Pitufa.at

After 3 weeks alone here in Taina, Christian and my Mom were scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning. Now I’ve just got an email that their flight from Vienna was cancelled, they were rebooked for the following day… Here it’s grey and rainy after a 2 months of stable, sunny weather and a 3 m swell is forecast to arrive this evening. I’ve fallen victim to… Continue reading »

Since Christian flew to Austria last week, it’s just us 3 girls here (counting Leeloo and of course Pitufa). Life in Taina has been productive and quiet so far, but last night a 3m southwesterly swell arrived around midnight and made an end to our calm lifestyle. The reef that protects the anchorage isn’t very wide and swell turns the lagoon into a chaotic witches’… Continue reading »

Christian’s finger still looks a bit like Frankenstein’s monster, but it’s healing. The stitches will come out on Monday… Today we wanted to fill up with diesel, but as Christian can’t really use his right hand at the moment we couldn’t follow our usual routine with me at the wheel and Christian at the bow. Instead he was at the helm and I had to… Continue reading »

We spent the last two days on the Southern side of Tahanea, checking out the bird motus there and counting nesting couples as we always do. There seem to be less every year, too many visiting locals (from Faaite) and cruisers drive them away… It’s always hard to leave the Tuamotus and head towards the hustle and bustle of Tahiti, but we have to make… Continue reading »

We’ve just had a perfect week here in Tahanea with sunny skies and mellow conditions. We snorkeled the pass a few times and had close encounters with manta rays that were feeding in the current. Back home we were greeted by our gang of blacktip reef sharks, who hang out around boats hoping for scraps. Whenever we caught a fish the shark feeding from the… Continue reading »

During the southern winter it’s normal to have phases with strong southeasterly winds. Whenever there’s a big fat high moving by eastwards to the south of us, the winds get accelerated in a squash zone above. These so called mara’amu’s howl at least every 2 weeks over French Polynesia, but the one we’re having now is stronger than the all we’ve seen over the past… Continue reading »

We’ve been in Raroia now for almost a month, it’s a fabulous place and we’re enchanted by the many untouched motus and the large bird colonies. Now we’re down in the Southeast, which tops it all: Here the small motus are covered in shrubs, but the biggest motu has a proper forest with different leaf trees–the first remaining forest we’ve found in the Tuamotus–mainly pisonia… Continue reading »

While most cruisers hurry through the Tuamotus, we love to stay in one atoll and explore it thoroughly. Raroia is one of the most interesting places we’ve found so far in the Tuamotus with lots of untouched motus. So far we have found a large, racous sooty tern colony, a frigate bird colony and many white terns, noddies, red-footed boobies and even brown boobies. The… Continue reading »