We left Italy and Sardinia today for France and the island of Corsica. This involved another ferry crossing. This one also turned into a bit of an adventure. The weather has been unsettled the last few days, very windy with occasional showers and then clear skies. The wind has also been very warm. Our friend Ovi says that this weather pattern is common in the fall in the Mediterranean and is called a Libeccio.
We had a mild panic yesterday evening when we received an email from the ferry line saying our crossing was cancelled due to weather. We had booked a hotel in Ajaccio for the weekend, because we are going to get François’ Controlé Technique ( safety inspection for all French vehicles) done there on Monday. We needed to get to Corsica as our hotel was non-refundable and we want to get the inspection out of the way so that we are legal to drive in France. When I went to book the inspection the only time left for the week is 9am on Monday.
The email from the ferry had a link to book other options. The link recommended a crossing leaving for Corsica from the same port on Sardinia but leaving 2 hours earlier than our original booking. When I looked it was the same ship. I clicked that I would take it, and they transferred our original appointment to the new sailing time and even automatically assigned us to the same room we had on our original sailing. I thought that it was a weird way to tell us the ship was leaving two hours earlier than before. But the devil is in the details.
We still had plenty of time in the morning to pack up, fill François with LP gas, and diesel and head over to the port unrushed. We arrived and there was no ship in port, but there were cars and motorhomes parked about waiting.
When we received our boarding paper, I noticed that the port on the paperwork did not say Ajaccio, but Porto Vecchio. I told the guy from the ferry that we were going to Corsica he said yes Porto Vecchio Corsica. Remember I said the devil is in the details. So I quickly googled Porto Vecchio and saw that is was 140 kilometers from Ajaccio on the other side of the island.
I then noticed we were put in a separate line with about 20 cars while the other motorhomes were put in a separate line with all of the other cars. I thought all of the other vehicles were going to Ajaccio and we somehow had been assigned to the wrong port. So off I went with my phone in hand only to be told that all of those people were going to Toulon after they dropped us in Corsica.
The reason we changed ports was because the storm over the past few days had raised the sea state to a point where the ferry line decided to go to the east side of Corsica instead of the west side as originally planned for safety reasons. So right at sunset we arrived in Porto Vecchio, I found a scruffy looking campground near the town as I have a pretty strict no night time driving rule. Tomorrow we will drive over to Ajaccio and claim our hotel room.