Old routes, new places

Macinaggio

Maccinaggio anchorage at dawn

The east coast of Corsica above Porto Vecchio is relatively straight and not a great cruising ground so we decided to head directly up to Macinaggio, north of Bastia, in one long night passage. It appeared to be quite a popular plan as we passed a few yachts coming up and down the coast that night. We dropped anchor outside Macinaggio harbour late the following morning and dinghied ashore for a look round the old fishing village which has now turned to tourism for its income. We found a delightful little restaurant and treated ourselves to a delicious traditional Corsican lunch. With a good forecast we continued on our way at dawn the following morning around the notorious Cap Corse and on down to Saint Florent where we were due to meet our friends, Rob and Julie, in a couple of days.

Leaving Macinaggio

Saint Florent

French Foreign Legion in action

We had a fun week with them dodging the odd thunderstorm (or not), finding some new wild anchorages and even a hidden paillotte (beach restaurant/bar) which was closed due to the bad weather. Needless to say we soon persuaded them to produce a round of beers. We sailed on to Calvi and anchored off the pine fronted beach. We survived the long, bouncy dinghy ride ashore and had a wander round the impressive citadel before settling down to a lovely leisurely lunch. We stocked up with food and wine at the large supermarket and made our way back to the boat where we had fun watching the French Foreign Legion Parachute Regiment drop from the skies.

Calvi citadel

Lush

As usual the fishing lures were hard at work as we made our way back east again but still nothing biting. We found a lovely quiet anchorage for the night with only a couple of other yachts for company until much to our consternation we were joined by the very military looking 71 mt megayacht "Skat". This turned out to be owned by the philanthropic billionaire who developed Microsoft Office. Corsica is a bit of a magnet for super yachts and we also spotted the extraordinary looking 119 mt "A", designed by Philippe Starck and owned by a Russian oligarch, one of the largest private motor yachts in the world

Flying dinghy!

. In contrast we also came across the more modest yacht, "Lush", owned by Formula One's Eddie Jordan, as well as a very strange looking flying inflatable dinghy!

Skat

A

Ile Rousse

Bust of Pascal Paoli

It was soon time to return to Saint Florent and say our goodbyes to Rob and Julie. We stayed on for a few days catching up with chores like laundry, fixing yet another engine water leak (thankfully only a minor one this time) and filling the tanks with fresh water. Ship shape again we were ready for off and headed west in search of an Orange telephone shop to top up our data sim which had inconveniently expired. We dropped anchor off Ile Rousse and dinghied ashore. We spent a small fortune on a miserly 5gb which would hopefully see us through our time in Corsica if we were careful. Ile Rousse is a pleasant enough seaside town originally founded in 1758 by the nationalist leader Pascal Paoli. His bust stands proud in the large central square, Place Paoli. We stopped there for a while in the shade of hundred year old plane trees and watched the men play pétanque.

Playing pétanque

Calvi citadel from the boardwalk

Horses cooling off in the sea, Calvi

The next day we motored round to Calvi where we were going to have to sit out some strong winds for a few days before we could continue our journey on down the west coast. During this time our relatively new outboard motor decided to play up. It was beyond our capabilities and we needed to find professional help. We were anchored a mile away from the harbour so rowing in strong winds was out of the question. Instead we rowed the dinghy the short distance to the beach and followed the footpath through the pine trees to town. Miraculously we found a man with a van in the harbour who turned out to be a mechanic. He told us to bring the boat to the quay that afternoon and he'd take a look. We left the outboard motor with him and returned to the anchorage wondering if we'd ever see it again. A couple of days later he phoned with the good news that all was fixed. Dodgy Tunisian petrol had blocked everything there was to block in the carburetor. Needless to say we promptly got rid of all our African petrol and filled our cans with the French variety instead. At last we were ready to set sail again.

Leaving Calvi

One Moor for the road

San Ciprianu

Genoese Tower

We had such a fast passage across to Corsica that we had to reduce sail to slow ourselves down and avoid arriving in the dark. We dropped anchor at dawn in the crystal clear waters of San Ciprianu bay just north of Porto Vecchio and stayed put for a few days. Having had a taster of Corsica last year we decided to return but this time spend a bit longer exploring this lovely island and its delightful anchorages. San Ciprianu is a stunning bay surrounded by sandy beaches but it is large and therefore crowded and noisy. We'd soon had enough of the jet bikes and water skiers zipping by and moved north to Anse de Cola, a much smaller bay which we shared with only a couple of other yachts and a beach of nudists! We ventured off the boat (fully dressed) to climb up to the Genoese tower perched on the next promontory which afforded stunning views back down to the boat as well as over to the bay of Pinarellu and another swathe of sand. Eventually we had to tear ourselves away from these idyllic anchorages and go in search of provisions, internet and most importantly, a Corsican flag.

Anse de Cola

Golfe de Pinarellu

Corsican flag

Corsica has had a turbulent past and has been the subject of many invasions. Pascal Paoli, Corsica's revolutionary leader between 1755 and 1769, established the Moor's head with white bandana as Corsica's official emblem. It is seen everywhere - on beer bottles, shops, official buildings and on the traditional flag. 1769 marked the end of Corsican independence and apart from a brief two year period under British rule it has remained part of the French republic to the present day. We therefore hoisted two courtesy flags with the Corsican Moor taking pride of place above the French flag.

Porto Novo

Porto Novo

Spot the bird!

We anchored next to Porto Vecchio marina and dinghied ashore. We managed to re-activate our last years data sim and filled our shopping trolley to the brim. Stocked up again we ventured south and found a couple of lovely wild anchorages in Porto Novo. Both were deserted with no bodies on the beach and not a building in sight. We explored the etang (lagoon) lying behind the large beach and put our bird watching skills to the test as we disturbed the abundant wild life in the reeds.

Porto Novo

Porto Novo

Porto Vecchio from a very windy anchorage

Our time in this lovely spot came to an end with a strong westerly wind forecast. Although there are plenty of safe sandy anchorages in this area we decided to head back to the glutinous mud and good shelter afforded by Porto Vecchio harbour. The strong Mistral blew for a few days and the anchorage was quite full the night the huge storm was due to pass over. We were alert for any yachts trying to anchor close to us and needless to say at dusk a French catamaran anchored right in front of us. We gesticulated to him in no uncertain terms that he had to move away from us which thankfully he did. We spent much of that night on deck keeping an eye as the wind strength crawled towards 50 knots. Suddenly we were aware of frantic shouting and torch lights waving around. The catamaran we had told to move away had dragged his anchor and had careered into a large Polish yacht lying not far from us. It did not stop there and was now heading towards the shore. The police and lifeboat came to the rescue and the catamaran was towed to safety and tied to a mid channel mooring. Thankfully we survived the night with no mishaps and by morning the wind abated. It was time to move on. We had friends arriving in a few days and we still had to get round the northern finger, Cap Corse, to meet them in St Florent on the north coast.

Porto Vecchio from a flat calm anchorage

Sunset over Porto Vecchio harbour