Bastia and Erbalunga
Altea
Fri 15 Aug 2014 12:01
29 July 2014
We took the dinghy round the corner into the historic and beautiful harbour. It is quite small, very sheltered and sits in a tight arc around the cluster of yachts, motor boats and a few fishing boats moored on pontoons. The water is surrounded by attractive, but not flashy, restaurants on the front row, above which the buildings are four or five storeys high and pretty crumbly. I would not want to sit on any of the balconies here for fear of ending up in the road.
A nice walk round the old town stretches the legs. Photographs are taken of Altea at anchor just round the point. We are getting quite a collection of pictures of a boat at anchor, and I think it is rapidly approaching time to stop taking any more.
Then we have a good lunch back on the harbour front, opting for the fixed price three course menu which, as S rightly says, we might as well have, now that we are here. We only eat once a day, so it is not an extravagance.
After lunch, we decide against moving round into the harbour for the night, and up anchor. We find a pretty little anchorage at Erbalunga just up the coast. Bizarrely, a french chap chooses that moment to come up on deck of the only other boat in the bay, and urinate in a proud yellow arc into the sea, about 25m from us.
There is a ruined tower on the point and some rocks, so I swim around with a plumb line, to make sure we have clearance if we swing in the night. Just before dusk, a storm covers the view of Elba to the west, and also to the south back to Bastia. There is plenty of lightning. Also, behind the village is an impressive bowl, backed by high mountains, from which a katabatic wind now begins to howl. The cold air rushes down off the peaks and reaches 30 knots by the time it reaches us. We shift the anchorage over a little and put down 50m of chain, to be sure of a good hold and a relaxed, if (once again) rolly night. As a precaution, the electronics go into biscuit tins, the microwave and the metal lined engine room, as makeshift faraday cages, in case we get struck by lightning.