ende

2013
10
Nov

Feels like coming home

We reached the Gambier islands yesterday morning, exactly 3 months after we left here for the Marquesas to escape the cold southern-hemisphere winter. After 8 days of passage the calm anchorage off Rikitea is pure pleasure (despite a cold front that’s responsible for grey and rainy weather…). Anyway, it’s spring here, so soon the skies will clear again and we’ll be able to start exploring… Continue reading »

2013
09
Nov

Rushing along!

Yesterday we were stuck under thick clouds with everchanging wind directions, gusts, rain and very annoying conditions. In the evening the wind was suddenly blowing hard from the south, so we even decided to motorsail for a while. The weather forecasts didn’t look good: the French forecast predicted strong wind from the southeast (great, that’s where we wanted to go), the grib files contradicted completely… Continue reading »

2013
08
Nov

Update

After 2 days with nice sailing conditions, we’re now back to squally, annoying weather. 200 miles to go.

2013
05
Nov

Squalls!

Last night was really terrible. We passed through so many squalls, about 1 every hour, which slowed down our progress substantially. Not only was the permanent reefing/unreefing tedious, but also the fact that inbetween the squalls the wind was very light and from the wrong direction was frustrating. We lost many of the eastward miles we previosly had fought for so hard. Now we have… Continue reading »

2013
04
Nov

Ceviche and Sashimi

This morning we were lucky and caught a medium-sized yellow-fin tuna. So we had ceviche for lunch and sashimi for dinner Leeloo had sashimi twice. We are making good progress, only in the afternoon, when we entered an area with fluky, light winds and some small squalls, our speed dropped to 3 kn.

2013
03
Nov

Goodbye Marquesas

When we set off yesterday we still hadn’t decided whether we’d stop on the way in Tahuata or Fatu Hiva again, but the wind made the decision for us: 20 to 25 knots from the east (instead of 12 from the northeast…) made it impossible to reach the southern islands of the Marquesas on our tack, so we’re heading straight to the Gambier. We can… Continue reading »

2013
02
Nov

Sailing south again

Yesterday we explored Ua Pou a bit: we walked up from ‘our’ bay on a little path to the coastal road and then for two hours north, because we wanted to get a view of the gigantic stone spires the island is famous for. Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy, so the highest peaks were hiding from us, but on the other hand the overcast… Continue reading »

2013
31
Oct

Ua Pou

This morning we got our two anchors up (what a muddy mess) and left the big and busy island Nuku Hiva. We had a pleasant sail southwards in light winds and calm seas down to the little island Ua Pou. We’re the only boat anchored on the western side in the bay of Vaiehu. All around us the waves are thundering against the cliffs, but… Continue reading »

2013
27
Oct

Home sweet home

Christian went to a throat specialist in Tahiti, had a scan done and was declared healthy–quite a relief after a few weeks of worrying (especially after a friend who had had throat cancer told us he’d had the same symptoms…). We also used the chance of a visit in Papeete (the capital of French Polynesia) to buy 12 kilos of cat food in the gigantic… Continue reading »

2013
24
Oct

Pitufa alone in Nuku Hiva and the Smurfs alone in Tahiti

Christian’s been worrying about a throat ache for a while, as there’s no specialist in Nuku Hiva available, we decided to fly to Tahiti to see a doctor there. We left on Monday, leaving Leeloo in charge of Pitufa and our friendly neighbours on SY Kril in charge of Leeloo. We were really lucky, as other cruiser friends (Fabio and Lisa on Amandla) had just… Continue reading »

2013
16
Oct

Cruising info on the Gambier Islands, French Polynesia

Find our cruising info on the Gambier Islands under Destinations in the Menu or click here.

2013
13
Oct

Pleasant Anaho

After a few days here in Anaho we can only agree with all the positive opinions we heard about this bay before coming here. It’s the most pleasant anchorage of Nuku Hiva: the water’s clearer than in the south (even though it’s still a bit murky), the sea’s calm in here, the beaches are almost mosquito-free and there’s a few lovely walks you can do… Continue reading »

2013
09
Oct

Anaho

Yesterday we hitchhiked from Taipivai over the mountains to the maintown Taiohae, because we still had some errants to run there and simply couldn’t be bothered to sail to the uncomfortable bay of Taiohae where we would have had to set a stern anchor again, etc. Instead we took the dinghy along the river to the village of Taipivai early in the morning, walked a… Continue reading »

2013
06
Oct

Enjoying the calm bay

The Baie du Controleur isn’t as spectacular at first sight as other anchorages in the Marquesas, it is even murkier, but we like it. Again, we’re the only boat anchored here, only occasionally a local boat goes by on the way to the village. We simply enjoy being in a calm anchorage. Only after a few days here, we fully realised how much of our… Continue reading »

2013
04
Oct

Easy daysailing?

Yesterday we left Hakatea to sail to Controleur Bay at the southeastern end of Nuku Hiva. What looked like a short distance on the chart (just 8 nm) turned into half a day of beating into the easterly trade wind that gets accelarated to about 20 to 25 knots along the coast with Pitufa stomping into short, choppy seas. After four hours and several tacks… Continue reading »

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