A Terrifying Hike, A Weather Forecast Gone Wrong, And Amazing Sights Of The French Riviera

It was with great reluctance that we left the city of Ajaccio, Corsica.  This place had truly been a magical stop, and we could have easily spent weeks here.  It is definitely high on my list of places to return to in the future.  We got underway fairly early in the morning to make the 6 hour passage to a place called Girolata. Girolata is unique because it is shut off from the rest of the island by high mountains and deep ravines, making it only accessible by sea.  Perched high on the outermost point is a stunning looking castle.  It appears to have been restored as it looks like something out of a Disney movie.  Tucked deep into the corner of the bay, well protected from most winds (and invading pirates/mauraders back in the day) lies a mooring field in very shallow waters.  In here, we would take a mooring both bow and stern to keep us from swinging, since they have packed in many mooring slots.  The tender greeted us outside of the mooring field, asked our draft, and told us to follow him.  As Dan watched the depth shallow up severely, he called out to the guy, “are you sure it is deep enough for us?!”  Our depth meter was reading 1.2 meters, and we draw 1.3 meters!  The guy assured us it was fine and tied us up very close to the rocky cliffs on shore.  It was definitely super shallow here.  As a matter of fact, we watched a monohull come in and quickly run aground.  The tender driver then needed to help drag him out deeper and get him tied up before he swung into the shallows again.

We quickly headed to shore and began wandering around.  Our first order of business, go see the castle (of course)!  We tried and tried, but could not find a pathway that wasn’t blocked by signs that said private property/no access.  We stopped by the port captain’s office to inquire about how to get there.  We were told that there was no access to the castle at this time because it is surrounded by privately owned properties.  He said it would probably be another two years before they were able to identify and create a route that avoided the private properties.  Needless to say, we were very disappointed.  As you can imagine, it didn’t take long to explore the tiny town which consisted of homes, restaurants and bars.  All day long, day trip excursion boats off loaded hoards of people to explore the little, isolated village before returning them to the bigger cities. Oh, and the free roaming cows on the beach added some fun to the mix.  We had originally planned to spend a few nights here but quickly decided that one night was enough.  We jumped in for a swim which did not disappoint.  Below us was an aquarium busy cleaning our hulls.  I set off to explore the jagged, rocky coastline.  Before long, I had a menagerie of fish following me around and swimming up to check me out.  These guys, some quite big, were not skittish in the slightest.  The bay was surrounded by towering rock cliffs with many tree lined hiking paths, so we decided we would go for a hike the next morning before leaving Girolata behind.

In the morning we headed to the start of the trail where 3 different hikes were posted.  One was an hour and 15 minutes, one was an hour and a half, and the final one was 3 and half hours.  We opted for the hour and a half hike, and off we went.  The hike started off following the shoreline through a tree-lined path offering lots of shade.  Up, up, up we went.  There were no more signs along the path, just yellow paint bands on trees and rocks to mark the way.  Before long, climbing and scrambling over rock began.  Did I mention that we were now several hundred feet above the rocky sea below?  Or that we were on a very narrow path, with unsure footing, and nothing to stop our death plunge into the shallow sea below?  Yeah, my fun meter just took a huge dip toward zero.  As we continued along our route, and the climbing got steeper and more precarious, we began to express our concern that this trail was winding deeper along the bay and not making it’s way inland to complete the loop.  We were nearing the 45 minute mark at which point it should have begun to turn inland.  We continued on further before deciding that we had definitely taken the wrong trail.  From what we could see ahead, we were on the 3 1/2 hour hike with no drinking water.  We decided to turn around and go back the way we came.  Awesome!  I was beyond excited to now have to down climb all those hairball sections we had just come through.  Needless to say, I spent some of the descent on my ass, crab walking down the steep rocks.

Once back on board, we discussed our track back out of the bay to ensure that we did not run aground.  We quickly dropped lines from the 3 mooring balls we were tied to and made our way out of the bay.  Our next and final stop on the island of Corsica was the town of Calvi.  It was a sunny, hot day with no wind, so we motored our way north.  As we arrived into Calvi, we were once again greeted by the towering walls of a magnificent fortification.  You just can’t get tired of the amazing sights on this island.  The anchorage was pretty far from the town, so we opted for the mooring balls right outside the marina and heart of town.  We spent the next 3 days exploring the fortification, hiking along two of the bays, and climbing to a very scenic overlook.  We were really struggling with leaving Corsica.  This was truly a magical island, but all good things must come to an end.  We had our weather window to cross over to the French Riviera on the mainland.  It was going to be a 15 hour crossing, so we decided to leave around 1:30 p.m. in order to arrive in the anchorage at sunrise.

We quickly got underway and made our way out to sea.  As the hours slipped away, we soon noticed that the wind was not dropping with the sunset like the forecast had shown.  Not only was the wind building, but the seas we were suppose to have behind us did not play out either.  Not only were the seas much bigger than forecasted, but they were coming from all directions making for an extremely rough ride.  About 1/2 way into our journey, both Dan and I wondered if maybe we should have turned back.  Things got even better as these giant, thunderstorm clouds started building on the horizon.  Before long, the lightning began…..yeah….this was a whole lot of NOT fun!  We managed to sail the entire passage (a rarity out here) with a reefed main and genoa.  Because we sailed at a much faster speed than under motor, we arrived way before sunrise.  As we made our way into an anchorage outside of Monaco, it quickly became clear that this was going to be problematic.  Our charts showed that it was okay for boats under 20 meters to anchor behind the yellow buoys, but the buoys themselves showed no anchoring and no motoring.  Outside the markers was too deep for us, never mind it was still dark out which added to the challenge of finding a safe spot.  We both decided that trying to force this was not a good plan, so we motored along the coast for another hour before arriving in a mooring field outside of Villafranche.  By now, the sun was coming up, and we quickly grabbed a mooring ball.  After getting ourselves secured, the very friendly mooring ball operator came out and gave us all the scoop on the area before leaving us to get some much needed rest.  Of all the years that we have done overnight passages, Dan and I both agreed that this was the absolute worst one we have ever done.  We also agreed that next time, we would put the seas behind us and head for Genoa, Italy instead of Monaco, France.  After all, it’s not like we had some place to be….we blow with the wind!

Villafranche turned out to be an awesome stop.  While the large anchorage tended to fill up with cruise ships and billionaire luxury yachts (and a few sprinklings of boaters like us), we were blissfully tucked away on our ball out of the chaos.  Here we were surrounded by towering cliffs with beautiful villas perched high on the hills.  The waterfront housed a multitude of restaurants and shops, and looking out over the bay sat another fortification.  Thanks to a train that ran above the waterfront, we were able to go and explore Monaco and old town Nice, leaving Zoe safely behind.  Monaco was as you would expect.  The harbor was full of extremely expensive, high end yachts, high end apartment complexes loomed all around, and the streets were lined with the most exotic cars you can imagine.  We were able to catch the changing of the guard at the palace which was pretty cool.  All in all, Monaco wasn’t really my cup of tea.  I much prefer the old cities and quaint towns of the past.  I did enjoy Nice which had a mixture of modern flair, as well as cobblestone alleyways with cafes and shops.

Once again, we were monitoring a weather situation and trying to make arrangements for a marina berth to ride it out.  Another mistral was on its way bringing heavy rain, thunderstorms, and 30-40 knot winds.  We got lucky and finally landed a spot outside of Saint Tropez in Port Grimaud which is in a lagoon at the end of the bay.  It has been called the Venice of France.  We were super excited to spend a few days here exploring the canals by dinghy and walking the surrounding area, including the famous Saint Tropez.  As predicted, our first couple of days were spent hunkered down in the pouring rain.  We did manage to get off the boat each day to explore the area on foot.  When the rain finely broke on the third day, we jumped on the ferry that runs from the marina over to Saint Tropez.  We wandered the harbor lined with billionaire mega yachts, climbed the narrow alleyways with cute little cafes and high end boutiques, and headed up the hill to the citadel.  This was our favorite part of Saint Tropez.  Besides the amazing views, the citadel housed an incredible maritime museum that we fully enjoyed exploring.  I will let the pictures do the talking.  After the citadel, we headed back down to the waterfront to try out Saint Tropez’s famous dessert/pastry, Tarte Tropezienne.  I’m not sure having it in Saint Tropez was our most brilliant idea since 2 pastries with 2 cappuccinos came with a hefty price tag of $54 euros!  Ouch!  

We had 4 nights booked in the marina (I use the term loosely since they side tied us to a wall by the fuel dock).  The first 2 days were wind and rain, and the 4th day was the worst of the forecasted mistral.  This meant that all of our real fun and exploration needed to take place on that third day.  So, when we returned from Saint Tropez, we ticked off our final “must do.”The last thing we wanted to experience during our stay was a happy hour cruise through the canals of the lagoon.  We loaded up the dinghy with a charcuterie plate, a couple glasses of wine, and a speaker for music.  Off we went for a sunset cruise through the canals.  As expected, it was magical.  The canals are lined with beautiful homes and quaint little walking bridges.  This has definitely been one of my more favorite stops.

The following morning, the mistral arrived as expected.  Before long, the winds were howling at 35-45 knots.  Spindrift was swirling out in the anchorage, and I found myself grateful that we were securely tied to the wall (which was concrete and therefore not pitching around trapping us on the boat).  Although these strong mistrals can get a bit scary, I was also grateful that it came during daylight hours.  As you know, things are always scarier in the dark of night (haha)!  The last positive thing about a nasty wind storm is that a week or two of beautiful weather follows in its wake.  We still have 101 miles left to cover before taking Zoe out of the water and closing out our sailing season.  It’s hard to believe our season is almost over.  It’s been our shortest season yet while covering the largest amount of miles.  Tomorrow we will take advantage of the nice weather window to slowly make our way to Marseille.  Stay tuned for our final installment of Zoe’s sailing season before we set off for a little inland exploration of the French countryside.