Max and Shaunagh arrived back safe and sound from Avingnon where they'd had a lovely time.

We headed off to Corsica that evening, a 12 hour trip, so as to arrive in the morning with some daylight. Peter and I were a bit tired after our anchor watch night but survived. We did leave earlier than planned as the nearby superyacht had some sort of anchor problem and was likely to swing onto us as they attempted to fix it. So we ended up anchoring in the dark but it was OK. Between the Flir night vision video camera, the radar and Peter's and Max's good night vision it was a breeze..

Our first stop in Corsica was Calvi on the north west coast. We anchored out till midday before the marina would let us in. It is a lovely town and water front with a pretty church and picturesque citadel. We were here for 5 days then moved on to Galeria a bit further south. Whilst in the marina we had a Whatapp call with the safety officer from the World ARC doing a run through on things like life raft, jack lines, life jackets, EPIRB etc. They do an onboard one in St Lucia in Jan but this helps get a few things sorted in advance. I took the opportunity to get a few little beauty maintenance details sorted: pedicure, haircut etc etc. Secret Woman's Business.

I found a very good gourmet food and wine shop one day and booked a private wine tasting as stocks were a bit down from the one in Sardinia and various other top ups. As the place was not attached to a winery we were able to sample a whole range of Corsican wines with a very knowledgeable young sommelier. The setting was really nice in an ancient downstairs cave where is was lovely and cool too. We noticed that the Champagne Tianot that we bought in Bordeaux was there with a Penfolds name attached to it. The guy explained that a Penfolds winemaker had come out from Australia to design a taste to suit the Australian palate in conjunction with the local winemakers and this was the result. Apparently top notch too, although we didn't try it. We did buy several dozen assorted whites and reds that were very good. He delivered us and them back to the boat in the little shop buggy.

Next stop was Galeria just 2 hours down the coast. The buoys here were free and you just get one for your boat size - a fact I discovered via a translated phone call by the marina office. It was a bit of a rocky rolling night as we had expected but really not bad protection. The next, morning we watched a power boat about 100m behind us completely sink in about 5 minutes. We had commented to each other that it looked a bit low in the water the day before but never expected that! It had looked a bit uncared for, no one was on board and no dinghy there. We called it in on the radio but got no response although a local dive boat came out to have a look and moved on the boat a bit nearer to it than us. We spent the rest of the day on board as it was too swelly to go ashore and watched the superstructure break up and drift away on the wind - and made sure it wasn't coming near us!

Girolata was a lovely little town only accessible by sea. We stayed on a buoy here for 5 days to see out some weather. We had possibly the last swim of the season while cleaning the hulls and Max and Peter tightening up the straps for the tender lift. Shaunagh and Max have been with us for 6 months now so we went off to the very nice restaurant on the hill overlooking the bay for a celebration dinner, which was lovely.

Cargese was the next town around the coast with a small marina we only just squeezed into! The cruising notes said there was a steep hill up to the ton and supermarket - the biggest understatement ever! It was practically vertical. After that we stayed down at sea level at the bars and restaurants around the marina.

I'd been trying to arrive at the capital Ajaccio for the 18th as I had planned a surprise visit for Peter's 75th birthday by our friends Howard and Sue who we visited last year on their farm in Ireland. We originally met them in Trinidad and sailed the British and US Virgin Islands with them. Peter's 70th was spent on their river boat in France so I'd thought it would be a great idea if they could join us for his 75th. They agreed and made flight bookings. Peter had absolutely no idea anything was planned but Max and Shaunagh and I had been getting to be nervous wrecks trying to get into position for their arrival without him finding out and trying to work out how to get him to tidy up all his paperwork etc in the guest cabin that becomes his "Mancave" when we have no visitors. Anyway, it all went well and I lured him into a bar to await their arrival on the evening. Sue was texting me to say they'd landed etc but Air France had lost their bag! A thunderstorm was threatening and Peter was agitating to get back on board so I had to pretend that a birthday delivery was coming to get him to wait! He was super surprised to see them walking up!! We waited the next day to get their bag delivered then set of for Mallorca that night. It was great to have them on the trip! Howard sat up with Peter on his night watch and Sue on mine which was very nice. After two nights and one day we arrived in Porto Petro on Mallorca, and took a buoy for the night. Ashore, we went for an excellent tapas lunch - probably one of the best we've ever had. The next day we headed onto Palma Bay to anchor at Arenel which is just minutes from the airport for Howard and Sue's return trip to Dublin. As we had a spare day, we Ubered in to Palma for the day so they could have a look around.

We are now in Palma getting a few jobs done and the final fine tuning of the WINGit kite sail infrastructure. Next week is training! Jean, an engineer from Lagoon who designed all the attachment fittings, and Stefan from WINGit will be here.

I have made a dedicated site for reporting all WINGit activity

https://flossy-gourd-ed2.notion.site/Hello-everybody-81059138453c4111b57b1a59d3b9e68b