Bays, Ports and Giants

After 40 kilometers of gorges and waterfalls, the river Solenzara ends in clear mountain waters in a lagoon. From here it cuts through the sand and into the Mediterranean. A few hundred meters south of the outlet is the port of Solenzara. It was built as a fishing port and in the 1960s expanded with a marina. Today there are only a few fishing boats left. The rest are yachts. A dozen kilometers north of the city is an air base. It was built by the Americans during World War II. After the war, the base was handed over to France. It was from here that NATO carried out the bombing raids on Libya during the Arab Spring in 2.

We stayed in Solenzara for a few days. Swam from the beach and rinsed the salt of the body in the lagoon with the fresh water. Enjoyed the laid-back after-holliday atmosphere. Had a birthday dinner and talked to the Danish lady who was about to finish her nineteenth summer on the sailboat, which she and her husband had sailed here in 1999.

«Nice place. Torquise waters. It is like being in the Seychelles»was one of the many 5 star reviews of the bay of Santa Giulia on Navily (Navily is an app where you can review and read reviews of ports and anchor coves)

After a one night stay in Porto-Vecchio, we headed for Santa Giulia the next morning.

After a short 2 hour sailing we reached the bay. As we sailed between the first of the many anchor buoys , a girl in a red rubber dinghy with an outboard engine sailed toward us.

«Welcome» she shouted and continued "Do you want to pay now or later? »

«Can I pay with a card? » Pia asked in amazement.

«Yes, but then we will have to go the motorboat »the girl answered promptly, pointing at a white motorboat that lay at an anchor buoy a few hundred meters from us and added smiling. « It is my office, and I live on the blue sailng boat right over there ».

When Heron had been moored and the girl had been paid in cash, she gave the engine throttle and shouted « You just call me when you want to go to the pier on the beach. We open at 9: 00 and close at 5.30 pm. »

At the end of the bay was a long and straight sandy beach. On both sides it was shielded by a rocky shore perpendicular to the beach. To the north were houses overlooking the bay. To the south it was completely deserted, probably because the rocks were so steep that no building could be done there.

There was low water several hundred meters from the shore and the white sandy bottom gave the low water a particularly light turquoise color, which got darker farther out into the bay where it was deeper,

It was afternoon, but there was only 6 boats at the anchor buoys. Everybody, apart from the girl's office boat and blue sailboat, seemed to be unmanned.

Our anchor buoy was next to the bay's only hotel. It fell so well into the surroundings that only beach chairs and a logo at the end of the slender wooden bridge revealed that the large one-story house between the palms was the hotel called Moby Dick.

The beach was full of people. Moby Dick's guests relaxed in the beach chairs in the shade under umbrellas, further along people sat under their own umbrellas and furthest away there was jet ski rental and paragliding from high speed motor boats.

We called the girl at the VHF. A little later we boarded her red rubber dinghy and were sailed to the wooden bridge off Moby Dick.

« Last trip back is five thirty “she said before she dropped us off on the wooden pier and headed back to her office boat.

We walked along the waterfront along the one kilometer long beach. Found a cafe at the end of the beach, went back to the wooden bridge at Moby Dick and bathed in the crystal clear, warm and bright turquoise water before the girl came and picked us up in her red rubber dinghy

When we got back on the boat, we sat in the cockpit and watched the beach where people were leaving.

After sunset the beach was completely desolate and only an anchor light on one of the other boats and the girl's blue sailboat testified that we were not alone on the water. During the night the strong west wind stopped and we got a quiet night.

The next morning we jumped into the water, swam around Heron and had breakfast in the cockpit while watching a new day begin on the beach.

We stayed on our anchor buoy for one more night and then headed for Bonifacio.

Bonifacio is located on the southern tip of Corsica. Here, the island's granite mountains are replaced by limestone mountains that, over a stretch of a dozen nautical miles, fall 70 meters vertically into the Mediterranean. The old town overlooks the Bonifacio Strait, which with a width of just under 7 nautical miles separates Corsica from Sardinia. Over time, the wind has eroded the limestone wall beneath the outer houses, which now hover almost freely in the air over the Mediterranean.

The entrance to the harbor, which Troels Kløvedal has described as one of the most beautiful in the Mediterranean, only becomes visible when you are almost completely at a red and green mark on land. From there, it winds with a width of 150 meters between 70 meter high vertical limestone walls into the harbor, which is almost 1 nautical mile from the opening. Not only the most beautiful entrance, but probably also the best protected port in the Mediterranean.

Some historians believe it was here that Odysseus met the cannibal and giant Laistry gonies. It was those who left Odysseus with only one ship after having lowered and eaten the crew on the other 11 ships. Others believe the fighters were living in western Sicily and others having found evidence that the creepy creatures lived on Mount Prama in western Sardinia.

We could feel it was the end of the season. There was plenty of vacant space in the harbor and the port fee was reduced by almost a third. But the tourists were still in line to get on one of the many boat trips and the many restaurants were well attended from noon to evening.

«They are charter boats and started in Olbia two days ago» explained our Australian neighbor with an experienced attitude when a lot of boats suddenly entered and created a hectic high season atmosphere.

The harbor maneuvers demonstrated that crew had only two days' experience of handling the 45 to 55 foot sailboats.

Typically, a terrorist with the fear painted on his face tried to put a quay accompanied by the crew members' cries in their mouths to one another and a couple of wise Åger, who in security on land, knew all about how exactly this exercise should be made.

But the boats came to the quay, and in the evening the harbor was completely full.

Bonifacio is a nice city.

We walked in the old town and saw the view of the Mediterranean and to Sardinia, found a bay where you could swim, talked a little with the neighbors, provisiined, washed clothes and just enjoyed the life around the harbor.

After a couple of days we left Bonifacio, sailed out through the spectacular entrance and headed for Santa Teresa in Sardinia.