Arriving in Corsica was a
highlight. We tucked into a tiny pretty
bay, white sand beach, rocks to explore and snorkel along and small plate size
fish that happily fed on the fuzzy growing on our hull, we wondered if we
stayed long enough would be leave with a clean hull. The spectacular town of Bonifacio was a
frustrating few miles east but very difficult to get to via land from our
anchorage. To access Bonifacio by water is easy, a short
entrance maybe 1 mile long and rather narrow winds around a few bends and ends
in a very busy marina and town. We
pulled into the fuel dock, asked about a berth in the marina whilst getting
fuel but it all seemed too hard – the over zealous marinaras were keen to put us
in a slip but we could not get a price per night – knowing how high some
marinas were charging and the difficulty in manovering in the tiny space we did
a 6 point turn and headed out. Going out
was entertaining – normally rules of the water say keep right but we have found
it is “keep out of the way of faster and bigger boats” more the rule here. The faster boats wanted to pass the slower
ones and the tourist ferries wanted to pass everyone – at one stage we were 4
boats across taking up the entire channel leaving no room for any incoming
traffic. Don and I laughed as we watched
a very large vehicular ferry go speeding into the narrow entrance leaving a
great wake behind him and imagining all the outgoing boats scrambling for
cover. We sailed north up the coast to
Porto Vecchio, anchored in a calm protected bay and motored ashore to check out
the French famous patisseries.
Public transport on Corsica
is not geared towards tourists but rather school, we wanted to visit Bonifacio
and walk around the town high on the cliffs – to get there we took a very early
public bus and had the choice of catching the same bus back on its return
journey or waiting 5.5hrs for the next one – we opted for the 5.5 hrs and were
surprised how easily we filled in the time.
The town is quite a decent climb from the marina where the bus
stops. Wandering around the tiny
streets, stopping at sidewalk cafes, marvelling at the limestone cliffs and amazed
at the cemetery which has the prime position in town filled in the hours. Porto Vecchio was wonderful also, its old town
is again up a steep hill and a maze of narrow cobble stoned streets.
Sardinia
A short sail south and
across the notorious Bonificio Strait and we were in Sardinia. La Maddalena archipelago are islands compose
of red granite, low and rocky. Many of
the islands are off limits and a permit is required to anchor on the permitted
ones. Having heard the locals were
refusing to pay fees to visit their islands and the authorities not pressing
for the fees we did what other cruising boats did and found a beautiful
protected cove and dropped the anchor.
Within one hour we had the authorities beside our boat and a lovely
English lady asking to view our permit – they were not concerned that we did
not have one but insisted we purchase the permit from them. The Park people charge boats per day not per
night. As it was 3.30pm we had to pay
for that day and intending to stay in the bay overnight we had to pay for a
second day even though we intended leaving early at 60 euros per day we decided
to pull up the anchor and leave – oh the beach was an old “Clud Med” site so we
were not allowed to go ashore despite 2 groups partying on the beach, one a
child’s birthday party and obviously arrived by the boat tied to the old
dock.
We continued around the
group of islands to the mainland and anchored in a lovely bay. Upon waking the next day we were confused as
we watched each of the 8 other boats leave the bay – when the two 100 footer
yachts also lifted their anchor we decided we had better leave also – just as
the wind turned into our bay and picked up speed. Less than ½ hr around the corner we found a
calm protected beach and spent the day snorkelling and lying around in the sun. Our next destination was the town of Olbia,
spending a night in Golfo Aranci along the way.
Olbia is a small town in a very protected bay – it is large enough to
host cruise ships therefore has infrastructure such as a public bus system, railway,
airport and hire cars. I did my research
and found a spectacular canyon which was difficult to get to by public
transport so we hired a car for the day and went exploring. The walk into the canyon was further than
expected, also hotter, hillier and exhausting – we had read about a 4wd that
takes you from the carpark into the park then it is a 1hr 20 walk into the
canyon – our car park did not have a 4wd and we presumed it was because it was
no longer peak tourist season – in reality it was because we were at the wrong
carpark and the furthest distance from the canyon. Having a discussion about giving up on our
destination many times along the walk and deciding to see what was around the
next corner we trudged on for 3 hrs arriving at the canyon exhausted,
sweaty, dusty and wondering how we were going to walk back to the car. The canyon had a pay booth to enter an area
strewn with very large bolders and still a distance to the actual canyon – the
tourist information didn’t mention any of this !! Not having the energy to go bolder hopping
for hours we soaked our feet in the beautiful cool water and began our trip
back stopping several times for a soak in the river. When we got back to the boat I found all my
photos of the trip had been wiped – I was not the most popular wife around.
Olbia offers free dock space
along their town dock. This was a treat
– to simply walk ashore whenever we wanted the trade off was the locals and
tourists standing mere inches away from our cockpit, inspecting our dinner
plates – we ended up closing our hatches to stop inquisitive people looking in
at us.
Next stop – The Pontine
Islands – Ponza to be exact – approximately 50 miles off the coast of Naples,
Italy.
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