Pitufa.at

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 »

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 »

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 »