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Birgit

Author's details

Name: Birgit
Date registered: September 22, 2010
Jabber / Google Talk: admin

Latest posts

  1. Papatura Island — September 5, 2025
  2. Papatura Island — September 5, 2025
  3. An Santa Isabel entlang nordwärts — September 3, 2025
  4. Sailing up the coast of Santa Isabel — September 3, 2025
  5. Erster Jahrestag an Bord — August 28, 2025

Most commented posts

  1. The Matuku Marine Reserve and how it came into being — 11 comments
  2. Donations for the Marine Reserve in Matuku — 10 comments
  3. Hilfsprojekte für Matuku — 7 comments
  4. Leeloo 2000–2021 — 6 comments
  5. Survived! — 6 comments

Author's posts listings

2022
14
Nov

Strange wonderland Fulanga

by Birgit

Fulanga is a strange geological phenomenon. Imagine an atoll with a line of outer motu, numerous coralheads and reefs which was then lifted 20 m or so by tectonic movements. That’s what happened here. The lagoon is now shallow and gleams in light turquoise and scattered all across are mushroom-shaped limestone islets–former coralheads that were eroded by the high tides here in Fiji. Thanks to… Continue reading »

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2022
13
Nov

Musket Cove Regatta Week

by Birgit

Our article about the regatta is now online on Cruising World: https://www.cruisingworld.com/people/2022-musket-cove-fiji-regatta-week/

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2022
10
Nov

Sailing to Fulanga

by Birgit

We explored all around the islands of Yagasa, anchored in a few extremely scenic spots that looked perfectly protected on sat images, even brought out landlines to be as snug as possible, but it was always the same: calm at low tide, seriously bouncy at high tide. The outer reef is just too low to keep out the swell. With stronger NE winds predicted we… Continue reading »

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2022
09
Nov

Turtle hunters

by Birgit

Yesterday we took the kayak to a beach, found a camp fisherman had recently left (Yagasa is uninhabited, but people from neighbouring islands come here) and followed a horrible stench to the carcass of a turtle. We collected a bag of plastic rubbish around the camp site and burned it on one of the many fire sites the raiders had left. It’s really sad to… Continue reading »

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2022
07
Nov

Advanced Elements Island Voyage two-seater Kayak

by Birgit

We brought a new kayak back to Pitufa from the US, but until now we didn’t have the opportunity to use it. Now, among the mushroom-shaped limestone islets of Yagasa we unpacked it, inflated it for the first time (quickly done), admired the bright-yellow, sleek vessel and took it out for a first round. The ancient kayak we used to have, had its own mind,… Continue reading »

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2022
05
Nov

Mosquitoes!

by Birgit

Most outer reefs here in the Lau Group don’t give much protection and the anchorages are accordingly rolly, so we counted ourselves lucky yesterday to find a calm bay on Namuka. We were a bit disappointed about the lack of wildlife (no birds ashore, nothing to be seen in the water). At sunset the local wildlife got up: a cloud of mosquitoes descended on the… Continue reading »

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2022
04
Nov

Namuka

by Birgit

Instead of blowing from the North (we would have tacked to the NE) and then shifting to the SE (we would have tacked east) the wind kept shifting between slightly north and south of east–never enough to help us with proper tacks. End the end we arrived in Namuka. Even though we’ve only sailed a short distance it took us one and a half days,… Continue reading »

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2022
03
Nov

Tacking and more tacking

by Birgit

The wind remains from the NE to E, so we keep tacking up and down… We had about 90 nm to go when we set out Wednesday morning, now we have 40

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2022
03
Nov

Up and down

by Birgit

Tacking in light fickle winds is annoying and Totoya is still in sight this afternoon, even though we left this morning… Distances are small in Fiji, so we’ll get somewhere, eventually. Hopefully

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2022
02
Nov

Destination unknown

by Birgit

After a rolly night anchored off Totoya, we’re heading out again into an uncertain weather window. We’ll see where the wind lets us to

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2022
02
Nov

Annoying forecasts

by Birgit

We set out this morning with a forecast predicting first SE winds for a few hours and then NE, so we thought we’d be sailing east with a tack. Well, an hour after we set out the wind already shifted NE with a squall, only to turn east later on. Hard to decide what to do, maybe we’ll just stop on the nearby island Totoya…

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2022
29
Oct

No reef no fish, no fish no reef

by Birgit

When corals die, we generally think of pollution and global warming as the culprits. But overfishing is also an important factor as weakened reefs need herbivore fish to clean the dead bits, so the coral can recover and regrow. The reefs in Fiji have mostly still beautiful coral, but overfishing is a big problem, especially near densely populated areas. Here in Matuku the people are… Continue reading »

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2022
27
Oct

Project weeks

by Birgit

Remember when I wrote that we’d be out and playing with the fishies? Well, the weather didn’t agree with that plan. Ever since we’ve arrived in Matuku it has been windy, cool and rainy in between. So we’ve done a work-program instead of the fun-program we had hoped for. Now there’s a new track for the pole on the mast, a new tap in the… Continue reading »

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2022
22
Oct

Returning to places

by Birgit

We’ve been in Fiji now for a while, but we haven’t visited too many places, we enjoy lingering and getting to know the people and see all sides of an island. It’s also great to return to a place: We already spent two weeks here in Matuku last July, so when we returned we were greeted by familiar faces like long-lost family, we brought some… Continue reading »

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2022
14
Oct

Passage Soup

by Birgit

Over the last three days a trough passed over Fiji. We briefly considered to set out with the front, but the NW wind prediction looked quite violent with lots of rain, so we decided to wait for the wind shift to W instead. It was a good decision: We set out yesterday afternoon, found the westerlies a few miles south of Suva–and they were still… Continue reading »

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