If Corsica has a single cruising ground that earns the postcards, it is the south. Below a line drawn from Propriano across to Solenzara, the granite takes over, the gulfs bite deep into the land, and the water turns the impossible turquoise that fills every charter brochure. I have spent three full weeks anchored across this corner over the years, and unlike the wild west coast, the south rewards the boat that lingers. The distances are short, the shelter is real, and there is a sheltered cove for almost every wind direction if you know where to look.
What follows is the south as I sail it, gulf by gulf, with the anchorages I keep returning to and a few I have learnt to avoid in the wrong conditions.
Valinco, the western gulf
The Valinco is the most southerly of the four great bays cutting into Corsica's west coast, opening between the headlands of Capo di Muro and Campomoro. Propriano sits on its southern shore, a commercial, fishing and yacht harbour rolled into one, and it is the natural base for the western end of the south. The marina detail and the lie of the gulf are covered in the guide to Propriano and the Gulf of Valinco, which is the piece to read before you arrive.
Valinco is open to the west, so it is the one southern gulf where the libeccio can make life uncomfortable. I use the anchorages tucked under Campomoro on the south side and Porto Pollo on the north for shelter, and I keep an eye on the afternoon sea breeze, which can pipe up to a working force in the gulf even on a settled day.
Campomoro is my favourite of the two. There is a fine Genoese tower on the headland, the largest on the island, and good holding in sand at four to six metres in the bight below it, sheltered from anything in the southern half of the compass. Porto Pollo on the north shore is shallower and sandier, popular with families and the windsurfing crowd, and it dries the swell out nicely in a moderate libeccio. Between the two you can usually find a comfortable night in Valinco whatever the wind is doing, which is more than you can say for the gulfs further up the west coast. Propriano in the middle gives you the marina backstop when the anchorages do not work.
Bonifacio and the chalk citadel
Round Capo di Muro and down the coast you reach the south-western tip and the most spectacular harbour in Corsica. Bonifacio sits at the head of a narrow fjord gouged into white limestone cliffs, the medieval town teetering on the clifftop above. The shelter inside is total whatever the weather, which is why it is rammed in season and why the prices in August are eye-watering. The whole approach and berthing routine, including the narrow entrance you cannot see until you are nearly on it, is set out in the guide to arriving in Bonifacio harbour, and I would not enter for the first time without reading it.
The cliffs that give Bonifacio its shelter also break the dominant winds, but the strait outside is another matter entirely. The Bouches de Bonifacio, the channel between Corsica and Sardinia, is a notorious wind funnel where the gradient accelerates and the sea stacks up steep and short. Crossing it to the Lavezzi islands or on towards Sardinia is a job for a settled forecast and a careful plan, all of it laid out in the dedicated guide to the Bouches de Bonifacio strait. I have been through it flat calm and I have turned back from it, and the difference was entirely the wind.
Rondinara: the shell
Before leaving the south-west tip, the Lavezzi islands are worth their own mention. This low scatter of granite islets between Corsica and Sardinia sits inside a nature reserve, with marked moorings and anchoring restricted to protect the seabed, and on a calm day the water over the white sand is the clearest I have seen anywhere in the Mediterranean. It is also a graveyard: the frigate Semillante was lost here with all 773 aboard in 1855, and the two small cemeteries on the islands are a sobering counterpoint to the holiday water. The reserve is exposed and there is no shelter if the wind gets up, so I treat Lavezzi as a settled-weather day stop reached carefully across the strait, never an overnight gamble.
Heading up the east side from Bonifacio, the first jewel is Rondinara, a near-perfect circular bay between two headlands that shelter it from both east and west winds. It is one of the most photographed beaches in the Mediterranean, and on a calm day the anchorage in three to five metres of white sand over a pale bottom is as good as Med anchoring gets. The flip side is obvious: in July it fills with day boats and charter yachts, and by mid-morning in August the swinging room gets tight. I come at the shoulders of the day, early or late, and on a settled night it empties out and you have something close to the dream.
Santa Giulia and the Porto-Vecchio approaches
A few miles further north, Santa Giulia is the family anchorage of the south: shallow, emerald water over sand, well sheltered, ideal for swimming off the boat with children aboard. It is shoal, so deep-draught boats stay out towards the entrance, and like Rondinara it is busy by day and quiet by night.
Behind these lies the Gulf of Porto-Vecchio, the largest bay on the eastern side of the island, biting roughly four nautical miles into the land. It offers a choice of sheltered coves for almost any wind, which is exactly why it works as a base when the weather is unsettled. Porto-Vecchio town sits at its head with a working marina, full provisioning and an airport for crew changes, and the detail of the gulf and its anchorages is in the guide to Porto-Vecchio and the southern gulfs. The roundup of the island's quieter spots, several of them down here, is worth a look too: the best-kept anchorages in Corsica.
How the south fits together
The beauty of the south is that everything is close. Bonifacio to Porto-Vecchio is a comfortable day even allowing for stops at Rondinara and Santa Giulia, and you can spend a fortnight working this corner alone without repeating an anchorage. The northern gateway is Solenzara, where the plain ends and the granite begins, covered in the piece on Solenzara on the Corsican east coast, and that is the natural way in if you are coming down from Bastia.
The south also rewards a bit of cunning with the crowds. The headline anchorages, Rondinara and Santa Giulia above all, are day-tripper magnets, and from roughly ten in the morning until late afternoon in July and August they fill with charter boats and tripper craft from Porto-Vecchio and Bonifacio. The trick is simple but it works: I arrive in the late afternoon, take a swim once the day boats have left, and have the bay to a handful of overnighting yachts by sunset. The smaller, less famous coves around Cap di Feno west of Bonifacio, or the bights inside the Gulf of Porto-Vecchio, give you the same water with a fraction of the company if you are willing to skip the postcard names. Half the art of cruising the south is being somewhere beautiful at the hours when nobody else is.
A few practicalities. Provisioning is good at Propriano, Bonifacio and Porto-Vecchio and absent at the anchorages, so stock at the towns. Water and fuel are on the quays at all three. Anchoring over Posidonia seagrass is increasingly regulated across the Med, so I drop on sand, watch the anchor set in the clear water, and keep clear of the dark seagrass patches; it is better for the bottom and better for your holding. The island-wide habits for keeping tanks and lockers full are in the guide to provisioning and water in Corsica's harbours.
The southern gulfs are where Corsica delivers on its reputation. Total shelter in Bonifacio, a shell-shaped bay at Rondinara, turquoise shallows at Santa Giulia, and a great protected gulf at Porto-Vecchio to retreat into when the weather turns. Short hops, real anchorages, and water you will be telling people about all winter.
