West Corsica

We sailed down the western side of Corsica from Calvi to Porto Pollo. There are very few places on this coast that provide shelter from severe weather and don’t cost an arm and a leg to moor. All the marinas are charge band 5 or 6 (over €50 per night for us) and in any case seem to be booked solid days in advance in August. We had the good luck to get a weeks window of calm weather so we have moved fairly quickly – doing about 30 Miles per day. We took a buoy at Calvi (€25), fore-and-aft moored at Girolata (€16), anchored at Sagone (free) and moored at Porto Pollo (€13). So it is possible to sail this coast at reasonable cost. If a strong Westerly or South Westerly (libeccio) had come in, things would have been different and we could have been in considerable difficulty.


The scenery is spectacular! We hired a car for a day after arriving at Calvi and drove to Corte via spectacular mountain roads. Corte was the capital of Corsica in its only short period of independence in the 18th Century after throwing out the Genoese and before the French and the British got stuck in. Evidence of the Corsican struggle for independence is still visible as most road signs are bi-lingual with French first and Corsican underneath. Many of the French parts have bullet holes in them!




The first leg of the voyage was to Girolata via the La Scandola National Park. The coastal scenery is stunning with red and grey cliffs falling into the clear blue water. There are lots of lunch time anchorages but in the park itself, over-nighting, fishing and even swimming are forbidden – not that the locals seem to take much notice of the ban on swimming! With the mountains so close, there is a probability of katabatic winds so we decided to play safe and moor rather than anchor at Girolata.

Girolata is only accessible by sea. The fore-and-aft mooring worked very well and the staff come out in ribs to take the lines so it was also stress free. It was a very pretty and friendly place with surprisingly good restarants, bars and even shops right by the harbour.
The national park put on a ‘diving projection’ in the evening. We didn’t know what it was so we decided to go see. In the event, it was a live projection of people diving – with a rapid commentary (in French of course) on what they were showing us. An amazing piece of technology. I found it very interesting as I could just catch the gist of what he was saying. Poor Lindsay didn’t have a hope though so was rapidly bored out of her mind! Before the show started they showed some quirky cartoons about aliens called Shadocks – very amusing – a bit reminiscent of the clangers but with no soup dragon.
Next day we sailed around to Sagone. The wind was really kind so at last we tried our new Spinnaker. And it worked! The Rollgen makes handing really easy and it pushed us along at 3 Knots with 6 Knots of wind. Very impressive! Sagone turned out to be a bit disappointing. It’s mostly concrete hotels with hundreds of small local moorings making it impossible to tuck into shelter. There are hundreds of water skis, Jet Skis and other high-speed thrill seekers rushing around past the anchored boats making massive wakes until it was almost dark – and they started again at 9.30 in the morning.
The following day we had thought of going to Ajaccio, the capital of Corsica. In the event we decided that we weren’t that interested in big city life and anyway it looked very expensive. Having plenty of supplies still on board, we changed our mind and went to Porto Pollo. We haven’t regretted it!

On the way, after all these years sailing, I saw my first school of Dolphins! We've been to places where they say you can walk across the sea on their backs - but never a sniff! L has seen them everyone else I know has seen them but until now, they've boycotted me!

Porto Pollo is a pretty little village set in rolling hills. It has friendly staff, plentiful supplies and even a free Internet Cafe. The swinging moorings are easy to grab, well sheltered and only €16 per night. We’re off to see an megalithic site called Filitosa today. Apparently the Menhirs have faces carved into them.