The village idiot
Now that we are in Corsica, what should we do, where should we go? Some people spend entire seasons sailing around this island. We sadly don’t have that much time, moreover now that Dave has announced that he needs to be in Ajaccio by the next day to catch a cheap flight back to Nice. It is physically not possible unless we decide to motor all night. Moreover, there are a couple places along the way we really want to visit. So Dave adjusts his plan and we decide to carry on along the coast for a couple more days. The first bay, Ficajola is a failure. As we are sailing by the entrance to the cove, the western swell is still bashing this side of the island and we would not be able to safely anchor the boat there or in most of the scenic coves.
We have no choice but to look for a safe anchorage for the night, out of the swell rather than a picturesque one. We manage to get a nice downwind sail with just the genoa and the mizzen. The anchorage is nothing special but we still get to swim and relax that evening.
Another slow motor sail along the coast, bashed by a side swell and nearly no wind, we make it to the Iles Sanginaires and the entrance to the Bay of Ajaccio. There is only a tiny patch of sand the size of a tennis court to drop the anchor; everywhere else is rocks. While we could have taken a shortcut to arrive there, we played the racing game with a Jeanneau which totally smashed us. Unfortunately, they were also going to the same patch of sand and have taken possession of the perimeter. We push on a little further and try to find another option but there are none. So we return and go squeeze ourselves next to the boat of the Italians. We are close. Too close for my liking but we don’t really have an option if we want to visit the island, and I do. I radio them and after a quick chat they conclude that if we are good in the current situation, they are good too. Excellent!
We stay on the boat for a bit just to make sure that Kujira won’t suddenly start trying to mate with Jeanneau Lapin, but everyone is behaving so we decide to go ashore. Kim stays behind, happy to have some down time.
The island is beautiful, rocky, wild, beaten by the elements and with seagulls and a few other seabirds as the sole inhabitants. With the grey sky and dark sea, it feels like Brittany. There is an abandoned quarantine facility, a lighthouse and on one of the other islands a Genoese tower. While I am taking some photos the Italian crew arrives and we start chit-chatting. We learn that they were motor sailing earlier and therefore should be disqualified from the race they didn’t know they had entered. Once back on the boat we send Kim ashore so that she can get attacked by one of the local seagulls, annoyed by all the tourists walking by her chicks. She’s lucky to make it out alive and decides to abort the mission.
We wake up early in order to reach Ajaccio before lunch as Dave needs to take the airport shuttle at 1.30pm. It’s an hour of motoring and as we get closer I get in touch with the first of the two marinas.
“Hi, would you have a berth for the night for a 13.97m sailboat?”
“Yes, no problem”
“Great, how much is it?”
“I don’t know, I would have to check”
“Could you please check?”
“No, I don’t have the time, it’s busy”
“But is it 50 euros or 150 euros?” You have to be careful in the Med, especially once summer arrives and with a boat of our size.
“I have the police on the phone” and he hangs up on me. Is that legendary Corsican amiability? Not wanting to go to a marina without a clue of the fees, I tried the other one. It’s like day and night. The guy is super friendly and I doubt whether I hear properly when he announces 34 euros for the night. The choice is easily made; the old Tino Rossi marina it is.
We park the boat without any drama, have a great burger and Tartare de boeuf for lunch, drop off Dave at the bus stop and go for a little tour of the town, which is surprisingly nicer than expected. We pass by the house where Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769, the same year that Corsica was annexed to France. What’s interesting to learn is that Napoleon’s parents who were Italians, joined the Corsican resistance and fought against the French to maintain their independence. In his younger years Napoleon too was an outspoken Corsican nationalist. We imagine that history would have been very different indeed if Corsica had maintained its independence.
By mid-afternoon I get really tired and suggest to go back to the boat so Grandad can take a nap. A couple hours later I wake up in the middle of a war. The wind has seriously picked and quite a bit of swell is coming into the port. Kujira is bouncing up and down like a rodeo horse about to be released from its cage. Our trusty “Big Bob”, the largest round fender we have at the back of the boat is being squashed to smithereens as the swimming platform is swinging dangerously close to the pontoon. Kim, who has been handling the situation so far while I napped, is slowly getting overwhelmed. We spend the next hour securing, re-adjusting and modifying our lines and fenders. We get away without any damage, but had we not come back to the boat for a nap, the swim platform might have been ripped off the back of the boat. Lesson learned: keep plenty of space at the back of the boat when tying up.
Porto Pollo is our next destination but not before visiting the local market in the morning. We test dozens of cheeses and cured meat, all just as excellent as they are unhealthy, buy way too many vegetables and end up leaving Ajaccio in the early afternoon. For once we have a really lovely sail, that is until the wind dies and the swell comes back rocking us from side to side for the last hour.
After 2 pleasant nights spent in Porto Pollo attached to a mooring buoy, meaning sleeping well, we wake up to see that most of our neighbours have already left despite it not even being 8am yet. Do they know something we don’t? The previous day we had been invited for “apero”, a midday excuse to drink alcohol and nibble on cheese and cured meat, by our neighbours Fabienne and Jean Charles who are sailing “Ilovent”. They took possession of their brand new Outremer catamaran in La Grande Motte while we were there getting our solar arch installed. Eager to see what you can get for 1.5 million Euro, we said yes.
Fact check: “Doesn’t matter the boat, at the end of the day you are enjoying the same sunset, the same beach at the same location” … I call horseshit on that on. Firstly, depending on the boat, you will not make it for sunset but way after sunset. Secondly, the comfort in which you are going to enjoy your sunset is definitely not going to be equal, cramped in a tiny cockpit, rocking back and forth and spilling your drink over or sitting in a well ventilated, spacious Catamaran open air lounge.
Their boat is superb, yet not too opulent, sleek and built for speed yet comfortable like a modern apartment. Kujira, you’ll never feel the same again. Anyway, we have a lovely time, we ask for a glass of water and a coffee instead of rosé and through the conversation we learn that they are planning on going all the way to northern Sardigna tomorrow, 40 nautical miles away, and therefore will leave early.
That explains one boat missing, but the rest of them?!? I make one last attempt at paying for the mooring buoy but the harbour master isn’t around so we detach ourselves and start our journey south knowing full well that we have already lost at the game of playing catch up. After 30 minutes I get a call back from the harbour master. He can’t be bothered with a bank transfer and wishes us a good sail. So we wished too.
There is close to no wind so we motor sail, once again. At one point about a mile away from the coast, we decide to take turns swimming from the boat. It is so still it feels like we’re in a big lake. We turn off the engine and with no-one around we go for a skinny dip. What a strange feeling to be watching the boat, with full sails out while in the water. It would take only a puff for Kujira to leave me behind, after all it does 0 to 5 knots under 5 minutes.
The big question of the day is whether or not to stop in Bonifacio for the night. It is said to be one of the Med jewels but all the reviews about the port and its adjacent calanque are absolutely horrendous. In short, if you try to anchor in the calanque, you still have to pay a fee but on top of that your anchor will most likely be caught on one of the many kangaroo traps lying on the ocean floor. You will be left with no other option but to ask the local dive centre to fetch it for you. It costs 200 Euros and seems to be such a well established business that you may wonder who is responsible for the kangaroo traps… Option number two, the port, is reportedly run by village idiots and you will become the centre piece of a chaotic ballet.
As we get closer to the town, the wind finally picks up and Kujira is “flying” along at 7 knots, one of her best performances so far. Is it fair to restrain the whale now or should we keep going all the way to Sardigna? As the first houses of the old town appear on the edge of the cliff, we know that we need to bite the bullet and stop in this iconic port. I make a quick online booking and we alter our course. It looks like and feels like we are heading straight into the cliff. We can see one channel marker but no channel. I am glad to have a modern chart plotter otherwise I would be dead certain to be off course. Just like magic, we see one boat ahead of us disappear between the cliffs and then another one zooming out of it. Once we are only a few hundred meters away, we finally see the opening. Two sheer cliffs and a narrow channel form a dent in the coastline. As we slowly motor in, the first signs of the old fortifications become visible.
I have been calling the port authorities on the VHF for the last few minutes without getting any reply, however I can hear that I am not the only one. A couple boats in front of us and a couple behind us all seem to have the same problem. Once we reach the port entrance I finally get a reply “Stay stationary where you are, a dingy will come to assist you once it is your turn”. Sounds pretty good to me and I can see that a big cat in front of us is doing the same. After a few minutes a dingy appears next to him and he starts moving. Were all the reviews wrong and the place is actually well run.. or is it?
While we are waiting, the boat that was behind me slowly creeps on us and nonchalantly overtakes us. He is flying the macaroni flag. The port dingy comes back, ask him for his name, comes to see us, asks us for our name before going back to the other boat to assist them. I don’t know it yet, but we have just met the village idiot…
While a little annoyed that the macaronis cut in line, I know that we are next in line and that the village idiot knows it too. Except that one minute of inattention and another boat sneaks past us! When the village idiot comes back he goes to them and starts escorting them. Now I am annoyed. Moreover trying to be stationery with a 14T whale in a narrow channel with side winds and wake from the zooming tour boats is not my definition of fun.
Fuck it! I start moving into the port just on time to greet the village idiot, again. He asks us to park right where we are, stern against the pier. The wind is pushing us sideways and the fat whale wants to turn side on to the pier. The village idiot does one gesture of being helpful and uses his dingy to push us back in the right direction. With a little effort we manage to somehow secure the boat.
While we were wrestling the ropes, a boat of retirees has started the process of parking next to us. They fly the macaroni flag…
When you moor or park the boat stern to, that means backing against the pier, you need to attach two lines to the pier and then grab what is called a lazy line, AKA “slime line” as they are often covered in growth, in order to retrieve a heavy duty line of rope that can be attached to the front of the boat. It can be quite physical and tedious and we often need both of us to do it. What makes it even harder work is that the aim is to keep 14T in line with the rope, not the wind.
Our neighbours are struggling with pulling up the slime line despite being 5 on board and they are in the process of jury-rigging a system to winch it.
“Scuzzyyy” I say with my best imitation of an Italian accent.
“Do you want me to help you?”
“You?”
“Yes me”
“With your hands?”
“Yes, with my hands, just like I did for our boat”
“HAHAHA .. no no, I am a real sailor”
“…?!?”
Bloody macaroni! While it should amuse me to watch them struggle, I am annoyed at his rudeness. After a few more minutes they give up and move the boat one place to the side, which of course now leaves a beautiful opening for a boat to squeeze in between us. It takes only one minute for the village idiot to see the opportunity and he sends in a charter boat of young German women to park their 46 foot rental boat in there. They come zooming in but do a great job besides claiming having never done that before and within seconds they are working on pulling on the slime line, by hand, and making good progress. However, it looks like a bad joke as they pull and pull and pull and never seem to reach the point when the line starts to stretch. As they have never done it before they do not know what to expect.
“Come on girls, you are doing great, just keep on pulling” we encourage them.
“Keep pulling!”
“Keep pulling!”
“Wow, stop pulling right now!”
I can see a giant pile of knots and chain being raised, and still no forward tension on the line. It’s time to call the village idiot.
“Port of Bonifacio, port of Bonifacio, this is Kujira, Kujira, do you copy?”
Of course they don’t..
“Port of Bonifacio, port of Bonifacio, this is Kujira, Kujira, do you copy?”
Still nothing. Meanwhile, there are now 4 German girls attached to the end of a giant bundle of rope, trying not to drop it back to the bottom.
I finally get a reply and explain the situation.
“Ok, where are you?”
“Place 7”
“Can you be more precise?”
“… um, place 7 at the entrance of the port”
“Can you please be more precise”
So I start describing our surroundings, which seems to work way better than giving the boat name and the parking spot number.
The village idiot arrives. As he is getting closer I update him on the situation. He slowly comes to the front of the boat:
“Oh sacré bleu!” .. or at least I wished that’s what he had said. He actually said “Oh fucking hell!”
Now, instead of doing anything he looks at it, puts the rope the girls are holding onto on the front of his dingy and asks the girls to let it go. Now the bundle is hanging from the front of his dingy but he is unable to bring it back to the surface so he asks not one, not two but three of the girls to get on his dingy and start pulling again. Once the bundle reaches the surface I can see that the chain needs to be pushed to the side. So I tell him to do that.
“No, I can’t” he replies without even taking a proper look at it.
“Really, that should release most of the jumble”
“No, it’s impossible”
Luckily, at that point, a tiny overloaded dingy with 4 new Germans on board comes to the rescue. It looks like they are the ones who will need a rescue any minute from now as the waterline is dangerously close to the top of the rubber on their dingy. But they push the chain to the side and just like magic, in 2 seconds, the bundle of knots disappears. The girls go back on their boat and the village idiot disappears as quickly as the knot did. It is now a lot easier for the girls to hoist the rope except that they reach the end of the rope and they are now facing a huge chain, and still no forward tension. We tried to get the village idiot back but it’s too late and he is gone. A quick and efficient German meeting takes place and they conclude that it is safer and in fact really their only option to move the boat a few berths along the pier. And just like that they were gone. A few minutes later the village idiot passes by again and I stop him to update him on the situation.
“Yeah I saw, the mooring line is missing”
“.. Wait, what? So why did you leave and not tell the girls that they needed to move their boat?”
But he is already gone again. We can finally resume our activities, go to the port authorities to pay and visit the city.
The night is excellent on board Kujira and it feels like we are back on the hard. We almost regret getting up at 5.30am. The sunrise is a let down, it’s grey and uninspiring. So is the local market and the local bakery. Kim enjoys some yoga in the unusual setting.
I need to clean the bilge pump filter before we can leave so I jump into the cave, aka the engine compartment, and while I’m working in there I hear a huge bang. I extricate myself as quickly as possible and discover that a boat it trying to park next to us and has just bumped into us. Luckily the damage is minimal thanks to our side bumpers but the situation is becoming very unpleasant. The whale needs to be set loose!
On our way out we admire one last time this amazing scenery before being treated to a steady 15 knots of wind despite the forecasts being for 0-5 knots. Italy, here we come.
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