Pitufa.at

Rapa Iti, the southernmost of the Austral Islands, has no airport and only one supply ship a month. When the Covid crisis started, they very reasonably decided that they couldn’t take any risk and closed their bay for all ships (except the Tuhaa Pae supply ship). Only family returning to Rapa Iti was allowed to travel on that ship and they have to stay in… Continue reading »

French Polynesian officials have announced the first 2 deaths: an elderly couple (both 81) died at the hospital in Papeete this week, more than 800 cases have been registered since July 15. Of course those numbers are still very low in comparison to many other countries, but it’s still alarming… The majority of the sailboats that were either here before or have arrived this year… Continue reading »

There is a haul-out place in the SE corner of Apataki, so we did not expect much wildlife there–surprisingly enough the bommies were quite lively with relatively healthy coral and some small fishies. There were even a few terns flying around. Sailing up the eastern side we were happy to see lots of endemic shrubs, so we expected nesting birds–but nothing. The motus are silent… Continue reading »

260 confirmed Covid-19 cases in French Polynesia, the president announced ‘new measures’ for Monday–it’s good timing that we’re fully provisioned, prepared and ready to go. The SE wind (mara’amu) that was blowing strongly for the last few days is easing off a bit and we should have good conditions to set out towards the Tuamotus. Over 70 ring atolls are out there–we’ll set the windvane… Continue reading »

We went to the petrol station this morning to top up our diesel tank and jerry cans–180 litres and we were full again. To us living on a sailboat means being close to nature and treading lightly, so we try to use less than 300 l a year. The boat before us (German sailboat, young, hip couple) had taken a long time, so I asked… Continue reading »

Despite all safety measures it looks like the opening of borders resulted in the second Covid wave we dreaded. In the last month 130 cases were recorded in Tahiti–at the moment the counter hops up by a dozen on a daily basis. Of course that’s nothing compared to other countries, but still very worrying in a large island nation with 67 inhabited islands, but only… Continue reading »

I had to fly to Austria for family reasons and just got back to Tahiti. My greatest worry was that French Poly would close the borders again while I was away, so I only dared to stay for ten days in Austria. I was a bit shocked, how careless the majority of people act there: masks only in supermarkets, waiters wear them half-heartedly underneath their… Continue reading »

Sometime in July our Leeloo turned 20–quite an age for a cat… She’s seen a lot during this long life: she lived in our garden flat with us in Austria, went on a student exchange with me to Madrid as a kitten, roamed Swedish forests, resided in our British ‘long garden’ in Cambridge and when we decided to start sailing in 2009 came along on… Continue reading »

Pitufa’s previous owner was German, so she came with many gadgets ‘made in Germany’. One of those is our shaft seal: a ProfiSeal (www.profiseal.com), based on the design of drip-less face seals. Instead of a flimsy rubber harmonica (like on the PSS), it features a solid metal housing that is flange-mounted to the stern tube. Inside the housing, a rotary unit (fixed to the shaft)… Continue reading »

While no flights were allowed into French Polynesia we observed that people went back to their normal behaviour–no masks, kisses for greetings, etc. We were worried that they would not change these customs when the borders were opened again. Fortunately we were wrong: In town almost everybody is wearing masks now (many in colourful Polynesian patterns), people queue with respectful distance in supermarkets and I… Continue reading »

Being on the hard means hard work all day long (and a few times into the night–ever tried to apply black antifouling in the dark?). As we live on Pitufa, we cannot walk away from the building site in the evening. We usually need at least one bit from every single one of our many lockers and by the end of the day there’s no… Continue reading »