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2015
30
May

Pitufa in Tahiti and the Societies

After doing some maintenance on Pitufa in Tahiti we’ll head to the Society Islands to explore Huahine and Maupiti that didn’t fit into our schedule last year and maybe revisit Moorea, Raiatea and Tahaa.

2015
30
May

Rock and Roll

After spending a year in quiet, calm places French Polynesia’s capital Papeete on Tahiti feels a bit overwhelming. About 250 boats sway on moorings or anchor off Marina Taina and they all roll and pitch like crazy whenever high swell comes up from the south and huge surf breaks over the unfortunately rather narrow fringing reef that protects the anchorage insufficiently. Two days ago it… Continue reading »

2015
27
May

Back in Tahiti

Today we reached Tahiti after a really quick sail, in fact we almost had to slow down towards the end, because according to smurf rules only passages over 3 days deserve a bottle of sparkling wine and tapas

2015
26
May

Mahi Mahi

After an extended period of time without luck fishing, we caught a Mahi Mahi (Dorade) today. 105 miles to go!

2015
25
May

Warmer again

We’re rushung north and it’s getting warmer with every mile

2015
23
May

Sailing to Tahiti

Finally the weather seems to have settled again, the weather forecast predicts stable wind from the southeast so we’ll head out towards Tahiti in a few hours. It’s still cold and rainy here, but we hope it’ll get warmer with every mile we sail north!

2015
21
May

Cruising Info on Raivavae

As we hardly found cruising info on Raivavae, we’ve summarized our experiences in a small guide.

2015
17
May

Preparing for strong winds

The weather forecasts show quite an impressive low coming towards us tomorrow. As the forecast predicts sustained wind around 30 knots from the northwest and much higher gusts we’ve moved to the southern coast of the island, have brought out two anchors, tied the dinghy down on deck, removed the rain collecting canvas to reduce windage, etc. It looks like we’ll be able to leave… Continue reading »

2015
17
May

Photos of Raivavae

2015
14
May

Motu Vaiamanu

Yesterday we used the calm and sunny weather to explore a bit more of the southern, shallow lagoon with its numerous coral heads. We first navigated to a natural opening in the fringing reef on the southern coast of Raivavae to have a GPS track to this protected spot on cloudy days. Then we proceded carefully to the big motu Vaiamanu on the southeastern barrier… Continue reading »

2015
13
May

Mount Hiro

We’ve been waiting for wind to move on for more than a week now. First we had to sit out the passing lows and now there is a westerly breeze (for several days–that’s very unusual), so we can’t head west to Tubuai and there’s also not enough wind to take us up to Tahiti. Making the best out of the situation, we navigated Pitufa through… Continue reading »

2015
11
May

Winter weather

For the past week we’ve had a convergence zone sitting between here and Tahiti and three lows have moved over Raivavae giving us just a one-day break with sunny weather which we used to rent bikes and cycle around the island. Otherwise it’s been rainy, grey and windy, so we spent the time doing indoor chores on a–depending on the wind direction–more or less bouncy… Continue reading »

2015
06
May

Quite some weather

Raivavae is supposed to have the best anchorage in the Austral islands, but from the N and W only the outer reef gives protection. We had pretty nasty weather last night and today. Strong winds from N-NW (of course!) and several squalls with gusts up to 45 knots caused Pitufa to rock and roll in the anchorage. It was particularly bad around high water (now… Continue reading »

2015
03
May

Quiet hiker’s paradise

Raivavae’s a small island, the coastal road that goes all around is only 23 km long. There are two ‘route traversiere’ (paths across from north to south) and we walked both of them last week. The tracks lead up the ridge through lush vegetation, large taro fields and countless banana plantations (who can eat so many bananas??). The scenery resembles the Society Islands and so… Continue reading »

2015
01
May

Article on Raiatea and Tahaa in Ocean7 Magazine

Birgit Hackl, Christian Feldbauer: Raiatea & Tahaa — Südsee leicht gemacht, OCEAN7 03 (Mai/Juni) 2015, p. 20–24.

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