ende

Birgit

Author's details

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

Latest posts

  1. Einklarieren in Surigao (Philippinen) — March 19, 2026
  2. Clearance into in the Philippines in Surigao — March 19, 2026
  3. 15% Rabatt auf alle Pitufinos! — March 12, 2026
  4. 15% discount on all pitufinos! — March 12, 2026
  5. Törn zu den Philippinen — March 10, 2026

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. 2 magical, but bouncy weeks on an uninhabited atoll — 8 comments
  4. Hilfsprojekte für Matuku — 7 comments
  5. Leeloo 2000–2021 — 6 comments

Author's posts listings

2022
22
May

Finally wind!

by Birgit

Finally the wind has set in! We’ve had a wonderfully starry night with Scorpio, the Southern Cross and Orion twinkling above us, before the half moon rose in an eerie orange glow. Now it’s a bit squally all around with winds shifting between SE and ESE and we’re running with 5 knots. 1090 nm to go!

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2022
21
May

Searching for wind

by Birgit

Ever since we started out the grib file (wind arrows for an area to give you predicted speed and direction) have been promising more wind in two days. We just never quite reach it, like a carrot dangling in front of our bow… Yesterday morning the grib showed a bubble without any wind ahead, so we decided to sail straight north in order to avoid… Continue reading »

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2022
20
May

Two poles

by Birgit

When we know we’ll go downwind with the wind shifting slightly, we put up two genoa poles, so we can flexibly adjust the course, swapping the headsail port and starboard. The poles are fixed with lines (foreguys and aftguys), so we can pull them back and forward and sail up to 100 degrees. When the wind moves forward of that, it’s no big job to… Continue reading »

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2022
19
May

All sails up

by Birgit

The winds are still light, but steadier. Yesterday we hoisted the gennaker again, once it was up we realised that we had forgotten to roll the genoa in. Much to our surprise the boat sailed well downwind with the main up to port, the blister to port and the genoa poled to starboard. We’ve never had that much canvas up before, but we were still… Continue reading »

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2022
18
May

Blistering between squalls

by Birgit

We waited patiently for a weather window with a stable high to ride steady southeasterlies on top of it–only to sail right into a convergence zone that was only mentioned in the forecast after we had set out. Well, we’re making the best of the light and fickle winds. Yesterday we put the gennaker (big lightwind sail) up in the morning, soon after black squally… Continue reading »

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2022
17
May

Underway again!

by Birgit

Finally we have a stable enough looking weather window and we’re sailing towards Fiji! So far the wind is light, so we have only made 100 nm in the last 24 hours. We wouldn’t mind the slow progress, but the sails are banging quite badly in between and we hope for more wind. 1450 nm to go!

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2022
08
May

Galapagos sharks

by Birgit

I enjoyed hanging out with those cute and nosy sharkies so much that I decided to get one!

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2022
03
May

Lack of nature protection in French Poly

by Birgit

Reading and watching the news you’d think French Polynesia was a nature paradise. Almost each week the president, PEW and other organisations announce new protection zones in the Pacific around Fr Poly , rahui areas around islands (traditional bans) and anchoring bans for the nastiest polluters–us cruisers. Turtles have been protected for a long time, the same goes for sharkies. Unfortunately that’s just theory: protected… Continue reading »

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2022
01
May

Making friends and enemies

by Birgit

Each morning we read the news and each morning we get upset about how we humans treat our planet. We can’t change those global issues, we can only try to make a small difference starting with ourselves. We tend to go one step further and address behaviour that we witness in our little world (e.g. anchoring in coral, disturbing bird colonies, treating remote places as… Continue reading »

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2022
30
Apr

Waiting

by Birgit

After we had to interrupt our passage because of the broken track on the mast, the repair was rather quickly done, but we had missed our weather window. We need really stable weather for the 1.900 nautical miles to Fiji and it’s rare to find a weather window that actually lasts 2 weeks and goes all the way. Before Covid we could have stopped in… Continue reading »

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2022
13
Apr

Like an Atlantic crossing

by Birgit

The Pacific is so huge that the distances are mindboggling. The passage to Fiji alone is almost as far as an Atlantic crossing… Despite a forecast for steady winds, we were slowly sailing along with flapping sails and the whole boat clanging and banging–very annoying on a downwind course. During the night the wind fortunately set in and we’re nicely sailing along now. 1800 nm… Continue reading »

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2022
31
Mar

Update: Checking out of French Polynesia

by Birgit

We just did our check-out from Tahiti and had some hiccups along the way. It seems the different offices that deal with pleasure crafts don’t talk to each other Even though it the Capitainerie sent us an info sheet claiming that we had to send the check-out application to traffic maritime AND we got an email from them replying that we were free to pick… Continue reading »

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2022
29
Mar

Watermaker worries

by Birgit

Just as we were patching up the dinghy yesterday, the watermaker suddenly quit. Horror scenario. We carry a spare pump head and installed it today–fortunately the pump is running now again! A more serious issue would have been a big problem before a long passage.

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2022
29
Mar

Wobbly

by Birgit

We’ve had our dinghy for one and a half years and it’s been leaking from day one, that’s why it’s called “Wobbly”. It arrived with a transport damage: a hole was punched through the hypalon on the bottom, so the first thing we had to do was glue the damn thing in a very tricky spot. It continued leaking just a little bit (enough to… Continue reading »

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2022
23
Mar

Preparations

by Birgit

Before a long passage the boat needs to be thoroughly checked and prepared: We have checked the rigg and changed the headsails to have the big genoa downwind (and repaired some seams as we were at it). Then the Yanmar got some attention: we cleaned the sea strainers, changed the engine oil, new coolant and yesterday a new impeller. Some engineer at Yanmar thought it… Continue reading »

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