Bonifacio – Corsica

We left Castelsardo on 29 May and sailed 30 miles north spending the night anchored in Baia Reparata, on the north side of Capo Testa. The rocks around the bay look to be granite and are slightly pink, and the whole place is very reminiscent northern Brittany near Ploumenac’h. We had planned to spend 30 May swimming and exploring the area but it was cloudy and windy so instead we made the 10 mile passage across to Bonifacio on the southern tip of Corsica.

The Straits of Bonifacio have a reputation for being windy and we thoroughly enjoyed our sail, blasting along on a beam reach under well-reefed main and genoa. The entrance to Bonifacio is not easy to spot, as it is quite literally a slit in the chalk cliffs. However, the houses of the old town, clinging to top of cliff, are quite obvious and the harbour’s entrance is just west of them.

Having entered through the gap in the cliff, the calanque takes a sharp right turn and the harbour opens up.

Calanque de l’Arenella and Calanque de la Catena

There are a couple of small inlets on the northern shore of the main calanque. Instead of taking a mooring in the marina at the top end of the main harbour, we elected to moor in the second of the inlets, Calanque de la Catena. The moorings are of the standard Mediterranean type, with rings in the rock-face and lines from concrete mooring blocks in the centre of the inlet tailed back to the rings on the shore. Unfortunately, and somewhat unexpectedly for us, the fresh westerly wind that had provided us such a speedy passage across to Corsica, now provided us with something of a headache. We had expected the wind to blow across the top of Calanque de la Catena, leaving the inlet in a wind shadow at sea-level. Instead the wind was blowing up the main line of the harbour and taking a sharp left turn into Calanque de la Catena providing us with a strong cross-wind for our mooring manoeuvre. With no-one on the shore to assist us by taking our bow lines and passing us the pick-up lines for the stern, it was a tricky manoeuvre to moor successfully without either being blown sideways onto the overhanging cliff face or getting a pick-up line wrapped around the propeller.

However, after an hour’s work with the dinghy, several very long lines and a lot of winching, we were safely moored up without having touched any of the other moored boats or the rocks. We had certainly earned our lunchtime beer that day whilst enjoying the great view up to the citadel.

It was just a short dinghy ride up the harbour to the main marina area which has been recently refurbished and is surrounded by cafés and restaurants at the water’s edge. It is a very picturesque setting, made all the more so by the fortified old town which overlooks the harbour from high up on the cliffs. It’s very easy to imagine the harbour filled with the yardarms and spars of 19^th century sailing ships or, indeed, with the besieging fleet of the Argonese back in 1420.

We walked up to the citadel and across the drawbridge into the old town. The lifting mechanism for the drawbridge is still in place but I doubt it’s used much these days, except, perhaps, if too many tourists try to visit! The streets of the old town are wonderfully higgledy-piggledy and very narrow with, inevitably, many of the premises converted to restaurants and tourist shops. Nevertheless, the city was a delight to explore, particularly the sudden cul-de-sacs which end in a spectacular view along the seacliffs.

I'm sure it just looks larger than BV because it’s closer - perhaps....?

One of the buildings we passed housed a pizzeria from which emanated the most wonderful smells. From the open stable door to the kitchen, pizzas were also sold ‘a emporter’ (to take away). So we bought one, watched it being made from start to finish, and then took it and a couple of beers to a vantage point on the bastions above the harbour from which we could see BV’s mooring and watch the general comings and goings.

We also took a short walk along the cliff tops (through a nature reserve) to the east of the citadel from where we could look back at the town and, of course, get that most famous picture of Bonifacio showing the overhanging cliff.

Our time in Bonifacio also allowed us to get onto the website for the Maddalena archipelago so that we could book a permit to allow us to visit this national park.