Pitufa.at

5 a.m., it’s still pitch dark and we’re heading out of the pass of Matuku. It’s blowing hard from the SE (like always here it seems), so it should be a fast ride downwind. 190 nm to Musket Cove!

We had indeed a fast ride averaging 6 knots in winds from the ESE between 18 and 23 knots. The islands here in the Lau group are so close together that you sometimes have two or even three in sight at the same time–quite a change after the big distances in French Polynesia. The waters are also much more lively than we’ve seen in other… Continue reading »

Yesterday we decided to book flights to Austria. Go online, book–easily and quickly done, right? Not so for cruisers: with our wobbly internet connection it took me all afternoon to open sites, compare and finally book two legs simultaneously on two different airline sites (super stressful to juggle dates while keeping both pages busy without a time-out). Got the last two available seats, all done,… Continue reading »

This week we have our 11th cruising anniversary. Incredible how time flies… In 2011 the three of us we set out with little experience and big dreams. Lots of those have come true, but there’s many more out there and we keep chasing the horizon

The passage ended as it began–with fickle winds and lots of sail changes. On our slowest day we only did 78 nautical miles, on the fastest 150 We had quite a few hours with only 6 knots of breeze and an interesting hour with 35 knots gusting up to 43 when a front passed over us. All good now, we arrived yesterday, the friendly officials… Continue reading »

A friend asked, how we can post from underway. We don’t have a sat phone, so we write our blog and send it via SSB and pactor modem to a sailmail station (service for cruisers). This station sends the blog on to our homepage www.pitufa.at and from there it is automatically forwarded to facebook. We are almost in Savusavu, 25 nm to go!

We ran into calm weather yesterday, but now a breeze is coming back. 120 nm to go!

..so no May 28 this year. My Mom’s birthday–she didn’t like them, so it’s very fitting… 250 nm to go!

We bought our sails 12 years ago in Croatia, the mainsail has been up ever since and is still in good shape–amazing quality made in Croatia. On this trip it was flogging against the spreaders in our first week of light winds and a batten chafed through, so it will need some maintenance once we arrive. 380 nm to go!

Our wind pilot Wayne Vaney does a fabulous job steering Pitufa tirelessly through all conditions. As long as there’s a breeze to be felt, he steers. Maybe not quite as accurate as an electric pilot, but without using any electricity–purely mechanical. Therefore he’d continue to keep us on course even if our batteries died or if the electric system got fried by a lightning strike…… Continue reading »

Today we are passing by south of Samoa–such a pity we can’t do a stop-over, but their borders are still closed. Yesterday we saw some wildlife, a few boobies and petrels (the wildlife sanctuary Rose Island wasn’t far away) and then we got more wildlife on the lure–a bonito! The first fish we’ve caught on this passage. Nothing big, but easy to handle and process… Continue reading »

People are often astounded when we say that we prefer sailing close-hauled to downwind. Pitufa’s performance is better close to the wind and downwind we hate the rolling motion she gets into when surfing down waves. Corkscrewing is even more annoying–even though you wedge yourself into the sea berth with half a dozen of cushions you’re never quite stable. No matter how carefully we declatter… Continue reading »

We’re rushing along with an average speed of over 6 knots in winds between 15 and 20 knots from the ESE and still rather smooth seas, fantastic sailing! Bread is on the stove, later on we’ll do a bit of laundry and then we’ll settle down in the home office. Christian is working on the new firmware for the Pitufino and I’m translating. Last year… Continue reading »