Pitufa.at

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• Complete makeover

  We’ve now spent almost 2 months in Zeke’s boatyard in Carmen. We’ve made great progress: Deck, transom and cockpit got finished just before the onset of the rainy season (phew) and are now sparkling white. We had a new bimini frame welded from aluminium pipes and our good old Yanmar got his 5000 hour service. Now the work continues below decks: We managed to hold… Continue reading »

• Struggling with hurdles in the Philippines ;-)

  Do you know the Queen song “I’m going slightly mad”? I’ve been humming and even singing this song more and more often to myself recently. I’m a quick, efficient person and I struggle with the concept of time in the Philippines and how complicated just every little errand turns out to be. I’ve been having problems with my eyes, slowly getting short-sighted after a laser… Continue reading »

• Water dispensers against plastic bottles!!

  While living on Pitufa we make water with the power of the sun and of course we also drink out watermaker water, so we don’t buy any water bottles. Having seen them floating as trash in the sea much too often and wandering over little islands literally covered in plastic trash, not buying one-way bottles is basically a religion to me Therefore I was worried… Continue reading »

• Primering the deck and other maintenance

  Our two paint experts from Zeke’s boatyard are making great progress: after putting on 2 layers of primer they have fillered the deck and are now sanding the filler before adding another layer of primer. In the meantime we are catching up on all the steps we missed living aboard over the past years, taking packed tricycles and mini-buses to run errands and shopping trips… Continue reading »

• Zeke’s boatyard: Getting started

  When we bought Pitufa, the previous owner had just had the topsides repainted, but hadn’t got round to doing the deck. He gave us a small discount and the already bought paint. After sailing the boat to Croatia we got cracking–and soon despaired. Some patches came off easily, but the rest was impossible: the non-skid paint layer on top was rock-hard, the filler like concrete… Continue reading »

• Clearance into in the Philippines in Surigao

  Surigao has a good reputation for being one of the friendliest ports in the Philippines. We sent our pre arrival notice to a few dozen email addresses and were told to meet a lady from the tourism office who would take us to all the offices. We did and everybody was very friendly indeed, but it took the whole day. Partly because it took the… Continue reading »

• 15% discount on all pitufinos!

  During long nightwatches the Pitufino is my best friend: Thanks to Christian’s boat-data gateway I can sit on the comfy sofa and still have the nav instruments in front of me on the smartphone. I can also track AIS targets, watch subtle changes in the wind direction/speed with the log function and even remote-control the autopilot with the phone! Of course I still go up… Continue reading »

• Passage to the Philippines

  860 nautical miles was the longest passage we’ve done in a while. Ever since we got Smurfy we’ve avoided trips longer than a day or two, as he gets very impatient and bored and we constantly have to make sure he doesn’t do anything foolish–like jumping on the bimini while the boat is rolling wildly… We needn’t have worried, the weather was nasty enough for… Continue reading »

• Life with Slipping Rib Syndrome

  Today we celebrate my not-quite-dead-yet day. 3 years ago we somersaulted with a local boat in a pass in Fiji and got rolled over the reef. Christian managed to climb on the stuck, semi-submerged boat, but the skipper and I were swept into the pass by a strong current. Nobody had witnessed the accident, nobody could help. He drowned, but I managed to swim back… Continue reading »

• 2 magical, but bouncy weeks on an uninhabited atoll

  Olimarao atoll is small and looks nicely surrounded by a barrier reef, so we expected a calm anchorage. Unfortunately the barrier reef is so submerged, that swell makes it in from all sides and at high water we were bouncing every day in crossed seas despite different stern line attempts to try and face the swell… We ended up sleeping in passage mode (one on… Continue reading »

• We wish you all a healthy, happy and safe 2026!

  In 2025 we sailed about 2800 nautical miles, visited over 50 islands and more islets than I could count on the charts, found wonderful gems of pristine nature and corners of the world that are so seldom visited by tourists that we felt like true explorers! At the beginning of 2025 we were becalmed for weeks and instead of motoring west, we stayed around New… Continue reading »

• We have lost our drone…

  A low-battery alarm sounded a few seconds after take-off, but Droney was already too far out to make it home safely. In such a case an automatic descent is meant to save a drone with a failing battery pack, but when flying over water a controlled emergency landing just ends in a big SPLASH. Our MavicAir gave us wonderful views of our favourite places over… Continue reading »

• Happy Holidays!

  We wish you all happy holidays, fun and joy celebrating whatever you believe in (or not) Our ailing world needs us to be tolerant and to work together to tackle the really important problems… Merry xmas from an ideal Pitufa crew and from the real Pitufa crew

• Clearance into FSM in Weno (Chuuk)

  The Federated States of Micronesia aren’t overly federated, but rather separated with different supply ships for the different areas and you even have to clear in and out of each of the territories and get your passport stamped each time… Important tip: You have to get a cruising permit from FSM BEFORE sailing there. The process takes about 2 weeks, not months (as it says… Continue reading »

• Weno , Chuuk, FSM

  We had heard that Chuuk was a diver’s paradise and expected a cute, touristy place. Instead we found a dirty, run-down little town with lots of closed shops, dilapidated buildings and a big, official rubbish dump smack on the seaside… We also expected an American range in the shops (Micronesia is closely affiliated with the US), but the amount of ultra-processed food full of corn… Continue reading »