You may know Corsica as the island just north of Sardinia in the Mediterranean where, in August 2022, a violent derecho swept through with 140-mile-per-hour winds, tossing boats onto beaches like so much kindling and wreaking havoc across the island. The weather was unprecedented, but you could argue that it somehow fit the nature of this place, whose wild edges—both geographic and historic—make it one of the most mesmerizing islands in the Med.
Fortunately, when I visited last year for a weeklong charter, the derecho’s devastation was largely in the rear-view mirror, the weather was lovely, and the cerulean waters, local markets, and lively culture—rather a mashup of Italian and French—revealed the yin to the island’s yang of wildness. It’s this mix of the two that makes Corsica such an intriguing place to visit by boat.
Wild is the best way to describe it. The fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean, Corsica is also the most mountainous, with its highest summit at just under 9,000 feet and more than 100 peaks at nearly 7,000 feet. With this jagged spine of massifs soaring skyward, its edges are fringed with more than 200 beaches. Its history, too, has been jagged and harsh. Corsica has been fought over for centuries, a fierce nature that’s evident in its flag, which depicts a Moor’s severed head. There are many legends, but the most chilling speaks to the former custom in Corsica of beheading and impaling Moor heads on spikes to deter other would-be invaders. In more recent times, the island’s desire for
