Pitufa.at

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 »

Leeloo’s health has been declining over the last years. She can still see, hear, jump (but not high, so we have put handicapped access to berths etc.), has all her teeth and on good days she’s out and about and munching (expensive, imported) diet food, but she also has bad days when she has no appetite and just sleeps a lot. She’s always been a… Continue reading »

Just for Christmas a trough moved along the convergence zone that had been lingering for a long time. It passed to the east of us, but sent us stormy weather with torrential rainfalls over Christmas, so we just stayed inside writing and working for 3 days. The anchorage just off the dock in Makemo was nicely protected, even though the wind shifted around a bit.… Continue reading »

And yet another year has passed–our 8th on Pitufa and we’re still very happy with our life under sails We started the year 2019 quite active working on our mooring project in Rapa Iti and spent the rest of the cyclone season in our favourite corner of French Polynesia–the Gambier Islands. After that we had a few weeks of adventures in the Tuamotus, entering minimalistic,… Continue reading »

We’ve been having somewhat unusual weather for about a month now. During an El Nino neutral phase (as it’s supposed to be now) the SPCZ (South Pacific Convergence Zone) should be further southwest, but instead it’s hanging out across French Polynesia, just shifting up and down over the Tuamotus, but never disappearing. Whenever we’re on the southern side of it we get southerly winds, when… Continue reading »

We wrote an article about the coconut palm, which is the symbol for the south seas, but unfortunately a big eco-disaster. Palm trees are not even endemic here, but were introduced and are replacing the natural vegetation (and habitat for birds). We couldn’t find a magazine for this topic at first as it’s not exactly a sailing topic. Now an Austrian newspaper (OOE Nachrichten) got… Continue reading »