17th - 20th June 2010

I wrote this all up yesterday and when I tried to post it, immediately fell off line and all was lost! So, here goes again…
As planned, Amanda and Ian left on the ferry on Thursday evening, heading for Florence (€42 for a one and a half hour boat trip followed by a 3 hour train journey – for 2!!) so we rushed to the nearby supermarket and stocked up in readiness for our departure on Friday morning. We sat in the cockpit eating seafood and watching the world go by on our last evening in Porto Ferraio then the next morning I did a quick bakery run before we put out to sea again.
It is only a forty mile trip between Elba and Corsica but we had been warned that the weather can be very localised in this area, and when conditions are good in one island they can be quite the opposite in another. Things just got better and better during our two hour journey, the sea was calm with just the slightest short swell and the sun shone on us, until we were about 3 miles from shore. As we approached our destination, Macinaggio, a wind sprang up and muddled the water, at the same time as the sun disappeared behind a dark cloud, spoiling the conditions we had been so enjoying. We decided not to go straight into port, but in an optimistic mood look for a sheltered anchorage and hope the cloud would pass. For once we were right! We found a lovely spot about 20 minutes along the coast with just one yacht at anchor in the bay, so we dropped the hook. Strangely, the wind here was in completely the opposite direction to that which we had just encountered and we anticipated a slightly bumpy afternoon but no – the wind dropped, the yacht left and we sunbathed, ate, swam and slept under a clear blue sky.
When eventually we moved back to port, the wind was still blowing, and as we came into the marina it started to make things difficult for mooring up. Zaffina was being pushed fast into her berth and Frank had to work hard to hold her off from either bashing against other boats or the pier so it was a relief when eventually we were safely tied up. The yacht that came alongside us wasn’t so well handled and managed to give us a small ding in the side as it turned almost side on in its space before finally getting moored up.
Macinaggio is very small and not as pretty as the ports we left in Elba, but it is nice to be back somewhere where we can understand the language and decipher the menu! And of course, there’s French bread here!
The forecast promised strong winds and it certainly delivered. Throughout the day yesterday, the wind rose and blasted. The lifeboat went speeding out to sea twice, the second time returning with a yacht in tow. We checked, rechecked and changed our ropes as noisy gusts tried to throw us around. When we returned from dinner in the port, our neighbouring dive boat had retrieved one of our sun cushions, which had tried to break fee during our absence. The wind, which had been up to an 8 during the day, hit a force 9 during the night, whistling through the marina and slapping noisy waves against the hull. We slept in the saloon so we would hear if there were any problems on shore, and were relieved when finally the wind started to drop in the early hours and we could return to our cabin.
It is much calmer this morning, although there is still a breeze and we’ll probably stay here until Tuesday. We can’t wait to see a bit more of Corsica; like Elba, it is very mountainous, green and fertile, but it has a quite different feel to it, perhaps due to its French antecedents and of course it is much bigger.
As ever, the weather will determine our course – east or west side depending on the wind, and as ever, our fingers are crossed for things to finally settle down for the summer!