we stayed strictly couple of meters behind our boat. I have to say, I thought that Italian motor boat drivers are the worst, but they are not as bad as French. French really "take no prisoners". I was surprised I didn't see any accidents in that bay. Luckily they all left in the evening, so the bay got calm and quiet and we slept very good again.

Next day we sailed South again, again along some very pretty scenery...

... to the town Porto Vecchio.

We anchored on the South side in front of the town and dinghied ashore. We left dinghy in the marina and walked uphill to the old part of the town.

There are some nice things to see in the town, but it is not so very pretty as we expected.

The vie of the anchorage where we left Heron.

I guess these were toilets in the old days.

One of the prettiest buildings, and it was right opposite of place with delicious ice cream, especially chestnut.

I thought Captain was showing me the quirky terrace...

... but it was actually this cat he wanted to show to me. Cat was ignoring us as only cats know how to do.

After sight seeing we did some shopping, a bit outside the town so we had a long walk there and back. Later on the boat we decided to return to our previous anchorage, as the water in the bay in front of Porto Vecchio was not very nice and there was constant wash of the passing boats.

We slept very good again. I could get used to this. Next day we moved to our next anchorage. There was not very much wind so we sailed nicely. The coast is really beautiful.

But it felt like on the highway, there was so many motor boats.

We anchored in Porto Nuovo, a bay without restaurants, villas and sports centers. What a change! There was almost no noise at all, and no wash either, even the wind almost died towards evening.

Anchorage has two heads and there must have been some 30 - 40 boats still in the evening.

Water was totally clear, emerald green and one could see every little thing on the bottom even in 10m water. Needless to say, I was in the water several times, last time almost in darkness.

In such a quiet anchorage we again slept very well. In the morning it looked just as beautiful as the day before.