Pitufa.at

Tahiti and Moorea (where 56 cases of covid-19 have been recorded so far, with only very few severe cases) are still in lock-down until the end of April, but the outer covid-free islands have been allowed to ease the restrictions. Now alcohol is sold again (only wine and beer in limited amounts though) and people are officially able to do ‘water activities’ again. Only large… Continue reading »

We have tried a few different sailmail and winlink stations and have found some reliable connections to get weather, emails and even the bbc and reuters newsfeed. Additionally we informed boats over in the main village that the mobile phone network was down–maybe that helped or it was just a coincidence, but the network’s back up! That’s nice for us, but vital for the handful… Continue reading »

I usually get up in the morning, put the coffee on the stove, turn on the computer and get weather forecasts, news and emails with a wobbly internet connection via the local mobile phone network while the water in the espresso-pot bubbles up (every other day I whip up a bread dough with my third and fourth hand simultaneously, but that’s another blog entry). This… Continue reading »

French Polynesia has been in a lock-down for three days now. The rules are very strict: people must stay in their homes except for very urgent errands, cruisers are not allowed to go ashore, all water activities are banned, etc. We were able to get some diesel and petrol from the supply ship two days ago, now we are provisioned for several months and won’t… Continue reading »

Measures and restrictions are changing hourly now, nobody quite knows what’s going on between rumours and info. Yesterday we heard that the island nations further west had closed their ports for sailboats (Cook Islands, Tonga), this morning we got an email from a friend that French Polynesia automatically extends visas for those who need them and that sailboats need to stay in quarantine for 14… Continue reading »

Unlike most people who live ashore we are not constantly surrounded by radio and television with hourly news updates. Sometimes we don’t look at news for long periods of time as it’s usually just frustrating to read what’s going on in the world without being able to change anything, so quite often we focus on the big and small worries of our little world here…… Continue reading »

Tahiti used to be a very convenient stop-over for us: once a year we went there to do a gigantic provisioning tour, stock up on spare-parts for the boat and all other things that aren’t available out on the islands. There were several options to anchor, but over the last few years sailboats have been shied out first of Arue and now the big anchorage… Continue reading »

Coral reefs suffer worldwide due to climate change and pollution–during our 6 years in the Pacific we’ve had to watch many reefs die… Here in the Gambier we’ve also witnessed some damage, but there are still areas with 100 % healthy coral and especially this year we see young coral that prove that nature is still fighting and trying to recover. The water temperature is… Continue reading »

Raroia impressed us with its wildlife–it’s among our top 5 atolls between French Polynesia and Tonga. We observed birds around the atoll, tried to estimate numbers and sent those to the ornithologist society SOP Manu in Tahiti. We also got in touch with the school principal and people from the mayor’s office and presented our pictures and findings. The general reaction was surprise and delight–locals… Continue reading »

My Mom was always our biggest fan. I mainly wrote this blog for her, knowing that she’d turn on the laptop each morning, hoping for news or pics to have with her coffee. She was excited with us about wonderful experiences, disappointed and sometimes sad when we discovered harm done to nature. She fiercely defended our alternative lifestyle against whoever challenged her. She visited us… Continue reading »

Bigger atolls like Rangiroa, Fakarava or Makemo have medium-sized supermarkets by now that take credit cards and have supplies freshly flown in from Tahiti. Raroia is too small for that, so the arrival of the supply ship is a big day for the commune here. Today the ship arrived after a break of two months (they stopped their service during the holidays), so everybody rushes… Continue reading »

We still have an old-fashioned kerosene stove, called Bertie the Bertschi, which we praise when other cruisers search for gas bottles, refill opportunities and fittings while we have a year or two of kerosene on stock (after we raided a friendly little airport out on the islands…). Unfortunately there are days when we curse it–today was one of them. Our main problem is that spare… Continue reading »

All clear for those who were worrying about Leeloo’s health with us. She suddenly pulled herself together, started eating again and it looks like she’ll be with us for a bit longer Such ups and downs have been happening before… Today we had a beautiful sail up NE close-hauled inside the lagoon staying close to the outer reef. Christian hopped into the dinghy with the… Continue reading »