Hi All,

On the 8th August 2015 we slipped our lines from the marina in the harbour of Porto Tino Rossi, Ajaccio,  Corsica to motor north up the west coast of the island.

We motored to the Gulf de Porto, famous in Corsica for its dramatic steep red granite cliffs which dive into the sea. Approaching from the sea we were dwarfed by the scale of the cliffs and looked on at the colour of the landscape... so strongly coloured red.

In the curve of one of the mountains is the bay of Girolata, once protected by a Genoese fortress which still stands proudly on the projected headland.

A popular destination for yachties sailing the inhospitable, exposed west coast. Tourist boats also visit the bay which is only accessed from the sea.

There is a small beach and managed buoys in the bay to moor to maximise the number of yachts able to stay.

No doubt originally this was a beautiful spot and today is still worth a visit and is ideal for a transiting yacht but sadly the swarms of day trippers have left their mark. The small restaurants and beach shacks have to bring in all produce etc by sea and in theory remove everything too. A good attempt at a recycling area behind the beach is based in good practice but the barrage of daily visitors leaves the beach with plastic bottles and some litter blown into the sea.

However, we still enjoyed our stay and the water around the moored yachts was crystal clear to swim offshore.

The strangest site was of the full grown dairy cows wondering onto the beach from the field sitting between the mountains in land from the sea.

The cows paddled in the shallows cooling themselves and perhaps getting fed by visitors, they certainly created many photo opportunities.

it was like a scene from an Indian summer….in far away lands…not from Corsica.

We climbed to the fortress on the projected headland and saw wonderful views down to the open sea and to the bay below, which looked picture postcard. The fort would have had an incredible vantage point for incoming pirates and invaders.

On the evening we enjoyed watching the incoming yachts, mooring to the buys and the tourist boats collecting their visitors. The atmosphere changed as the bay sort of reclaimed itself. A flotilla of  charter yachts arrived with Spanish crews and the calm was broken. Inexperienced skippers and crew pirouetted and ricocheted off surrounding yachts before eventually tieing to buoys. Thank fully we escaped.

The crews were so anxious that each yacht which successfully tied to a buoy was applauded by the rest!!!

As you know we are very fond of the Spanish people, but the volume level goes up substantially when they arrive.

Within minutes of the final yacht tieing up the groups started what the Spanish do best….a fiesta. Each crew cooked and prepared part of the feast. Tony and I speak some spanish so we sat listening and laughing at the conversations on channel 16…emergency channel…Hola, Hola, Hola…..more...who was cooking what for dinner???, when, how, what time and of course….oh do you have some errrrr spice or ingredient??….. from yacht to yacht.

What made us giggle more was the volume of voices echoing across the bay of side by side yachts was the lack of necessity for any radio at all!!! Their voices were simply enough creating whistling feedback 

And so the banter went on for a couple of hours…..a BBQ was lit on the stern of one yacht….always a little hair-raising on a GRP plastic yacht, especially if soothed by chemicals to get it going….so we watched as you do thinking….is he on fire?, does he need help? or are they just burning the food?????

Finally a string of dinghies full of laughing, vino drinking crew were ferried to the yacht ‘on fire’. Each dinghy full of people and food with only inches above the waterline.

And so the fiesta started as the Spanish do best around 9.30, 10 pm.

Fantastic atmosphere, multi-national on the water, the sea very still  and glass-like surrounded by the red granite cliffs and the Genoese fortress….timeless around us.

Photos of Girolata.

Love to all

T and T xxx