We got stuck for 3 days on l’ile Rousse (north of Calvi), waiting for the storm to pass, the forecasted winds started earlier than expected. When we arrived in the bay, there was quite a few boats and we had to anchor quite a way from the beach and town. When the wind got up we had plenty of sea room, most of the other yachts having probably gone to seek better shelter in Calvi.
Our neighbour, a beautiful Swedish wooden ketch, stayed and became our point of reference. We spent the whole day on deck, in the sun, listening to the wind howling, watching the wind instrument steadily creep up to gusts of 40 knots.
We watched the shore getting slowly closer and pretty soon we had to re-anchor as we had drifted too close for comfort. Considering the wind strength, we managed to do this fairly easily, I know, it sounds terribly smug, but given we had had more trouble to anchor in easier condition, we only lost the seat of the dinghy and nothing major broke.
The wind finally stopped in late afternoon and we were able to make a start early next morning, 6th August.
During the day the sea had been churned up over the previous 24 hours and the sea was so confused that we could not use the auto helm for a while, but the sails were up and we had a ball getting good speed surfing. The waves were just enormous and had to be negotiated carefully. I felt safer helming and besides we were better able to really surf and get some real speed under us. It took 27 hours to get to the coast of France. We were aiming for Toulon where we were picking up Carole and her family. Unfortunately, we had to motor most of the way during the night, yet again the wind was right on the nose and it had dwindle to next to nothing. Traffic during the night was quite heavy, loads of ferries and other vessels were appearing from every corner of the horizon, most of them lit up like Christmas trees, their navigation lights drowned in the cacophony of all those coloured lights. The wind and the sea finally calmed down as we were approaching Porquerolles and we were treated to a flatten sea. The sun rise was beautiful with the islands emerging from the dawn mist.