Anchorage

Pointe de la Parata

Shelter: NW, N, W, SW
Seabed: sand
Anchoring: Allowed

Open anchorage off the Sanguinaires archipelago west of Ajaccio, sand bottom, exposed to easterly winds.

Guide

Approach and anchoring

Approach from the south or west, clear of the Sanguinaires islets and their off-lying rocks, using the Mezu Mare lighthouse as a daymark. Anchor on the large sand patches in 5 to 9 metres, keeping clear of posidonia and of round rocks part-buried nearer the shore. Yellow buoys mark a confusing no-mooring zone; boats anchor on the sand west of the last buoy or inside the line. Swell wraps round the headland and tripper-boat wash makes it roll, and gusts can funnel off the hill in a westerly. Port Tino Rossi lies 5.7 nm east in an easterly blow.

Practical

No services on site. Daytime stop only in settled weather. Ajaccio 5.7 nm east has full marina services at Port Tino Rossi.

Ashore

Land the dinghy at the first grey pontoon; the pontoons belong to a fish farm. The restaurant La Brasserie des Sanguinaires is about a 15 minute walk. Genoese tower of la Parata at the end of the headland, built in 1608 against Barbary raids, reached on a footpath along the pink granite cliffs with a steep final pitch that calls for sturdy shoes. A bus runs to Ajaccio for 2 euros. Iles Sanguinaires boat trips depart from Ajaccio.

History

The Sanguinaires and the Parata tower form part of the Natura 2000 site of the Gulf of Ajaccio. Alphonse Daudet stayed at the Sanguinaires lighthouse in 1863 and used it as the setting for one of his Lettres de mon moulin.