Thursday 5 June 2014 - L'Ile Rousse

Up fairly early to get away.  First we have a quick walk into town to buy a nice fish to grill for our dinner.

We set off in lovely weather.  Bright blue sky and not much wind.  We had expected light winds, but they were not supposed to be on the nose as they now are.  Richard says I am not to worry because we just have to go north to get out of the bay and then we turn south west when we should be able to sail.

But of course when we change course, so does the wind and it is still too close to sail.  However, as we have to go out to sea to dump the holding tank, Richard heads us away from the wind so we can do some sailing.  At first there is a bit of wind but soon it dies.  Richard decides to use the calm conditions to do some fishing.  When he tries to get out his fishing gear he unpacks the whole locker with all the bits and pieces we have left of our warps.  He then decides it would be useful to do some rope maintenance under way.  While he is cutting and whipping ropes the wind starts to get up.  It is top of a 3 now and we hope to sail, but it is still on the nose.  As the wind is building Richard decides to put all the ropes away.  Just as well, because suddenly for 2 knots of wind we now have 17 knots!  Where does this fluky wind come from?  We can’t understand it.

Now it would be nice to sail in a 4-5 if the wind were in the right direction, but as always it is not.  Richard said that the advice is to go around Corsica anticlockwise to have a following wind, but that is not working for us.  So we tack.  The sea is also getting bigger and very rolly.  After about an hour when we have only progressed about 2 miles to our destination we give up.  We head in towards the shore to get a bit calmer water and take the genoa down and motor straight in to the wind.  It is still pretty lumpy, but as we both agree, at least we are headed in the right direction!  But with the wind in our face, we are cold!  This is despite the sun.  It is so bad that I take refuge below to get warm.

So at about 3:30pm we finally make it to L’Ile Rousse.  We have decided to have a night at anchor, so we don’t go into the harbour.  There is an anchorage right outside the town opposite the beach and there are 4 other boats here.   The wind has dropped to nearly nothing, but the swell is still making the place rather lumpy.  I guess I will survive.

We have our nice fish and are now contemplating an early night.