FRANCE - CORSICA

It’s time to say goodbye to Elba, which must have been the most successful part of our journey so far.

We packed away the famous ”Sun sail/ Circus tent” that had given me so many hours of fun and set off late morning on our northwesterly course towards Corsica.  A short and easy trip of 30 nautical miles which should take approximately 5 hours.

The weather forecast was acceptable, but as soon as we had left the western tip of Elba, our usually so friendly ”weatherman” on the VHF radio was shouting out every 5 minutes ” Securité, Securité, Securité - GALE WARING Force 7 from North West” , hmmm, thinking aloud, what should we do now?

”We carry on” said skipper as he could see from his trusty instruments that we only had 20 Miles to go.  ”Securité, Securité, Securité - GALE WARING Force 8 with heavy Gusts from North West” our weatherman was practially screaming at us from the VHF.

”We carry on” said skipper as he could see that we only had 17 Miles to go!

When suddenly the wind started to blow L !

We spent the next 6 hours tacking with as little sail as possible up on a Northwesterly course towards Bastia.

I have NEVER seen waves like these and without giving too much detail (my mother will be too worried when she reads this otherwise) let me just give you a little description of the situation.  The whole deck was constantly under water, just as i was up to my ankels in water in the cockpit.  The waves picked up height in record time to a height of between 4 to 6 metres and the wind was blowing at 21 m/second (42 knots), thats between Force 8 and 9 Beaufort.  Every 30 seconds I had to wipe the salt water off my face and out of my eyes.  That was our first gale in the Mediterranean and guaranteed the last one if we can avoid it!

To anyone out there interested in sailing let me just say one thing – a gale in Kattegat (Denmark) is calm waters compared to a gale in the Mediterranean.

We arrived in the harbour at 19.30, welcomed in by a whole crowd of other sailors – nobody had dared to leave the harbour that day, they had all spent the day indoors whilst the gale was blowing.

Now we played it cool as we tied up the boat still in our heavy soaking wet rain gear, life jackets and harnesses  … ”Yeah there was a bit of wind out there!”
The list of damages after 9 hours sailing is as follows:

Windex from top of mast gone
TV and FM radio antenna on top of mast
One lens of our binoculars full of water (and they should be waterproof … !!)
The fore deck is scratched from the dinghy being knocked about on deck

Remote control to auto helm destroyed from saltwater
Radio/CD player in the saloon destroyed from saltwater
Besides that all our pillows, quilts, cushions and rugs were soaking wet
And apart from that some other small items not worth mentioning here
   -   but worst of all, the confidence of my crew is below zero.

But otherwise the boat did really well !  

The day after the storm we decided we should treat ourselves to a nice little walk in the town of Bastia.  After all the stress of the previous day we were really looking forward to a peaceful day, sitting at a pavement café in the sunshine with a Ricard, an Espresso and a Coke and a big plate of the delicious french nougat to munch away  (maybe a plate of fries too!)

You must be thinking – that’s a strange description – but I promise you, I took both Vicki and Mike by the hands as we walked through the dark, narrow, smelly streets, filled with shady looking characters hanging around every dark doorstep, watching us suspiciously through narrowed eyes.  I don’t think we saw one building that was totally intact.

9 year old Mike describes Bastia like this in our logbook
The most beautiful town in the world – NOT
It’s got lovely little narrow streets, that are spotless – NOT
The cheese and ham are NOT at all smelly.

And for this experience the harbour master asked for ”only” F.Fr.240 per night – more than we should pay in St. Tropez, Santa Margherita or even Monaco !  

We advise you not to visit this place- we have never seen such a depressing sight in all of Europe. 

Goodbye to the slums of Bastia and hello to the 12 dead fish we counted in the harbour as we waked up to the Harbour Master’s office at our next stop: Campoloro.  The weather is very unstable now and the wind is blowing hard.  The sea is rough, cold and smelly.  The crew’s morale is ROCKBOTTOM!

So we decided to hire a car for the next two days and drive up to the mountains and the west coast of Corsica (”There must be something nice to see in Corsica” said Vicki)

We drove up to Castignaccia (Chestnut forest).  The whole of the north east side of Corsica had been planted with chestnut trees many generations ago.  We drove right up the mountains to a height of at least 1000 metres with beautiful views of wild, uninhabited mountain ranges – rising up like sharp blades and needles yet with fantastic ranges of colours.  It is quite easy to understand that kidnapping has been such a big problem in these parts of the world – if you were taken and hidden up here, it would be difficult to be found again!

We stopped for the night in a comfortable little hotel in Evisa which lies just at the top of these mountains with a wonderful view of the valleys and the sea on the west coast.

At Mike’s suggestion we enjoyed both dinner and breakfast at the hotel – we were just too tired to visit any of the cosy little restaurants in the village, that seemed to be full of hikers and trekkers with their heavy mountain boots, sticks and backpacks.

Next day we set off to Porto – where we saw some really heavy seas in the harbour (thank God we chose the east coast!)  Midday snacks and coffee in Piana in a terrace with a view of the valleys.  Driving further along the coastroad towards Ajaccio, we had to stop many times and reverse along the narrow mountain roads for the on coming traffic to pass us by.  The traffic was not necessarily cars or busses but cows, goats and also pigs!
Per’s fear of heights was put to the test when we decided to stop for our picnic lunch at the top of the mountain.  At 17.00 we returned to Campoloro Harbour to find that none of the boats had left – it had really blown up another gale while we were away and nobody dared to sail out. 

Next stop was Solenzara where we met Jørgen Andersen.  He is 72 years old, danish and has decided that him and his good ship ”Perip” shall end their days here.  Jørgen seems to be perfectly healthy and very cheerful so I think he’ll take another trip around the Mediterranean before the mermaids call him.

We stayed in Solenzara for 5 days because Mike decided that it was time to go home to Malta.  We therefore organised his flight tickets and spent the last few days together just relaxing, swimming and playing cards and games.

9th September was the day when we had to watch Mike walk into the plane which would take him to Marseille and then later to Malta  -  uff that was a tough thing to do L.  We have had 5 fantastic weeks together and seen and experienced more than most people experience in their whole lives.  Vicki and I are so lucky to be able to have this opportunity and how great is is to be able to share it with others too.

If only Anne Mette had the same opportunity.

Last stop in Corsica and a last chance to see a nice place along the coast was yet again another disappointment – Porto Vecchio.  On this trip also we hit some hard winds (17 m/second) and were a part of a rescue operation for a man on a Jet Ski that had engine trouble in the high seas and was drifting around helplessly. We sailed up to him and communicated with him and also had a line ready to throw to him when luckily a fishing boat came on the scene who could tow him safely to harbour. 

Corsica is a beautiful country if you like mountain trekking, but rough and dangerous for sailors after September.