Pitufa.at

Our word of the month is definitely ‘weather window’. The weather changes so quickly here that it’s even hard to find a sunny spell that’s long enough to quickly go ashore, or just have a shower… we’re constantly waiting for ‘weather windows’ to get things done, get ‘grib files’ (wind prediction charts) every 6 hours. Slowly we’re wondering if we can’t find a weatherwindow to buy Baguettes, how should we ever make it to the Tuamotus or the Marquesas?? One winter storm after the other wanders by south of the Gambier bringing very strong southerly winds, then the wind clocks around to the north, another low arrives with southerly winds–the wind seems never constant enough to allow us to go north.
Our friends on Irie were just as undecided as we are, but they have finally left yesterday for the Marquesas. We were also tempted, but the wind just looks too light for Pitufa (our smurfette’s got 14 tons, little Irie about 4…). This morning we wanted to hop over to Taravai (just 6 milrd), but then spontaneously got the boat ready for the passage (the grib promised some more wind). At 9 we were ready to go (dinghy on deck, Leeloo high on seasickness medicine, etc.), got a final grib: less wind predicted. We didn’t want to take the risk to lie becalmed on the way up, but by then the tide was too low to go over to Taravai as well (shallow entrance).
After 5 times back and forth ‘let’s go to Taravai, no Marquesas, no Taravai,…’ we’re again sitting in Rikitea and the mood is VERY low on Pitufa. Tomorrow the game will start again–hopefully with more outcome.