FrankingWorldTraveller

A pretty university town, not much for tourists, which made a short visit here delightful.

Neal drove to Gascony to fetch me from cooking school, and we took a few days to tour our way back to Amante, safe and sound on the hard in La Ciotat. This has been a wonderful way to close out the season. Boat is wrapped up and we played tourists on land. Ready to go home!

I spent a week in cooking school while Neal finished up wintering the boat. Good distribution of efforts.

We started with duck breast

from which we made a pizza

Then we whipped up these lovely Gateau Pithviers

A simple little Cassoulet, one for me without garlic

While that cooked, we learned to make Foie Gras 3 ways

Dinner at Auberge La Petite Feuillant, chef Bernard’s restaurant

The we spent a long time making these lovely Tart au Pommes

A morning of creme desserts, Creme Brulee, Creme Caramel, Chocolate Mouse and Crepes Suzzette!

A successful week of cooking and I only lost a little blood!

We visited Cassis and Aix in one day, a bit rushed, but we got a perfect weather day and took in the sights.

It is here, in this at own once famed for its shipyards, we have put Amante to be for winter. The testimony of cranes, some derelict, some, like the one built by Eiffel, are kept for nostalgia and as one local put it, decoration.

Worth noting, the lines running from the masts down, attach to an old rail track as a precaution for the Mistral wind, to keep the masts from flexing. Sheesh!

We spent about two weeks in La Ciotat, working on the boat and traveling Provence by car. The town is still a bit depressed from the loss of the shipyards as a major employer years ago, but still has charm and, according to Rudy who lived there once, a criminal element that he warned us about. We stuck to the waterfront at night, but never felt uneasy. Maybe memories die slowly. We enjoyed great food, runs along the waterfront and easy access to Cassis, Aix en Provence and more if we had had more time to play.

Campomoro with update on Piracy in Corsica

We sailed from Bonifacio to Campomoro on October 4, 2013 and found a place to anchor partially sheltered from the swell here. This large bay is Propiano Bay, with a town of the same name at the mouth. It was too shallow for us (and too far) so we chose this cove at Campomoro. Exactly opposite is a town and reported anchorage called Porto Pollo, but when we were there, it was a ghost land with moorings in every patch of water under 80 feet, and too close together for us. So we rolled in the swell on the Campomoro side.

This turns out to be the same bay a couple and their captain washed ashore after pirates seized their yacht The Armageddon, and left the owners in a life raft, absconding with the yacht. Read about it here: http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/Pirates-Hijack-Luxury-Yacht-in-Mediterranean-2014-02-20/

Back to Campomoro on a good day…

It wasn’t to bad to sleep, but the swell was quite noticeable. We went on a hike the next day from the dinghy dock at Calanova and hiked to the Genoese Tower. The hike passes through a gated community then proceeds to the Genoese Tower on the point. These towers were built in the 15th century to stand sentry against pirates. There were once 85 of them, placed as far apart as visible by fire, so that in the event of an emergency a lit fire could be seen and repeated, circling the alarm around the island in short order and warning the inland people to lock the doors and hide the women and children. (read all about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genoese_tower). We kept going from there for about 3 or 4 miles along the coast. This coastline is interrupted by the oddest and most intriguing formations of limestone, that have been carved in the brutal Mistral winds into almost frightening sculptures.

Here is the route of the hike:

We stopped for a swim, and enjoyed a well-earned beer at the end of our hike.

Wikipedia says: The southern coast in the vicinity of Bonifacio is an outcrop of chalk-white limestone, precipitous and sculpted into unusual shapes by the ocean. Slightly further inland the limestone adjoins the granite of which the two islands, Sardinia and Corsica, are formed. The port of Bonifacio is placed on the Bay of Bonifacio, a drowned ravine of a fjord-like appearance separated from the ocean by a finger-like promontory 1,500 meters (4,900 ft) long and 200 meters (660 ft) wide.

Bonifacio caused our mouths to drop open and remain there until we docked. Pulling into the fiord harbor is indeed impressive, especially as it narrows, boats get crowded, and you don’t know where you are going. Tour boat captains ferrying day trippers seem exempt from the 5-knot speed limit, and pass you, pinning you between their boat and a stone cliff. Fortunately, we were directed to a spot on the wall fairly early into the harbor, 15 feet from a pricey yacht provisioning store, a knife store that sell Vendetta brand Vendetta knives, and the Kissing Pigs restaurant. It is worth notig that Bonifacio is the setting of Guy de Maupassant’s short story, Vendetta.
Perhaps 50 tourists walked past on the narrow street watching us dock, so naturally, I missed the dock TWICE while throwing the line. The chef on the boat next door took pity and walked my line from his boat to the Marina man (don’t know the French name- the ormeggiatiore in Italy, the marinero in Spain).

I was in the yacht-provisioning store in minutes, and bought 3 bottles of Domaine D’Ott, my favorite Bandol Rosé from Provence. Rudy tells me Bandol is 5 minutes from La Ciotat, where we plan to winter the boat. We walked to the marina office, a nice 15 minute walk along the waterfront shops and cafés, checked in and got trail maps for hikes in the area. We walked up to the citadel and from there along the limestone cliffs to look back on Bonifacio. Stunning.
We showered, drank our Rose with French cheese, and had dinner at the Kissing Pigs, which was very satisfying!

The next morning went for a hike from Bonifacio to Paraguan Bay then onto L’hermitage au Trinite, which was a cross perched atop a pink limestone rock pinnacle. Along the way up to it were various odd rock formations of limestone weathered into odd shapes. On the way back we detoured to the point of Madonetta Lighthouse, which included 2 private beaches and another limestone cliff walk. Such diversity and beauty in one hike!! Granted it was 10 miles before we got home, but anyway. The last part from the lighthouse back to Bonifacio included the opposite of the harbor entrance, which is spectacular.

We were starving when we returned, so we went to dinner and had Moules Frite at a close but perfectly beautiful waterfront café, and chatted with two Asian girls from the Bay Area who work in the tech world. So small it is!

In brief, the Madalena islands are as rugged, pristine and beautiful as the “Don’t even try to get a permit to visit during high season” warnings would suggest.
Lucky us, we got a permit for the last days of September, and it is not even required in October. Fall is coming, and we know this portends unsettled weather. On the good side, we are getting all the best deals at marinas, empty anchorages, crowdless beaches. Not a bad deal. We spent two nights on park moorings in Cala Portese on Caprera island. We picked up a Park mooring to wait out the weather.

Cala Portese had a tiny beach bar that was closing the next day, so promised to come back.
We bought the last 3 beers sold for the season and watched while the concession closed for winter.

We stayed a day waiting out some rain, but had a lovely walk before the rain set in.

See the GPS route walking tour of Caprera Island

Our hike ended at a spot not where we left from, and Rudy had to fetch us in waste high water to avoid the rocks! We were the last customers of the beach bar, Bar di Mare.

We moved after the rain to Madallena island, to a mooring at Porto Massimo. This is a lovely private that was resort closing down for the season, as is everywhere we go right now. We almost had the last meal at the restaurant, but the lady said she didn’t have enough food.

After a howling night of 20-30 knots winds, but fairly flat seas, we were glad to see the park mooring held us. Neal looked at them underwater and declared them safer than our own anchor. I had my coffee looking at a normally crowded resort that was empty.

Then we walked to Madalena town, just over 5k away, to turn in our Constituto, or Italian cruising permit.
It was a lovely walk on streets that are small, but were not crowded. However, as in all of Italy, the minimum separation between me and a passing car is outside (or inside) my expected boundaries. To an Italian, not hitting a pedestrian is plenty of room. Hair grows back. As we have seen from all Italian drivers, managing millimeters is required of Italian drivers.
We went into the capitaniere di Porto to turn in our Constituto and were greeted with the welcome of a stinky turd. The big man in charge, for whom we had to stand and wait a good 10 minutes while he looked at his computer (no doubt looking up what to do with a constituto), called another man to tell him what to do. This man started speaking to me in Italian, so I said “Io non capisco bene l’italiano,” which means I don’t understand much Italian, to which he continued speaking Italian, but I do understand a good deal and managed to smile and agree (same in any language) at the right time, so he stamped us, said “Grazie,” and shooed us away.
We walked around the small Island city, that bears little resemblance to anything in Italy, had lunch, bought groceries and went back to Amante.

Click here for some great Madalena photos:

We arrived here from Oblia, and had a nice raviloi dinner on board, expecting a storm to blow in overnight. We managed a lovely walking tour of the island before the rain came. I’d wait out a weather window here anytime.

Here’s our hike: Click to see wikiloc

Below is our Marine traffic location. Look us up on Marine traffic search for sailing vessel Amante.