On Tuesday morning we left Cargese in beautiful weather. As we left there was even a bit of
wind, blowing at 9 knots. We
started to sail and Richard decided to put up the cruising chute. But after 45 minutes the wind died
completely and we had to put the motor on. Eventually we made it to a lovely bay to stop for a swim and
some lunch. There is another boat
here on the other side. It is a
huge motor boat, but not a super yacht, but it does fly a British flag. But we have nothing to do with each
other. Now this feels like a
proper Mediterranean holiday.
We have a proper swim off the boat and lunch.
So after lunch we set off to Ajaccio. We get there in fairly good time. There are two marinas here, but one is well out of time and
we want to be in the one in the middle of the old city. As we enter the harbour there are a few
problems. Firstly a large P&O
cruise liner is on the way out.
When we finally come in there is utter confusion. There are four other boats manoeuvering
about and no one giving directions where to moor. We can’t take that.
The problem is that none of the books gives a VHF channel for the marina
and there is no mention of a channel on any of the signs on the way in. So in desperation I phone the
marina. They don’t speak English
but make it clear I should call up on VHF channel 9 and on doing so we are
immediately given a berth. I have
no idea what the other boats are doing!
This marina has a very different form of mooring. There are finger pontoons! But when we go in we find there are no
cleats on the fingers. So even
with pontoons the form of mooring is stern to with laid lines. I work this out as I get off the boat
to tie up and see the lines on the end of the finger. But having fingers means that I can get off the boat on the
side using our fender step.
Heavenly, especially after yesterday’s efforts of getting on and off at
the bows.
The most urgent thing is get some laundry done. There is a launderette right on the
harbour front, but it only has two dryers for 7 washing machines! But we manage two large loads and will
do one tomorrow.
It is scorching hot, to such an extent that I can’t cook until very
late.
Today is Richard’s birthday.
I wake up early and cannot rouse him so I get up and go in to town to
get pastries and bread for breakfast.
I even find a birthday card in English! When I get back I rush to the launderette to put the last
load of laundry in. That finishes
just about when we are finishing breakfast.
We then go in to town. We
have found that the local Spar supermarket delivers to boats for free, so we go
there and stock up on lots of drinks and heavy things. We also find the Orange shop, but we
get there one minute after they close for lunch for 2 hours!
We still haven’t done anything about dinner. We can’t find a decent restaurant locally. They are all very touristy and the ones
in the guide are miles away. So I
am looking for a fishmongers. The
supermarket tell us that there is a fish market. We get there just as they are closing, but do succeed in
getting two large langouste (crayfish), so Richard will get his birthday
lobster dinner.
When we get back to the boat, we find the supermarket van here ready to
deliver half an hour before they said they would. But that is fine and allows us to go to local little
restaurant for a light lunch then off to the beach.
After a few hours on the beach and a couple of swims we go back into town
to the Orange shop. Finally get
our internet device topped up.
Back to the boat, where it is too hot to cook again. Finally at about 9pm we decide to try
to kill the crayfish. We have our
big problem, we can’t kill the damn things. You know how many lobsters we have killed over the
years. But this is different. They damn are so lively that we cannot
get a knife into them. One just
literally jumps off the counter when we try. So in the end we take the advice of recipes on the internet
and plunge them into boiling water for two minutes just to kill them, and then
split them to grill. It seems to
work out just fine.
So we have our fish and enjoy them enormously. Not a bad birthday
after all. And we have something
special planned for tomorrow but more of that then.
No comments:
Post a Comment