My kids know that one of my favourite sayings (aka nags) is, if you need to do something and you have the time right now then don’t faff about just get on with it! This has even more importance when you’re on a boat as nothing can be taken for granted and circumstances can change in an instant!

According to the plan, we would have at least 2 days in Macinaggio and therefore plenty of time to prepare for our first guests e.g. making beds, finding which locker had all the clean towels, shopping for some special treats and sorting out the washing!

Despite having so much free time, I knew that I should stick to my own rule (plus I was excited about using my new hoover!) so I cracked on with all the preparations for the arrival of Catherine and Pierre – and that was just as well! Our guests were due to arrive the following afternoon, taking a taxi from Bastia airport the hour or so drive to meet us in Macinaggio. We would stay there for the night and then head down the east coast.

This was already a change of plan from the original one made a couple of weeks ago. Bad (sailing) weather was due to hit the west coast of Corsica which is far lovelier than the east, but the east also has some gems and it would be completely safe – or so we thought! Jacques had already started to make contact with the harbours on the east coast to book places for us over the next week. The responses were either negative ‘ we are closed until Easter/we are having works done/your boat is too big for us to take’ or no response at all. We would wait for replies, certain that we would be OK. Well, almost certain!

At the end of a busy day, we took some time to remember Jacques’ Mum, Lulu, who passed away on this day last year. As is family tradition, we picked some wild flowers and scattered them into the sea and said a few kind words about a most beautiful person.

Friday morning, I’m full of excitement for greeting our guests and then Jacques announces that we need to go – like now! Although we would be OK for that night, by Saturday the bad weather would be upon us and we would be stuck for days! Macinaggio is pretty but with only 1 bar and the Spar supermarket open not much of a holiday destination at this time of year! We donned our sailing gear and set off – leaving was much easier than arriving.

As an aside, back in August 2009, we were in a restaurant in Macinaggio (once again stuck due to the weather) having dinner, when I met Eric Cantona. We had a lovely chat and I am sure he was devastated when Jacques came to ‘guide’ me away back to our table whilst apologising profusely for my comments about 1) Man United 2) how he would have been better off playing for Liverpool and 3) interrogating him about his shrimp moment!

Seriously, he was such a nice (tolerant) guy and he had surprisingly huge hands!

En route a hasty communication to Catherine to say ‘do not get a taxi to Macinaggio we will not be there but we don’t know yet where we will be’ was sent!

We have 3 options for port that night – 2 of them have come back to say ‘no’ and the other (Porto Vecchio) is a long, long haul away – about 90 miles so 11-12 hours with the wind on the nose – yuck! The 22kt (knots) wind indicator is roughly where Macinaggio is and Porto Vecchio almost at the bottom of the Island.

The ideal port is Bastia, the capital of North Corsica. It’s very well sheltered and given that we might be holed up there for 3-4 days, there’s much to do and see, chance to hire a car to do some sightseeing and only 20 mins from the airport. Bastia has a new port and an old port – the new port had said no to us as they were having works done and the old port had not responded.

Undeterred (and having no other reasonable option) I started repeatedly calling Bastia old port as we approached, staring at the phone willing someone to answer! At last they did and even though they tried to shake us off we insisted and they found space for us! We realised that we were lucky to get a space when we arrived – alongside the fuel dock, next to the fish market and opposite the Maritime Police!!

Knowing the weather would be following us we secured the boat with extra lines and every precaution possible. We then headed off to the Post Office to send our boat purchase documents to the registration office in Jersey. A bit like the green slip to DVLA when you buy a car. Jacques had looked to find the location of La Poste and advised that it was just 4 minutes away! Hooray! Turns out it was 4 minutes away but by car and we were on foot!

Soon after we (eventually) returned to the boat, there was an emotional reunion with Catherine and Pierre – I’ll detail their arrival and the windy episode that followed (the 2 events are not connected!) in the next day or so.

Cheerio for now xxxx