Quickie in Corsica

Happily weary in the morning Boston and I headed ashore in L’ile Rousse Corsica to see if we could find the customs office the interweb said made this a port of entry.

 

Not particularly successful but never mind, it is a beautiful day and time to celebrate our first crossing and first new country on the boat with a gift from our friends!

Dinner and drinks on the foredeck in the lovely afternoon sun went down a treat.

 We have moments of beauty like these

 

Interspersed with moments of crazy like these…

 

A magical sunset ended a magical day.

 

More offices opened on Monday and after a run around it turns out we need to go to Calvi, next big town to find the elusive customs so chased by a NE forecast off we go. Beautiful old wall city and first French stick as we are now in France, but after four offices no one seems to know what to do with the crazy kiwis and customs are nowhere to be found…?

 

EUR 20 for a mooring bouy off the town and out of season saw us head around the corner to find shelter from the 25/30 knot SW.

 

Ah, living by the forecasts now. 25/30 SW is quickly swapped for 25/30 N so off we go again through some lumpy bumpy seas as the two wave trains fight it out.

 

Past some rugged and stunning scenery running downhill in +25 knots

 

And into the Beautiful Baie de Crovani. Ahhhhhhhh. Here we could relax while the wind Blew.

 

A rare moment of calm. Both the kids and the wind…

 

And then The Forecast arrived! The entire West coast of Corsica is pretty exposed to strong NW winds and the only safe anchorage in a Minstral is Ajjacio and its marinas. I figure when the locals have a name for a wind and it has a bad reputation you had better pay attention. So when The Forecast showed higher than red alert wind arrows for NW +45knots for the whole west coast in 3 days it was time to run down the coast and tuck around the bottom corner.

Ironically the first couple of days running was in flat calm… Here is our lunch stop at a tiny deserted beach in the middle of nowhere.

 

Where the kids found tadpoles in a tiny creek. Granny would approve.

 

In the calm before the storm the lovely big Volvos slid us along past incredible rock formations with rock star in the making.

 

Stayed at Girolata under a cool little castle form the 1600’s and were entertained by the first lot of charter fleet antics. Tourist boats were buzzing the bay so we joined the throng ashore only to be disappointed to find you cannot get to the castle! Was amusing to see the stream of people heading up, only to come back down.

 

Day two of running started with more impressive scenery scrolling by courtesy of Mr Volvo. For a sense of scale the little dot in the centre just off the dark cliffs is a 40’ yacht…

 

Amelia proudly making Nana’s pikelet recipe.

 The wind gently arrived and there followed a great downwind slide under the asymmetric and autopilot. Now we are cruising.

 

Wait, I spot another catamaran!

 

It’s OK, we are faster than them.

 

Early start from Verghia for day three of running. The wind is due here in the afternoon and still some ground to cover.

 

Not quite summer here yet as the clouds close in the wet weather gear still needed

 

Good timing and planning had us under double reefed main and jib as we rounded the rocky islands at the bottom of Corsica just as the wind came in at 25-30 knots. Had a great power reach up the coast and new boat speed record of 11.3 knots. Yesssssss

 

Safely tucked into Golfe de Rondinara with stunning turquoise water as the wind howled making our flags look respectably shabby and travelled while testing the anchor. So many lovely places we had to skip past whist running from the weather. We would love to come back and have another go at the West coast of Corsica someday.