Pitufa.at

After almost a month of boat projects in Tahiti we’d love to take a few days off, but we have an apointment to haul out in Raiatea on Friday, so we have to set sails towards the Iles sous le vent today. The forecast predicts a stiff breeze, so we count on a rough, but fast ride. Leeloo has already got some seasickness drops and… Continue reading »

Last Monday we thought it’d be a clever idea to quickly add another battery to have 500 Ah instead of 400. The batteries live under the pilot berth which serves as storage, so all those boxes went into the saloon. It turned out that the additional battery didn’t fit into the plastic box we had intended for it, so Christian decided to custom-make a fiberglass… Continue reading »

When we were in Tahanea (atoll in the Tuamotus) we were horrified to see that Copra production had started on some of the few remaining bird motus. Last year we had tried to convince the mayor of Faaite (the neighbouring atoll to which Tahanea belongs) to turn the southwestern motus into a protected zone. No success. This year we met the family who owns and… Continue reading »

Ever since we arrived in Tahiti we’ve spent half of the time running around to get things and the other half to install them. Nothing’s ever straightforward, usually some little missing bit comes up during repairs/maintenance/installation and the next day is spent hitch-hiking to machine shops to have something altered or made. We’re making progress though, even though Pitufa keeps looking like a building site.… Continue reading »

This morning we were ready to leave, but then we got the latest weather forecast and started to struggle with the decision: instead of steady winds we’d have a squally night followed by light winds for a day… In the end we decided to stay for another two days and set out with hopefully more settled weather on Wednesday. In the meantime we’ve sailed down… Continue reading »

Today we are getting Pitufa into passage-mode–always an tedious job after an extended period in a lagoon. Big jobs like washing and storing the kayak, getting the dinghy on deck and preparing poles for a downwind-course are obvious, but there’s dozens of other tiny chores like declattering cupboards, baking bread, baking cake as a passage-treat, wiping the floors, (we sleep on a mattress on the… Continue reading »

We have moved on to the westernmost anchorage on the southside of Tahanea to check out the last of the three bird-motu clusters. Fortunately this spot remains untouched, boobies are circling the two little motus and preparing for the next nesting season. Only few palmtrees grow here, so apparently they weren’t worth making copra here. A long white sand-bank stretches out from the motu towards… Continue reading »

Last year we were already worried about the fact that some locals moved over from the neighbouring atoll of Faaite to Tahanea, which had been uninhabited for a while with only some remains of old houses still visible. We could immediately see the difference in wildlife and observed fewer birds on the untouched motus on the Southwestern side. We were alarmed enough to get an… Continue reading »

The sun’s just rising over the motu next to us, the outlines of a cumulus cloud on the horizon gleam like it was on fire and the silhouettes of some palm trees in the foreground pose for a south-sea paradise poster. The air is filled with a strange roaring and cackling that sounds like deer and monkeys, but of course that’s impossible here in the… Continue reading »

We are searching for new tenants for our flat in Graz. As it’s unlikely that English-speaking readers will be interested in renting it, we post the ad just on the Austrian side of the blog

Usually we enjoy our internetfree life on board, but when there are problems, the dogdy communication lines can get on our nerves. We have managed to order a new lightwind sail during the passage (the folks at Hongkong Sails were extremely helpful!), we’re in touch with Spectra, because our shiny new watermaker’s already dodgy and on top of that we need new tenants for our… Continue reading »

After a passage there’s always some work to do on the boat, but during our first 2 days in Tahanea the weather was gorgeous, sunny and calm, so we thought ‘carpe diem’ and went snorkeling instead. The W-pass was an impressive experience as always with dozens of grey reef sharks (we were actually able to watch them hunting during daytime!) and lots of tiny fishies.… Continue reading »