Thursday 12 June 2014 - Propriano

So up fairly early to make a reasonable start.  But we have a lot to do.  We need to fill up with water and buy bread for lunch.  We also need fuel, as we have been motoring so much.  That could be a problem.  When I get up I see a large tourist boat (vedette) on the fuel pontoon.  It is taking up all the space and there are at least 3 small motor boats plus 4 or 5 ribs all waiting to get fuel and they are fed up.  For a long time nothing seems to move.

However, by the time we are ready to leave the queue has finally gone down.  We make our way to the fuel pontoon to find it empty.  So we fill up and get petrol for the dinghy outboard and we are off just after 10am, not bad.

We go about ten miles by lunch time.  There is no wind to speak of and what there is is on the nose again, so we are motoring.  But we find a nice bay near a beach to stop for lunch.  We put the anchor down and have a lovely swim around the boat.  Then lunch.  This is getting to be the life.  Problem is that the weather is about to turn.  Well, we can’t have everything perfect can we?

We have about 10 miles to go to get to our destination.  As usual the wind has come up in the afternoon and we are able to sail virtually all the way.  As we come in to Propriano, our destination, the wind has got up to 17 knots gusting 20.  We are on a dead run and going really well.  There is flat enough water for us to take down the sails and we make our way into the harbour. 

This harbour is a bit of a mystery.  There are two bits, east and west.  None of the books make it clear where visitors are supposed to go.  Richard decides that the books seem to indicate going to the east basin, so we head for that.  We cannot find anyone to direct us to a berth, so I call up on the VHF only to be told that we are in the wrong basin!  Well that is a first.  So we make our way to the other part of the harbour and are given a berth.  That doesn’t go as well as usual.  Firstly there is another boat in the berth assigned to us.  We ask if we should go into the next one, which is empty and we are told to do so.  But there is no one to take our lines.  I am quite proud of myself, because I manage to lasso one of the cleats to hold us on.  Then the man from the marina comes and makes an awful mess of trying to get us tied up.  The problem is that there is a fairly brisk wind pushing us back on to the pontoon.  We do finally manage to sort ourselves out. 

We check in with the harbour office and pay for the night and go into town.  It is a very nicely appointed little place.  It has a small supermarket where I buy a few essentials.  There are lots of nice little shops. I buy myself a new sundress because the old very light one I have had for nearly 20 years ripped yesterday.

We make our way back to the boat to shower and change for dinner.  We are here because there is a Michelin rosette restaurant and we are having a postponed posh dinner for Richard’s birthday.  The restaurant is only a 15 minute walk form the boat, which is good.  We have a lovely meal with too much to drink.  Hope we are able to make it up at a reasonable time tomorrow.  We are trying to beat the bad weather coming in and get to Sardinia.  We shall see how we get along.

Wednesday 11 June 2014 - Ajaccio

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.

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.

Monday 9 June 2014 - Cargese

We had an excellent night on our mooring.  I think it was the quietest and calmest night we have had since we started.  It was a shame to leave such a lovely place, but we must get a move on.   At the moment the weather is perfect for this area, but the forecasts we have seen suggest that the wind will build up by the end of the week, so we want to be somewhere with proper berths and shelter by then.

We first go around the next headland to Porto.  This is also part of the Nature Reserve and World Heritage site.  The scenery remains spectacular.  We try to go into the harbour in Porto, inside a river, where the pilot book suggests it can be possible to moor for the night.  But there is no one there to direct us to any mooring and it looks like all the moorings are used by the commercial boats that take tourists up and down these waters.  So we decide to go out and anchor for a bit, to have a swim.  We are very confused about the buoyage.  There is a line of yellow buoys along the shore, which usually means that no one should anchor inside them.  However, there are three boats anchored there and it is convenient, so we join them.  But it doesn’t take long for the local water police to come up to us and tell us we must move.  They are quite polite about it and we just have to move forward about 50 yards, so it is not a big deal - particularly as the windlass is working!

We have a lovely swim.  The sea here has got up to 23 degrees centigrade, so it is quite pleasant.  Then off we go.  We have decided to go into a port tonight called Cargese.  It seems to be a small port, but in an appropriate place with suitable berths.  We get here at about 3:30pm.  I call the port up on the radio and for the first time find they speak no English, so I massacre some French, but make it clear what we want and we are directed into a berth.  The odd thing is that is this port it is required to moor bows in, not stern first.  This is apparently because there are cement ledges next to the quay and boats going in stern first get damaged on them.  But the real problem this mooring method creates is how I am going to get off the boat.  I have never managed to climb over the front before.

When we look at it, it seems possible to get off.  The design of the front of our boat is not conducive to climbing off the bows.  There is a tiny gap and that is filled up with the anchor.  Many of the other boats have a little step on the bows, but we don’t.  However, the good thing is that the quay wall is quite high so the bow just comes up to it and there is no climb up or big jump down.  With effort we both manage to get on and off.  I have less trouble getting on than Richard because my small feet can find footholds around the anchor which he can’t use. 

So we have a walk around the harbour.  We are not going into the town which is way up the hill, as we don’t need anything from there. 

Dinner on the boat.  We are trying to keep away from biting insects, but not with great success.  We must now start to plan where to be for Richard’s birthday in two days.

Sunday 8 June 2014 - Girolata

We went to sleep so early yesterday that we had to get up fairly early.  Richard filled the water tank while I went into town to get croissants and bread for breakfast and lunch.  We got off fairly early, but are unhappy with the lack of weather forecast.  When we ask in the harbour office they say the screen and print off are the most recent forecast, but they are both from yesterday, so we don’t believe them.  Having no internet to look up the weather is getting to be a pain.

We are setting off to the Gulf of Porto, which is a nature reserve and a UNESCO world heritage site.  We are uncertain where we will go.  The pilot book is not very complimentary about the various ports and anchorages saying that they are very overcrowded and subject to terrible swells that make them at best uncomfortable and at worst dangerous.  But the weather forecast we have seen is very benign and as we progress that proves to be the case.  There is absolutely no wind in the morning and no swell, with a glassy sea.

Of course in these conditions we are motoring again.  The landscape is very dramatic.  High cliffs all coming down straight into the sea.  As we approach the Scandola Nature Reserve we come to huge red rocks which are even more dramatic. But best of all as we go into the bay we finally see a dolphin!  It is all on its own, but it does do one pass under our boat.

Richard has identified a place for us to anchor for lunch, Girolata.  However it is getting quite late when we get there.  At first I can’t believe we can anchor.  Only half a mile off the coast the depth is still over 80 metres.  For those not initiated into the art of anchoring, let me explain.  To safely anchor you need the anchor and chain to extend at least three times the depth of the sea where you want to stop.  If you are using rope instead of chain, you need even more.  This is because if your anchor chain is vertical to your boat, the anchor can break loose and you will not be secure.  We carry 60 metres of anchor chain, plus 30 metres of rope.  This means that we can anchor in no more than 30 metres depth and even that is not certain.  The ideal is to anchor in 10-15 metres.  So that is why I had doubts we would find water shallow enough to anchor.

But the book was right, the depth reduced dramatically and we found 12 metres in which to put down the anchor.  After our repairs the anchor windlass is working fine.  We have a pleasant lunch using up cold meats and old cheeses in the fridge.  I really like this place.  It is incredibly beautiful with the steep cliffs and red rocks.  There is a little village with really nothing more than a couple of modest restaurants, a bed and breakfast and a camp site.  There are beaches and it is really hot enough to go swimming.  Richard had it in mind to carry on from here to the little town of Porto, but I would like to stay.

The pilot book seems to say that except in the most settled conditions anchoring for the night can be dangerous.  We are in very settled conditions, but as a precaution we decide to move into the harbour where there are fore and aft moorings to rent.  So the harbour rib comes out and directs us to a mooring and attaches our lines, making life much easier.  So we are well settled.

For the first time we blow up the dinghy and row ashore to pay for the night and see the place.  I am still very pleased with it.  The only problem is that the beach is very rocky and uncomfortable under foot.  I am boiling and have changed into a bathing suit determined to swim.  I thought I might swim from the beach back to the boat.  However there are signs warning boat owners not to swim through the boats (presumably for fear of meeting a moving boat and getting in the way of a propeller).  So instead Richard rows us out to another little beach not far from where we anchored initially.  But that too is rocky.  But now I am determined to swim so rocks or not I go in.  It is heavenly.  All the heat of the day is washed off.  After a nice swim we get back in the dinghy and row to the boat.

I make a steak dinner while Richard tries out his new little crane to lower the outboard motor on the dinghy.  It takes him some time to work it out, but does succeed.  He even gets the outboard to work, which is something of a miracle as it has not been serviced or used for nearly a year and still has old petrol in it.  We now really feel like we are on holiday.

We have now finished dinner in the cockpit.  It is finally cooling down.  So perhaps soon we will go below.

Saturday 7 June 2014 - Calvi

I have not posted or written up this blog for a couple of days because we have no internet access, so I don’t know when this will be read. 

On Thursday night we had a tolerably comfortable night at anchor.  The wind dropped and the swell got better, so we slept well.  The swell got up a bit in the morning, but it wasn’t too bad.

But disaster struck as we decided to leave.  Richard sent me up forward to take up the anchor, but when I put my foot on the button to raise the anchor nothing happened.  At first I just assumed that one of us had kicked the switch off.  So I went below to put it on only to find it was already on.  When I went back to the anchor, still nothing happened.  More worryingly, when I put my foot on the down button it worked.  So, we had to take the anchor up by hand.  I started, but could not continue.  So I went to steer, while Richard pulled it up.  I am certain that there is a way of winding it up on the windlass like a winch, but we couldn’t work out how to do that or for that matter where the correct winch handle for the windlass was.  But Richard did a great job and got it up.  It is a bit of a task to feed the chain back into the windlass to go to the locker, but I did that bit.  We now must find someone to fix it because on this coast most of the stops are anchorages, not marinas and we can’t be doing with pulling that thing up each time.

The wind as usual is very light in the morning.  But we really don’t have far to go, so we sail all the way.  We are doing less than 4 knots so we put the fishing line out, but catch nothing.  After we get past the headland we are on a dead run.  Richard poles out the genoa, and we are going fairly well bearing in mind we have so little wind.

As usual just as we approach mid-day the wind starts to pick up.  It eventually gets to 8-9 knots and we are doing nearly 5 knots, which isn’t bad.  We are approaching Calvi, our destination.  The pilot book calls it the most beautiful place in the Med.  It is very dramatic.  There is a huge citadel and old town just on the side of the harbour as we go in.  The bay is large and surrounded by mountains, some of which are over 2500 metres and still have a bit of snow on them.  We are given a place in the harbour with no problem.

We rush to the harbour office to check in and to get details of an electrician who can look at our windlass.  They give us a number.  Richard rings it, but the man says it is impossible for him to come today.  Richard doesn’t try to see when he can come and instead goes back to the harbour office to get another name.  But when he returns he says there is no one else.  I look up the place in the Bloc Marine, which has advertisements for mechanics and repairs.  There is an ad for Calvi, but it is for the same man whose number we have been given.  So Richard rings him back and asks when he can come and he says he is unavailable for a month!  This is not good.  I then note that there is at least one chandlery here in port and they have helped us find craftsmen in the past.  In fact we find three chandleries.  The first one we go into makes a couple of calls and finds someone to come out tomorrow morning.  So we are feeling a bit better about it all.

We then have a bite of lunch and walk around.  We decide rather late that we should go and see the citadel.  We were told earlier that the way to do it is to get a sound guide from the tourist office.  It is 4:00pm when we get there and at first they say it is too late because they close at 6:00 and the tour takes 2 hours.  We persuade them we will do it quickly and we start out.  We have one machine with two earphone sockets and earphones and the idea is we will both listen at once.  We make the steep climb up to the citadel entrance only to find that only one of the earphone sockets works!  This is a nuisance.  But we do get around and listen to most of the commentary by keeping swapping over.  It is all very old and impressive.  Also they claim that Christopher Columbus was born here.  Now the Genovese claim he was from Genova, but then Calvi was part of Genova at the time, so it is possible.  What the guide doesn’t mention is that Nelson came here, looked at the Citadel and decided that it was impregnable so he landed some cannon and attacked it from the land side and bopped it.

We get back to the tourist office in good time before they close.  We complain bitterly about the duff machine, but they do nothing for us except offer to let us have another one tomorrow morning, which is no good at all.  They are not permitted to give refunds.  We are less than impressed by the attitude here.  The harbour is much the same.  It is fairly expensive, but the facilities are useless.  Having paid 53 Euros for berthing we don’t expect to have to pay 2.50 euro for each shower on top.  And the shower and toilet block closes at 7:30 each day and for three hours over lunchtime.  Not good.

As I have said, we have had no good internet access. So before dinner we go to a local bar that has internet access.  The problem is their system will only allow one device to be on the network.  We connect my iPad, and that gets all our e-mails, but does not allow me to post this blog.  When we go back to the boat we try our internet machine only to find that we have run out of credit and because they do not warn you in advance, we cannot top up on the internet, because we have no access or credit!

We eat dinner on the boat.  I make a chicken tangine.  I have done this recipe before at home, but it is more complicated on the boat particularly as I have to grate one and a half onions.  Real crying time that.  But dinner works out fine.  We then go ashore and Richard gets an ice cream by way of desert.  So to bed.  There is a loud bar blasting music out, but we are so tired we fall asleep immediately.

This morning we have to get up really early to clear the forward cabin so the electrician can reach the wiring for the windlass.  The saloon is full of junk from the lockers and the rest.  We shall have to try to organise it better.

The electrician does turn up and takes ages to try and work out what is wrong.  At one stage he thinks that all he can do is make one button work and suggests reversing the switches, so that the anchor comes up on electricity, but must be put down manually.  That is OK for a short fix, but we really want the windlass to work normally, so in the end he replaces the relay and both buttons, which when we see them clearly have very corroded contacts.  But at least we now have a working windlass, albeit at a cost!

We have another small crisis.  As I am making breakfast I find that the gas cylinder has run out.  That is not a surprise.  We have been out 5 weeks, so we would expect to run out of gas.  The big surprise is that we do not have a full spare.  All trip Richard has been telling me we have a spare, so despite having had several opportunities to get a new full cylinder, we have not done so, thinking we would use up the one we have and then connect the other new one.  But guess what.  Yes, we have no full cylinder.  The other one is also empty.  If this happened anywhere else we would have been in real trouble.  It is pure luck that we ran out in a harbour with three chandleries selling gas!

So with gas sorted and windlass working we do our shopping.  We go to a large supermarket just at the edge of town and get all we need.  We even buy sushi for lunch.  Only problem is we have no chopsticks on board.  I never needed them before.  I’m not rushing to get any.  We manage with finger and forks.

Our only failure is that we cannot find an Orange shop to top up our internet device.  We find an SFR shop and they tell us that the Orange shop is in Ile Rousse.  So that is no good. It looks like we will be without internet for a few days.

It is a beautiful day, so we head off to the beach.  The town has a spectacular beach.  Not very wide, but with very fine white sand and it goes on for about 5 miles.  It is very shallow and really is perfect for children.  We are too wacked to take all our gear, so instead we hire very comfortable sun beds and an umbrella and have a lovely afternoon.  Meet a couple from New York, which was a bit amusing.

With reluctance we return to the boat at 5:30.  We shower on board and put the front cabin back together.  We have now made it much neater, so that is an advantage to our having to clear it out.

Have a nice dinner in town and buy some local cheese and fig jam, at great expense.  Hope it will make a good meal for tomorrow.

Wednesday 4 June 2014 - Saint Florent - Corsica

Didn’t post yesterday, because was just too tired.  We got up early but stayed in port long enough to buy some bread for lunch.  Then we headed out to sea to go to Corsica.  The sky was bright and clear, but it was not particularly warm.  There was virtually no wind and what little there was, was too close to sail.  So it was a long motor job.

By lunch time the wind had increased a little and as we had turned south it was behind us.  So we turned the engine off for lunch and had a proper meal in the cockpit under sail.  We are eating up the last of the Italian cheese and French pate.

Then back on engine and we get into Saint Florent on Cosrica at about 4:00pm.  It is a large, but pleasant port in the middle of a sweet seaside town.  We are on an outer pontoon, but it is quite comfortable.  We go up to the harbour office to book in and pay for two nights.  It is expensive (46 Euro), but not as bad as we had been warned about.  The main problem is that the showers and toilets are only open when the harbour office is open, which is for 3 hours in the morning and until only 5:30 at night.  Plus they want €2.50 for a shower, so we shall wash on board.

We have a little look around town.  There are lots of shops selling specialist Corsican items and several food stores plus a supermarket.  The supermarket sells ice, so we buy some and find fresh milk.

Back on the boat we settle down to a civilised afternoon and evening.  We make Pimms with our ice and eat some nice nibbles before having a dinner of pasta and fresh pesto.  Then we go back into the town and Richard finds himself a coffee ice cream for desert.

Today we are really on holiday.  We sleep fairly late and then go to the supermarket to stock up on some essentials.  It is now about 11:00am and we decide to spend the rest of the day on the beach.  The local beach is about a 15 minute walk away.  So we get all our stuff, including chairs, parasol and the like and make our way there.  We are surprised to find that on the other side of the town there is an enormous harbour for small boats.  There must be several hundred there.

The beach is quite wild.  There is nothing there except one small restaurant away from the sea front, and then dunes.  It is a sandy beach, but the water edge is full of weed and bits off the trees.  We set up our pitch and then sit out.  We take a walk down the beach and find the Michelin Rosette restaurant where we have booked for dinner.  It looks very pretty.  We note they have a pontoon where, if we had anchored in the bay we could have brought our dinghy.  Well, never mind, we shall just have to walk there tonight.

We were going to go back to the boat for lunch, but we are too lazy to drag all the gear back and forth, so we go to the little restaurant for a light lunch.  It is a funny place and we are the only customers.  The owner had rescued a bird (a kind of gull I think) that has fallen out of its nest.  It keeps screeching at its mother who keeps swooping over the place.  The owner says this is the fourth bird he has rescued.  He keeps them until they can fly and lets them go back to the wild.  In the meantime they get very tame and walk on his arm and affectionately peck at his face!

After several hours in the sun, back to the boat and then to a local café for a drink and to use their internet.  Then shower on board and off to the restaurant.  Because I am in nice shoes we choose to walk along the road and not the beach.  Big mistake.  It is twice as long and unpleasant without pavements much of the way.   Dinner is very nice.  We have the tasting menu and the matching wines.  We have a lovely time with the wine waiter telling us all about the wines.  The ones he has chosen more or less circumnavigate the island.  At the end he writes the details down for us and we will try to find them in our travels.  There was an incredibly light pink and a desert wine which we quite liked.

We ask for a taxi to take us back, but instead one of the waiters drives us back.  Very kind.  Now just a coffee on board and to bed.  We set off down the island tomorrow.