Sailing the West Coast of Corsica up to Ajaccio

On the 26th August we left the shores of Sardinia and set sail for 42NM’s to the South West Coast of Corsica, normally we would have waited until we had some wind but given the storm that was coming, we put up with motoring for the first 4 hours until at midday we were rewarded with a nice Westerly force 3 and could get our sails out for the next four hours. We reached Corsica a little after 6 and dropped our pick in a beautiful bay called Capo di Ouzo, for a peaceful evening with only a few other boats around us. We had been extremely lucky as, for the first time ever, I (Chantal) forgot to switch our reading over from wind to depth, having told David we had 12 metres under us, he had dropped nearly 59 metres, I realised my error, in fact we only had 4 metres beneath us.. David was delighted as he was sure he had a clear view of the bottom, it could have been a lot worse, thankfully all we had to do was lift some chain!

The next day we set, well once again, motored the 14 NM’s to Ajaccio, with its marina at the foot of the old town to hide for a few days, and once again to get an electrician in, as our battery problem still wasn’t resolved!

The Approach to Ajaccio

On arrival, we lashed everything down and closed the bimini, given we had close to 50 knot winds forecasted that night, sufficient to rip loose things apart, arranged for an electrician to come the next day. We got to know our neighbours, an English couple, Helen & Leighton, who used to own a chalet in Chamonix, and whose French was excellent. I have to say in the coming days, they were a god send as our electrician didn’t speak a word of English, or Spanish! We also fell in love with their dog, Paulo, who we threatened on a number of occasions to dognap!

We then went wandering before the winds started and the heavens opened..

Ajaccio

And got back to Seaclusion before it did just that…

Aside from chores, drinking copious amounts of wine one night with Helen & Leighton, (hangover material for sure), we had lots of time to explore Ajaccio, once the rains had stopped and started enjoying French food, with their wonderful boulangeries, charcuteries and markets. We also had time to hunt for those speciality foods that I remember from my childhood holidays in Nice where my grandfather used to live, like citron presse (french lemon juice that made both our eyes water), rollo au fromage (pasty roll stuffed with gruyere cheese you melt in the oven, pizzalidier (pizza base with caramelised onions) and tarte au framboise, which I am sure needs no explanation! Sadly with the exception of my citron presse, we were without much luck, we would clearly have to wait until we got to the South of France properly for these delights.

And finally the rain stopped, and we could see Ajaccio in sunshine!

Trying to aclimatise to the French prices for coffee and generally eating out, we ate on board more nights than most, well also to hide from the torrential rain, but when that and the winds had died down enough to enjoy sitting outside we ventured out for an evening of moules & frites / steak & frites and french vino, can you believe it, this was the first time we had had chips since the start of our trip!

So you might ask, what of our batteries… well fairly quickly Eric, our lovely electrician, established that our brand new batteries were effectively “dead”, because we had been sold starter batteries, not deep cycle ones. 😡😡😡. But he did also check all of our systems, our solar charger, our battery charger, our alternator, our fridge, to double check that nothing had caused them to die so quickly, as the last thing we wanted was to shell out for yet another new set for them to die as well. He gave us a clean bill of health except the battery monitor was throwing up some strange readings on our engine battery which he wanted to get to the bottom of. He spent 2 1/2 days with us, Leighton being a star, popping over whenever google translate just wasn’t enough, and even he was flummoxed, he finally came to the conclusion that there was something very strange with our wiring that he would in all likelihood never find and in the grand scheme of things, wouldn’t negatively impact us. Worried about what his bill was going to be, having thrown more dosh at this issue than we would have liked, we called it a day.. particularly as the Italians were at this stage refusing to refund us the cost of the defective batteries, saying they would only replace them if we returned them to Sicily, logistics being somewhat impossible! 😡😡😡 (a fight for another day). In complete comparison Eric only in fact charged us for 1 day, because he was embarrassed he couldn’t find the route cause, bless him, we both nearly gave him a hug!

Finally, on the 1st September, we were ready to set sail northwards, to explore the rest of Corsica´s Western coast.

31st August 2023