Corsica

On June 9, late departure from Isola Rossa, the SW wind is light again. We don’t know yet about our program: go on to the Maddalena archipelago or cross the Strait of Bonifacio and enjoy being in Corsica before the touristic rush? We’ll see how it goes, we can also explore the northern and eastern coast of Sardinia later anyway, on our way down to Sicily. As usual we progress slowly and late in the day we finally reach the northern tip of Sardinia and anchor in Baia Reparata right behind Testa Cape.
We are at the door of the Bonifacio Strait and Lavezzi Island is just 8M away. In the coming days the wind will be strong and from the W, the East coast of Corsica offers a few good shelters, including the bay of Rondinara which looks nice from what we saw on Quasar’s web site. So the next day we leave for Lavezzi and choose to anchor in the narrow Cala di Grecu. The touristic pressure is there already, three charter ships come to unload their dozens of passengers on this small rocky land, now a natural reserve. For sure it’s really beautiful: a chaos of pink and white granite blocks carved and brushed by the wind and sea, an intact nature (only spoiled by rubbish washed ashore), pristine water and at last warm enough for swimming. We planned to stay only for lunch but we can't resist to stay overnight and enjoy the scenery for us alone (almost) once the tourists are gone…that’s the advantage of living on a boat.
The next day there’s a gale warning, we leave early to rally Rondinara 8M up north before it starts blowing hard. At 10am we drop the hook in this round shell shaped bay, well sheltered and with transparent water. The wind will be strong up to force 8 during two days and one night; the Strait of Bonifacio is not far from here where the wind is accelerating.
It doesn’t prevent us to swim and check Ata Jata’s hull whose green mustache keeps re-growing. Our provisions are coming to an end, on June 14 we set course to Porto Vecchio. Once again we have to motor to reach destination before dark. We anchor in Stagnolo Bay (locally named “Golfo di Sogno”) where we meet Muriel and Stephane on Iman who are living here after they spent the winter in Bonifacio.