The Golfe du Valinco is rimmed with beautiful long sandy beaches. So there are many holiday homes, hotels and camping spots at the few towns scattered around the bay, but it's all still charmingly casual rather than any ritzy glamor.
After relaxing on the boat and lunching under the shade of the bimini (the cover over the forward cockpit), we motored the hour's journey to Propriano. Although we had a reservation at the marina the Captain of the port wasn't sure what to do with us because no boats had left the marina, due to the forecast of strong winds. He ignored our radio calls but when we telephoned he found us a spot which was stern to the dock just outside the marina office. We had to drop our own anchor out from where the bow would be because it was not a regular marina berth where anchor lines were laid. We need 3 metres of depth at least but unfortunately it was not that deep near the dock so our rudder hit the bottom! We motored back out a couple of metres and had ropes tied everywhere to hold us in place (with the wind being strong enough even in the marina to cause the bow of the boat to drift to starboard).
The scene provided entertainment for many onlookers out walking on the promenade, especially when Greg rigged up a line along the side of the boat to the dock for us to go ashore in the dinghy by pulling ourselves along the line. The whole experience was rather exhausting, but quite funny when using the dinghy as our ferry. Beers for the guys and gin and tonics for the ladies helped soothe the nerves.
A walk around town proved that Propriano (usual population 3500) is a great holiday resort with a huge selection of restaurants. Needing a relatively early night for a change we decided on a restaurant specialising in pizzas from a wood-fired oven and we were not disappointed. As we are now in another wine area we chose a red from Sartene, a town very close by.
It was not a calm night and the winds caused quite a strain on the ropes. So Greg and I were up at 3.30 changing to lines with springs, going to and fro in our dinghy ferry. This is the other side of boating!
Sunday morning we did some food shopping while waiting for a proper berth. As usual we had to shop around to find decent fruit or salad greens and it's surprising that anyone would buy some of the wilted stuff. Wendy found an excellent bakery for both bread and quiches so lunch was up to standard.
After quite an effort to pull up the anchor we were able to move to a proper berth and could then go driving for the afternoon.
More about that later.
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