From Florence we got back to Roaring Girl mid-afternoon, to get ready for our next trip, destination Isola Capraia, 42nM south west, and just off the tip of Corsica. The forecast was a NE 3-4, which would put it aft.
In fact, we got an easterly F4 for the first four hours, then no wind to speak of for an hour, then a WNW F4 for three hours. Perfect for us. There is also a one knot south-going current all along this stretch of coast, which helped us out.
We had one of the best sails we've ever enjoyed in splendid weather, averaging over 5 knots. We shot past Livorno with a reefed main and mizzen and several turns in the genoa, at over 6.5knots through the water (ie before the effect of the current). For us, this is very fast sailing!
Roaring Girl was beautifully balanced, and our autohelm, Polly, took a lot of the strain. Even so we hand-steered quite a bit, just for the fun of it. Maybe it was the last hurrah of the Ligurian Sea; we've had poor sailing the whole way round the coast, and our friend Ruth from Mudskipper described the sailing in the area as 'awful'. (Admittedly, she said this while enjoying a good breeze 10 miles from Bora Bora, which isn't really a fair comparison.)
This is the Isola Gorgona, the northernmost of the Tuscan Archipelago. Yachts are not allowed to land, as it's a prison.