Pitufa.at

We never saw less than 20 knots from day 2 on, mostly 25 and always close-hauled… Now Rapa is ahead, just 30 nm to go! Pitufa was shaken and punched, taking off, slamming into waves, but she’s been doing really well. Only a window of our old sprayhood got punched in–resulting in some casualties in the garden before we could put some plastic and masking… Continue reading »

According to the forecast the wind is supposed to turn SW soon. It’s still blowing hard and the seas are quite rough. 120 nm to go

It’s blowing and we’re still tacking SW before going on a tack towards Rapa. Still 177 nm to go as the Christmas shearwater flies (not us, unfortunately)

Yesterday we were sailing under starry skies with the big light-wind gennaker blown up high, today we’re bashing into 20-25 knots from the SE and steep, high waves. 180 nm to go as the storm petrel flies, but Rapa is almost upwind, so we’ll need a few more to go there…

After a good first sailing day in fairly calm seas, the conditions will change today. A front and strong southeasterlies are ahead of us and Xmas eve is not going to be a silent one for us.

After a slow start we had 2 fast sailing days in a stiff southeasterly breeze. We had done enough easting beforehand to have a comfy angle all the way to Raivavae. We could feel the temperature drop with each degree of latitude south. It’s southern summer down here, but the night air is still cool enough to remind us that Christmas is coming

We’ve only made 70 nautical miles over the last 24 hours, but we’re not complaining, just baked some bread, worked on the laptops, dipped in from the ladder–almost like at anchor. Just now the breeze is picking up, 340 nm to go!

We’ve had beautiful fair-weather sailing, mostly doing around 4 knots, but with a few hours of 3 knots in between. Not fast, but comfy and we used the calm phases to dip into the ocean–firmly holding on to the swimming ladder. The feeling of several kilometres under your feet and the incredible dark-azure colour all around are quite impressive (on top of being very refreshing… Continue reading »

We have left Katiu at noon with the onset of a light breeze after a calm phase (which we used to explore the remote motus on the S side–some birds, but as many as we had hoped for). Now we are sailing down the SW side of the atoll, close enough to the reef to the see the red rocks in the water and to… Continue reading »

e did a daysail from Tahanea to the neighbouring island of Katiu–a place we hadn’t dared visiting before, because of it’s scary pass. We took the depthsounder with us in the dinghy to scout ahead, then we were still not certain whether we could take Pitufa in and snorkeled to take a close look at what might be lurking in the narrow channel. We memorized… Continue reading »