Pitufa.at

From our anchorage we saw something that looked like a boat far down south inside the lagoon. First we thought it was just some optical illusion with maybe a palmtree and a bush behind it, but with the binoculars it became clear that there was really some kind of boat, but how was that possible with no pass into the lagoon? Was is a wreck… Continue reading »

Today we took the dinghy out to explore some of the motus along the western side of the atoll. At high tide in calm conditions (like now, when there’s hardly any swell from the south or north) it’s easy to paddle the dinghy up the shelf of the outer reef and then on in the shallow water to the motu behind. They are all different:… Continue reading »

If you’re young and you’re hip and you happen to be an adolescent brown booby living on Car o line Island, there’s a new cool place to hang out: Pitufa! This morning when the cat and I climbed up the companionway there were two adolescent brown boobies (clearly recongnizable in their dark-brown feathers) sitting on the solar panel, ogling us suspiciously. They flew away when… Continue reading »

We’ve cleared out, the boat’s ready, the forecast looks like nice light-wind sailing, so we’ll set out from Raiatea in a few hours. It feels strange to leave French Polynesia, but then we know that we’ll come back towards the end of the year

During this southern winter we plan to sail first up north to visit Tongareva/Penrhyn (Cook Islands) and then we want to hop slowly southwards through the Cook Islands chain. By November we want to back in French Polynesia!

Our little girlie turns 18 sometime in July, but we neither have to worry about university choices nor driving licenses… Instead we have to tend to the geriatric needs (special diet food, soft landing areas underneath companion way and sofa that go easy on the back, etc.) of our aging ship’s cat. We wish you many more happy years, Leeloo!

This morning we wrapped Pitufa in yet another layer of plastic, then the smurf-blue bootstripe was sprayed on and by noon we were allowed to reveal the piece of art–tuh-duh! An almost new Pitufa in white and blue We tore off the layers of foil that we used over the past few days to protect the new antifouling and paint. Negative side effect: we produced… Continue reading »

On Friday the primer was sprayed on, during the weekend we did the first two layers of antifouling, so now Pitufa’s battleship grey and blue. The primer has nicely dried over the weekend, today the painter does some more fairing, tomorrow we’ll hopefully get the paint sprayed on and Pitufa will turn white on the topsides and we’ll do two more layers of black antifouling.… Continue reading »

Today the first two coats of primer will be (hopefully) sprayed on. In order to protect the rest of the boat we had to spread a layer of plastic all around the toe-rail and up to the life lines. Weirdly enough, there’s never enough proper scaffolding in a boatyard, instead we have to pile up differently sized blocks of wood put planks on top and… Continue reading »

We hauled the boat out on Friday and started work immediately. We want to do a new antifouling as usual, but after more than 10 years the paint on the topsides has started cracking in places and so we have decided to have a professional painter spray it newly to get Pitufa all shiny and pretty again. Of course the old paint has to come… Continue reading »