Pitufa.at

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 »

After the stressful, busy time in Tahiti we were sooo looking forward to getting away from it all–no more appointments, quests for parts along dusty roads, traffic jams, pollution, AC-frozen shops, sneezing people etc. We were really looking foward to holidays in the Tuamotus, but of course we’ve already had 2 days of mast projects (a dogdy tri-coloured lantern and a broken mounting of the… Continue reading »