On Monday we upped our anchor. Or tried to. Attached was this ghastly tangle of wire wrapped through and around the chain. In the end with bolt cutters, two pieces of rope, a boathook (now interestingly kinky) and a lot of swearing, we got it off. It took 30 minutes.
After a long wait we then filled up with fuel (EU1.28 a litre), and went to the laughingly named welcome pontoon in the port of Charles Onanosp. It's a joke, because it's actually very difficult to use. In any swell, which there was, there's a rocking surge onto the dock, which sits high enough that Aquila's sugar scoop could slide beneath it! To hold yourself off there are buoys, to which you hitch a line as you pass (or fail to in our case, necessitating several goes). We were very glad Mike and Linda were still there, also filling up with water, so that Mike could take our lines to help us in.
But we filled up with water, for free, and that can't be bad.
Both Roaring Girl and Aquila then headed south-west across the Golfe d'Ajaccio towards Porto Pollo. After an hour or so, once out of the lee of the Iles Sanguinaire, we found a 2m swell and bitingly cold southwesterly, making for an unpleasant trip. Aquila has a schedule, but after half an hour or so we decided that Porto Pollo would probably be uncomfortable, and we do not have any deadlines - so we returned to the comfort of the Ajaccio anchorage.
Over the next couple of days we talked to several boats coming north from Porto Pollo, Bonifacio and elsewhere. All had tales of howling winds (115km per hourreported in Bonifacio) and rough nights. We were grateful for the shelter of Ajaccio, despite the fouled anchor chain.