S A I L I N G  around E L B A - C O R S I C A 
and S A R D I N I A 

General
Overall view chart Elba :: Porto Ferraio :: Porto Azzuro :: Marina di Campo
:: Marciana Marina
:: Anchor Bays

Elba - Detail-Information - Small picture - Enlarge by Click -

The harbours - The bays - Weather-information

1. Arrival

With the car to the "ferry-port" Piombino. Ferries are leaving to Porto Ferrario, Rio Marina and Porto Azzurro. The main contact is Porto Ferraio with an half an hour transport. The other harbours are only contact 2-3 times a day. Reservations are nesesary in the main-season. From Italy it is ca. 10-20 nm to get to an harbour in Elba with your own boat. Good starting harbours from Italy are Salivoli (Piombino), Scarlino, Punta Ala and Castiglione.

2. Supply

You can get food supply everywhere, sometimes in supermarkets, small shops or also on the camp-sites, there are ususally shops there. Fresh-water you can get in the harbours only. And there sometimes with asking ("water-man"), petrol in Porto Ferraio, Porto Azzurro and Marina di Campo. In the evening the petrol stations are usually very busy, because of the motor-boats. Getting petrol at lunchtime is much more stressless. Elba has a lot of camp-sites, you can find Germans nearly everywhere. All around Elba you can find a lot of motor-boats and dingis. There are a lot of divers there, because of the coast which is going down very deep quickly, it is a good point to dive in.

3. Harbours

There are rarely free places in the commercial harbours, otherwise, the kays in the harbours are really expencive. An infrastructer with washing possibilities and toilettes aren't often not at the harbour, but instead of that you have to go to offical showers and toilettes. But for them you have to pay extra. You have to look for this "giorno" a bit. They are often in the second raw. In Porto Ferraio for example the toiletes are in the cellar of the city hall, in Porto Azzurro they are on the left side of the big "plaza" in the first street on the right.
The situation is like that, that at 15.00 o'clock all places are full or "reservato". Harbours which are only built for sailing-ships like in Corsica you can't find here. The "marinas" you can find now, are built into the old "commercial harbours".

4. Anchor-bays or bathing bays

Really good anchor-bays you can't find around the island. I am thinking about something like St.Cyprien, Rondinara in Corsica or in the Maddalenen-Archipel.. The bays around Elba are all very wide and open up to the seaside. This works good, when the wind is offshore. You have to stay on the right side of the island. (infos under weather).
Nearly all beaches are divided by yellow boyages, motor-boats aren't allowed in this area, also dingis with motor. That means, never leave your engine running behind the yellow boyages. This law also runs on the rest of the beaches, to protect the swimmers. In this areas you should row the last few meters.

5. Weather

The weather forcast is send usual on VHF-chanal 68. When the weather's calm, the night is often totally quiet and at day-time is blowing a light wind with a local intensification in the bays because of land- see breeze. Critical, often dangerous are the thunderstorms around Elba. Then the wind is coming from different directions or the thunderstorms are coming back from a completely different direction. That can be very "nerve-killing". Espcially when the bays are only protecting in one direction.
In the late-summer/autumn, if the surface is really hard and dry, thunderstorms can cause big floods. So the whole rubbish is comeing into the bays.

That's all for now, what I had to say about Elba. Have good fun with planning and also in the holidays.

Who like and who has the time can do a trip to Giglio. There you can visit Giglio Castello (something like an "Pirat-island"). The islands Pianosa (an old prison) and Mt.Christo (nature reserve) can only be visited with a special permition.