What a week!
We are in Bastia, Corsica after a grueling week. Exploration, even in this day & age, ain't for wimps. We left Porto Vecchio where we had enjoyed almost a week on the anchor. It was a busy port which they say has become a jetsetter haven. We took the bus to Bonifacio where we had a wonderful lunch at a French restaurant. The waitress comes from Denmark every summer to work, & she filled us in on Bruce Willis, whose yacht had filled the marina the day before. She saw him as he was sitting on a rock eating a pancake.
We started up the coast of Corsica, I forget which day, planning on putting into Porto Solarzano, but we could find no one in the marina so we sailed on to Porto Taverno, sounds more fun anyway. A super young man whose mother is American came out & helped us in, our 1st European marina, where you squeeze into an impossible space with just your fenders keeping you out of your neighbor's kitchen. We had to lift a huge anchor chain from the bottom of the harbor & drape it over Grace's bow to hold us in place. So much for my varnish, but Jer did a super job of backing in after we worried about it for a month. Everyone just sort of bumps & bashes their way into wherever. Ryan told us most of the Italian boats are chartered, so they often don't have a clue.
We spent 2 days at Taverna with a gale roaring just over the seawall. We couldn't have gotten out if we'd wanted to go. The wind blew over 40 knots from the S for hrs., even Jer who never complains, did. We had a little lull, & the wind turned around & blew 40 knots from the N. Jer said he had never seen anything like it.
Today, we awakened to a calm, beautiful day; the other boats were all leaving, so we decided, against the Captain's better judgement to leave, too. We got just to Bastia when the wind did the same thing. Grace looked like an ice castle from all the salt. Huge swells, winds gusting over 45 & no room in the inn. Finally, we found a berth at Porto Vieux next to a French couple just coming back from Greece, & Goody, a Bastia native helped us get hooked up. Jerry seems to have solved Grace's backing quirks because we backed right in & used our windlass to straighten ourselves out, but poor dinghy really got smashed & bashed. I forgot to move her off the bow as we started out this morning so she caught the bow wave for too long. We always seem to learn something new.
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- August 30, 2003