So how was your morning today, honey?
14 August 2010 | Bonifacio, Corsica
Peter
How quickly things can go awry!
We arrived yesterday in the beautiful, natural harbor of Bonifacio under sunny skies and a 15k westerly. This harbor is remote from the rest of the island - I am not even sure if there are roads connecting the town to the rest of Corsica. The harbor is a giant crevasse with two smaller crevasses off of it. The high cliffs bordering these crevasses provide both protection from the winds as well as natural and stunning beauty.
The big story with this harbor happened in 1420 when the Aragonese tried to take control of the town from the Genoese. This little town was a holdout, refusing to submit to the Aragonese even though the rest of the island had caved in. So the Aragonese laid siege to it...for five months! The people held their ground behind the walled citadel built by Count Bonifacio. Finally after 3 months a truce was drawn -the townspeople agreed to surrender if they did not receive any reinforcements in 40 days. Meanwhile they were out of food and reduced to eating the bark off of trees.
As a good faith gesture, the town gave the Aragonese 32 children to hold as hostages. Before the 40 days were up seven Genoese ships, with the help of the townspeople, broke through the blockade, resupplied the town, and then left again. Nothing was gained, but the Aragonese were so disheartened the army that they gave up, took the 32 children as prisoners, and left!
But the walled city and the buildings perched precariously on the cliffs make for a most dramatic site. There is one road down to the harbor that switches back along the steep cliff. Along the harbor are all kinds of restaurants, a couple of hotels, chandleries, laundry, and odd other shops. Bonifacio is apparently a stopping point for some of the most luxurious and dramatic private yachts of the Med. What we have seen here compares to nothing - nothing - like what we have seen elsewhere. Not in Marmaris with its super-sized travel lift, not in Las Palmas, Mallorca or Corfu, Greece. This is big time!
We are anchored in the second crevasse of the harbor, which brings us to our little story of how we spent our morning. Will and I had spent the previous afternoon setting a second anchor to fortify ourselves against the strong westerly that filtered its way down through the cliffs. But the truth was we did not feel like either of them was holding. We were banking on the fact that we had a ton of aluminum and steel on the bottom and that would help hold us. We also ran a couple of stern lines ashore. Boats were chock-a-block Med tied along both sides of the crevasse, so fenders were out on both sides of the boat.
We awoke this morning not to a westerly, but now an easterly. Our anchors were of only minimal help and we found the wind blowing us precariously close to the cliffs. Then I heard 'the sound' - the distinctive sound of something manmade on rock! I got a snorkel mask on and stuck my head in the water off the swim step and confirmed my fears - our rudder was pressed up against a rock!
We tried for about an hour and a half to get us off the rock. We ran extra lines ashore to weather. We pulled on our anchor rode. After a couple of hours we had gained a small victory. Instead of our rudder grinding against the rock, there was now a space of about a meter between the two. Just when I was feeling like maybe we had won the battle, one more gust came down off the cliffs and pushed us too close again to the shore.
Time was running out. At Ruth's suggestion, Will and I jumped into the dinghy and rowed over to the other side of the inlet to check out spots there. We were surprised to see that the boats on this side were using anchors supplied by the town. We did not have to use any of ours. All we had to do was back into one of the spots, tie off the anchor line to the bow and run a couple lines ashore to rings in the cliffs. It looked way easier and far more relaxing than waiting for the next puff to push our boat onto the rocks! So we decided to move. Just then the skies let out a torrential downpour. We were going to do all of this in the middle of a rainstorm!!
Now, how do we get out of here? With two anchors off the bow, it makes things a little trickier. Twice Will and I tried to manually pull the secondary anchor up from the dinghy. But both times we were repelled - it was just stuck in the mud too hard for me to lift it up. So we abandoned that idea and decided we would have to bring both anchors up with the windlass.
We got a lucky break with the wind and in a lull we cut the weather stern line and allowed our boat to swing around bow-to into the wind. Fortunately some of the other boats had already left and we missed the boat most leeward to us by a few feet. I frantically had the windlass running to bring up the primary anchor (and try to get us separated from the boat to leeward of us). We got the primary up and then had to switch the windlass around to start taking up the rope rode on the secondary anchor. With Will driving and Ruth helping me on the bow, we managed to get both anchors up.
We got to our spot and had no issues getting in. Of course, by now we were the morning entertainment for the entire anchorage, so when we needed help getting to our new spot there were all sorts of willing hands. For a bit there I thought they might all give us a round of applause!
In the end, we managed to do all these maneuvers such that we didn't embarrass ourselves (like we have been used to doing). Indeed, we had one or two boats commend our teamwork. The rudder does not have serious damage as best as I can tell. There are no dings or bites out of it. The bottom paint has been scraped off the trailing edge, but that appears to be all. I will dive on it under calmer conditions in clearer water.
We got everything put away about the time the rain stopped and when I went down below to change into dry clothes the clock 1230. We had been at it for the past three and a half hours!!! So...how did your morning go?!!!