Golfe de San Ciprianu

We left the Golfe de Sant’Armanza at 0815 on Wednesday 12 July. With no wind, we decided to only motor a short distance north and, feeling that we’d missed out by not stopping at Port de Rondinara, we wanted to see if we could find a really nice anchorage for our next overnight stop.

Approaching the Golfe de San Ciprianu   

Golfe de San Ciprianu    

Looking at the chart and reading our pilot book, the Golfe de San Ciprianu looked to be a promising bay and it was only about 15 miles away. We motored past the entrance to Porto Vecchio and, just to the north, approached the Golfe. It was clear that there were a lot of yachts already anchored there but it is a much larger bay than Port de Rondinara and so finding a space in which to anchor wasn’t an issue.

Golfe de San Ciprianu   

Having missed out on Port de Rondinara, the Golfe de San Ciprianu admirably fulfilled the requirement for turquoise seas and sand. As with all of these pretty anchorages, there is a constant hive of activity during the day as people mess about on the water; as well as swimming, there was always something interesting to look at and the mountainous heart of Corsica provided a superb backdrop to the location.

Mountainous backdrop to the Golfe de San Ciprianu   

The forecast showed strong winds funnelled through the gap between Corsica and Sardinia but we were far enough north to be clear of them, or so we thought! However, these strong winds managed to work their way over the south-eastern corner of Corsica and into the Golfe de San Ciprianu where we were anchored. We were woken at 0130 by a sudden increase in wind and so got up and set about rigging BV for a blow. The bimini and the solar panels were stowed away, covers taken off the wheel and instruments and the riding sail was hoisted. All around us yachts, and particularly the smaller motorboats, were dancing about in the gusting wind (max about 28 knots) but with the riding sail up BV was very steady. The wind was 180 degrees out from the daytime one and so whilst we were happy that BV wouldn’t go anywhere there were now several yachts ahead of us, mostly dancing around, with their anchors potentially pointing in the wrong direction. For peace of mind we started an anchor watch to keep an eye out for anyone dragging onto us. As a result, it was a disturbed night with less sleep than we really wanted but BV sat through it without any dramas.

Golfe de San Ciprianu, Corsica, France