Most people who fly into Ajaccio for a sailing week point the bows north towards Calvi or south towards Bonifacio and barely look at the gulf on their own doorstep. That is a mistake. Give Ajaccio a long weekend rather than a single night, and the Gulf of Ajaccio, the Sanguinaires islands and the neighbouring Gulf of Valinco give you everything Corsica is famous for, clear water, red rock, mountain backdrops, without a single long passage.
We did exactly that on a delivery weekend, three nights, no leg longer than a couple of hours, and it was the best part of the trip.
Where you begin: the marina and the gulf
The marina in the centre of town is Port Tino Rossi, named after the Corsican crooner buried in the cemetery above, and it sits right under the old town and the citadel. It holds around 300 berths, of which roughly 150 are kept for visitors and small yachts up to about 10 metres, so a larger boat may end up at the Charles Ornano marina a little further round the bay. Call the harbour office on VHF channel 09 before you arrive, because in July the visitor pontoons fill early.
For the town itself, Napoleon's birthplace, the market, the provisioning, the Ajaccio and the Gulf of Ajaccio guide covers the shore side. Here I am sticking to the water and the anchorages.
Day one: out to the Sanguinaires
The Iles Sanguinaires guard the mouth of the gulf, roughly 10 nautical miles out from the town, and the run there is the perfect shakedown leg. The name means the bloody islands, after the deep red the rock turns at sunset, and timing your arrival for the evening light is worth doing on purpose.
You cannot land on the main island freely, it is a protected reserve, but you can anchor in settled weather off the Pointe de la Parata at the very tip of the peninsula, about five miles from the town, with the islands laid out in front of you. The holding is in sand and the spot is exposed to the west, so it is a fair-weather anchorage only. We swam, watched the sun drop behind the lighthouse, and then ran back into the gulf to anchor for the night in more shelter.
Day two: anchorages of the gulf
The Gulf of Ajaccio is big, and the southern shore in particular hides a string of sandy bays that stay calm when the prevailing wind is from the west or northwest. We spent the whole of day two pottering between them, swimming off the boat, taking the tender ashore for a walk and a coffee.
The thing to watch in Corsica is not tide, the range is tiny, but wind, specifically the way the afternoon thermal builds and the way a libeccio from the southwest can turn the gulf nasty with little warning. We checked the forecast religiously. The notes on Corsica weather for visitors are the best primer I have read on reading the island's wind, and I would not cruise here without that background.
Day three: down to Propriano and the Valinco
For our last full day we made the short hop south to the Gulf of Valinco. Ajaccio to Propriano is around 25 nautical miles, an easy morning's sail, and rounding the headlands between the two gulfs gives you the wild, empty Corsican coast at its best, cliffs, maquis, not a building in sight.
Propriano is a proper little harbour at the head of the Valinco with a marina, fuel, and restaurants, and it makes a relaxed turning point. If you would rather anchor, Porto Pollo on the northern side of the Valinco entrance is a lovely sandy bay and a sheltered alternative to the harbour depending on the wind. We anchored off Porto Pollo for lunch, looked into Propriano for fuel and a meal, then ran back north to Ajaccio in the late afternoon as the wind dropped. For the fuller version of this leg, the Ajaccio to Propriano three-day itinerary goes into the anchorages along the way.
The numbers worth knowing
- Ajaccio to Propriano: around 25 nautical miles
- Iles Sanguinaires from Ajaccio: roughly 10 nautical miles
- Pointe de la Parata anchorage: about five miles out, fair weather only
- Port Tino Rossi: around 300 berths, about 150 for visitors, VHF channel 09
- Tidal range: negligible, plan around wind not tide
Provisioning and fuel before you go
Corsica is an island, and prices reflect it, so the smart move is to stock up properly in Ajaccio before you head out, because the smaller harbours and anchorages charge a premium and sometimes have very little. The covered market by the port runs in the mornings and is the place for charcuterie, brocciu cheese, tomatoes and fruit; the supermarkets on the edge of town are cheaper for the bulk of a weekend's food and drink. We did one big shop on the first morning and barely had to buy anything again.
Fuel is the other thing to sort early. Top up the tanks at Ajaccio or Propriano rather than relying on the small anchorages, where there is often no berth at all let alone a fuel pump. Water is the same story: fill up where you can, because anchoring three nights out of four means you are not topping up the tanks at a pontoon every evening. The notes on Corsica provisioning, water and harbours lay out which ports have what, and it saved us a dry-tank scare on the run south.
Reading the wind, the only thing that matters here
I keep coming back to wind because in Corsica it is the whole game. There is no tide to speak of, the range is a matter of centimetres, so your entire planning effort goes into the breeze. The pattern in summer is a gentle morning, a building afternoon thermal that funnels into the gulfs, and the ever-present risk of a libeccio, the southwesterly that can come up hard and turn the west-facing anchorages dangerous.
Our rule was simple: be settled in a sheltered spot by mid-afternoon, and never anchor for the night anywhere open to the southwest unless the forecast was rock solid. The Pointe de la Parata anchorage by the Sanguinaires is a daytime treat and a nighttime trap for exactly this reason. Get the wind right and Corsica is the easiest cruising in France; get it wrong and the same gulf that looked like a millpond at breakfast is a lee shore by tea time.
The holding in the gulf anchorages is generally good in sand, but the bottom is often a patchwork of sand and seagrass, and you want your anchor in the clear sand both to hold properly and to avoid damaging the meadow. The water is so clear that you can usually pick your spot by eye, which is a luxury you do not get on the murkier Atlantic coast. We dropped on visible sand every night and never dragged once, even when the afternoon thermal piped up.
What I would do differently
I would add a night and push further down towards Bonifacio, or further up towards the Scandola reserve, because once you have the weekend rhythm of short legs and long anchorages, you do not want it to stop. But that is greed talking. For a genuine long weekend, the gulf and the Valinco are plenty, and they let you sail every day without ever feeling rushed.
If the bug bites, the full island is a fortnight's work, and the ten-day Corsica itinerary from Ajaccio to Bonifacio is the route I would follow next. But there is a real argument for slowing down and doing one corner of Corsica properly, and the corner around Ajaccio is as good as any to choose.
