Pitufa.at

Smurfy was having a great time at the Lav Garden Hotel, getting along with neighbouring cats (also ship’s cats) and having an occasional brawl with stray males. But one day all three of us were having sundowners up in the garden of the hotel, when a crazy, little female stray rushed at us: she beat up Smurfy and loudly demanded FOOD, FOOD, FOOD from us!!… Continue reading »

After 4 months with Pitufa in the boatyard and us living ashore in a hotel we’re finally back aboard! There are still tons of project to finish, the boat needs tidying and of course we’re provisioning (and adding to the general chaos), but we’re incredibly happy and relieved to be back on our floating home. Life ashore really isn’t for us To make things even… Continue reading »

…IF you’re good at looking away. If you admire the blue sea (and avert your eyes from the masses of rubbish the rivers are sweeping out). If you watch the funny, colourful buses and trycicles on the roads (and ignore the cloud of dust and smoke hanging over the road) If you enjoy the cheap, little food stalls (and don’t see the mangy, starving, stray… Continue reading »

Since we got back in the water, we haven’t had a day off: Christian installed two gigantic solar panels instead of our old bimini. Unfortunately one of the panels arrived smashed, but we put them up as a roof anyway, while we’re waiting for the replacement panel. Yet another hiccup and delay… Galley and bathroom were finished with pretty new countertops: Then we changed the… Continue reading »

Getting on the hard here is a fairly adventurous undertaking: At full moon or new moon (when the tides are especially high) boats go into a cradle in the shallow water, then when the tide is low the cradle is dragged up the ramp to be able to work on the boat. To get back into the water, it’s the same system in reverse… We… Continue reading »

Our two painters Genesis and Jay Ar spent two and a half months working on Pitufa, 6 days a week, but now they’re finished and–to be honest–I already miss having them around: especially while Christian was gone for a month, they helped me with all the tasks my ribs won’t allow, carrying gear around and picking up parcels. Thanks a lot! They started outside (sanding… Continue reading »

Living ashore has been quite a challenge for Smurfy: making feline friends (and foes), climbing trees, roaming the property at night–everything here is a first for him. We usually take a walk together early in the morning, then he spends the day sleeping in our hotel room, in the evening we go for another walk and after dinner he disappears for the night–running the mysterious… Continue reading »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »