Corsica is only ten kilometres by ferry from Sardinia (6 miles, 50 minutes, 17 euro) and you leave Italy and land in France. Our ship docked at dawn halfway up the east coast of Corsica at the port of Ajaccio, the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte.
The sun was not over the horizon when we approached the dock and started the tie-up procedure. It is interesting to watch the dock-hands retrieve the mooring lines from the ship and pull them over the cleats on the pier. (videos can be viewed slower or faster and in differing quality by clicking on the controls in the lower right corner)
Half an hour later the ship was secured to the dock with many mooring lines and the sun was not quite ready to show its face.
Here is a video showing the process for retrieving the mooring lines and dragging them along the dock to the cleats.
When the mooring points are not part of the main dock, the deck hands have a different procedure. They have to walk across the gangway to get to the remote mooring piers.
Click on the pictures in the gallery below to see a more detailed view.
These pictures were taken from the cabin balcony with an iPhone. The videos were taken with a GoPro camera. When the sun started to light up the buildings, it was time to go upstairs for breakfast. Our bus tour of the island was starting at half past eight.
Finally get to set our feet on the dock and walk to the bus. Look at how many mooring lines are attached to the bow of the ship. There are six more on the other side of the bow connected to the stand alone piers. There are probably as may at the stern.
The roads through the hills are narrow and winding. The rock cliffs are right there on one side and nothing on the other side.
