Trips To Corsica

We made two passages over to Corsica in Tara, who as always, behaved impeccably.

The first was in late August 2017,  when high season was drawing to a close & the second in June 2019, before high season had really got going, & before the anchorages became too busy.

In 2017 we spent almost a month there & although we had a quiet night passage over to the tiny port of Girolata from Marines de Cogolin,  most of the rest of the trip was spent dodging continuous weather systems that were blowing through. It seems that the south westerly's that blow across from the Gulf of Lyon meet up with the northerly's blowing down from the Gulf of Genoa about half way up the west coast of Corsica, which can make for some fairly uncomfortable seas for a small boat like us & safe anchorages are few & far between.

We had intended to make it around to the Lavazzi Islands in the Bonifacio Straits but it took us about ten days to get down to Bonifacio, & once there it became clear that we were not going to make it around the corner on this occasion, so we returned the way we had come & spent another two weeks  making our way back up to Girolata, where we again had to wait for a weather window to be able to cross back over to France.

Our second trip in June 2019 was a totally different experience. We had an exhilarating sail over with the wind on our beam for most of the way, & we had company for a while as a German boat drew along side about four hours into the crossing.  We established that they too were heading for Calvi, so we made a friendly agreement to race them over, & for most of the way we  were with in range of each other.

We arrived in Calvi in record time, in the early hours after a magnificent sunrise over the red mountains, but the Germans, a young couple with a newborn baby & a cat, were already tied up to a buoy in the harbour, having their Breakfast.

From Calvi we again cruised down the west coast, but this time  in clement weather which allowed us to motor in close to the stunning rocky coastline of the Scandola Nature Reserve, which along with the Gulf of Girolata, Gulf of  Porto & Calanche of Piana, is a World Heritage Site. It is very dramatic with red cliffs that drop straight down into deep water, & an abundance of wild life, including  rare osprey, peregrine falcons & bearded vultures.

As we headed south we passed numerous stunning day anchorages that looked so idyllic in flat calm seas, & which would have been unimaginable on our previous trip, & yachts seemed to be  able to squeeze themselves into the smallest nooks & crannies imaginable & have the place to themselves, a totally different picture to the raging seas that we had encountered on our previous trip.

We did eventually manage to sail around the  Lavezzi islands en route back from Porto-Vecchio but were not brave enough to stop there as the anchorages were shallow & pretty busy & we didn't fancy getting caught in the straits if the wind got up in the middle of the night. A stunning setting it might be but it could very quickly become treacherous if conditions changed.

We have yet to explore Cap Corse & the north east of the island, but the rest of the east side doesn't hold much appeal compared to the west, as it is fairly flat & there are not many places to be able to stop for the night. So if we manage another trip over we will perhaps cross over to Calvi & then, if the weather allows, around the top of Cap Corse to Maccinaggio & over to Elba which has long been on my list of places to visit.

The photos below cover some of the places we visited.