Isola del Giglio
25 September 2009 | Elba
It's a wee step, about 30nM, to Isola Giglio, the next accessible island in the archipelego. Both Montecristo and Pianosa lie temptingly to the south, but neither can be visited in your own boat, as they are protected marine reserves.
There are a couple of suggested anchorages on the island, both just south of the harbour. We nosed into them, to find them deep, over 25m of water until you are very close in. One yacht appeared to be using one of them, but possibly only as a lunch stop. So we turned into the harbour, which was its own adventure.
Definitely a stern anchor stop. This was the first test of our new set up. Mostly it worked absolutely fine, although we discovered that the shackle connecting the 10m of chain to the warp will need to be changed, as it didn't fit through the roller. Ho hum: some minutes spent getting the split pin off whilst tethered off the stern in the centre of the port. A very interested audience gathered!
In the end, however, we made it all work, dropped it in good time and, for our first time, spent the night with our own stern anchor holding us off the quay. And it even came up again in the morning, which was a relief! Still some fine-tuning to do, but the basic principle works.
You can see here that you come through the entrance, and the quay is to port. The pilot book suggests a visitors pontoon ahead of you: the pontoon is still there but was stuffed full of what looked like permanent boats. The quay itself does get busy with lots of fishing boats, and we can imagine the place is packed in the high season.
Several ferries come in here, presumably from Porto San Stefano. One, a small Torremar, does a three point turn in this harbour, a spectacular sight. It would be something of a deterrent to a boat much bigger than Roaring Girl, especially with a long line out astern,