Pitufa.at

The Compass is another popular magazine (next to AllAtSea) that’s available for free in all the bigger chandleries throughout the Caribbean. We are therefore happy that they have published our article with tips and tricks to keep feline crew happy! Download the magazine here

Relying on other people’s waypoints for both anchorages and passage routes can be dangerous. Cruising blogs and compendia are full of bad or incomplete recommendations and generalizations from one-sample observations. It’s much safer to do proper research and practice the necessary skills to do your own route planning and make your own waypoints… Birgit Hackl, Christian Feldbauer: Waypoints–Boon or Bane?, All At Sea Caribbean, November… Continue reading »

The South Pacific Convergence Zone is having some fun with us at the moment. Its tail end is pointing towards French Polynesia and it seems the weather people are finding it impossible to predict how it will behave. The American GFS model and the European model predict completely contradicting wind wind directions and what we get in the end is usually not predicted by either… Continue reading »

From July until November humpback whales migrate up to warm waters, where the females give birth in the protection of lagoons, undisturbed by large predators (and hopefully humans). During those months you can often see groups of whales near outer reefs, sometimes in passes or even anchorages. Due to the lock-down we haven’t moved much this year, so we’ve only had our first whale encounter… Continue reading »

With 2700 cases/100.000 inhabitants, swamped hospitals and full ICU units the government has finally announced a new lockdown for 2 weeks. It’s a bit vague though: people are still allowed to go to work or shopping (necessary things), the international borders remain open, inter-island travel is limited to people with “important reasons” (which is a broad term as any business reason or family reason counts).… Continue reading »

We are anchored on a sandy shelf in a protected part of the lagoon of southern Tahiti. In front of us 4 m swell thunders against the outer reef in crazy avalanche-like looking barrels and behind us the deeper lagoon looks like a fast-flowing mountain river with eddies, whirlpools and standing waves… Pitufa gets swirled around by 3 knots of current, but we’re bouncing only… Continue reading »

Usually we have a jungle under the sprayhood, but when we left the boat alone, we had to get rid of the plants. Now I’m replanting and soon we’ll harvest arugula, spring onions, mint, basil and cilantro again! The chilis and bellpeppers will need a few more months though

By 8 o’clock the laundry’s on the line… We’ve done some stretching and exercises… …had a morning swim… …with a few stingrays for company! In the meantime the bread is out of the pan and we can have breakfast. A perfect way to start the day! (We’ll spend most of it in front of our laptops, but that’s another story )

When you sleep in passage mode on the floor and the coffee pot needs to be clasped to the stove, you know it’s time to get out of the Marina Taina anchorage… The reef is not wide and high enough to protect the lagoon from high swell, so whenever the swell gets higher than 1.5 m (yesterday it was 2.5…) it gets seriously bouncy in… Continue reading »