Everything was ready for the 10am departure on 3 May. Almost everything, in fact, as I discovered at the last minute that the batteries for the bow thruster were dead! It took 6 hours to get a new set and we finally got underway at 18:00. After an uneventful night, we saw the Corsican coast line just before dawn.
By then, the wind had disappeared and we started the engine. This is when the problems started...
By the way, this was our first 140 nautical miles (260 km) leg for the convoying of Belisama from Toulon to Pula in Croatia. Assuming a speed of 5 knots per hour, we anticipated a 28 hour ride, meaning an arrival around 22:00.
After two hours of running, the engine suddenly started 'coughing' and running very erratically, despite being at full throttle. As it was not going away by itself, I had no choice but to turn off the engine, let the boat drift uncontrolled and try to find out what was going on. And I knew what it was, having experienced it before. And indeed, the "decanter" was showing some water and dirt getting into the injectors... I had to flush the decanter, clean it and restart the engine. It worked, although I had two or three similar episodes in the hours that followed. Since then everything has been fine. As I was unable to fill the tanks at the end of the season last year (the filling station was closed when we arrived in Saint Mandrier in October last year), some condensation probably took place during the winter, resulting in a thin layer of water at the bottom of the tanks, which eventually ended up in the engine when we set sail.
On the way, we encounter a colony of very small floating "stuff" that we cannot identify. They look whitish and we can see thousands of hem around us.
By looking at them, we were surprised to see that they presented with what looked like a small "sail" on the surface of the water.
And indeed, it looked pretty much as a floating animal with a "sail" embedded on the back. A quick Internet search pointed to "Velella velella", a monospecific genus of hydrozoa in the Porpitidae family :-). It is commonly named as "by-the-wind sailor" as indeed the colonies of Velella velella are drifting around the oceans of the world. In short, it is a very special species closely related to coral and sea anemones. Read the link on Wikipedia above if you want to further explore the specificity of this animal and its incredible way for reproducing...
Velella velella caught by the crew. At the bottom there is a floating part with some gaz,
above which is a kind of solid pyramid surmounted by a solid "sail". It is not poisonous to humans.
We finally arrived on time at "Les Sanguinaires", a group of four islands at the entrance to the bay of Ajaccio, with a nice anchorage just after passing through the narrow passage between the rocks, a passage that gave the group its name, which means "bloody islands" in French.
The "Sanguinaire Islands" are well known for their flamboyant sunsets. Below is the one we witnessed while arriving late to the spot, but you can get much better pictures on the link above.
The following morning, we discovered a beautiful place and got the first swim of the season in a water at (only) 18°C.
It is absolutely amazing to discover such transparent waters after 18 years of sailing in the Baltic where the water is always a bit muddy. It is like sailing in an aquarium and feeling the vertigo from the deck of the boat. An amazing first experience of Corsican waters!
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