Pitufa.at

In the end we have decided to head for Fakarava (South Pass), as we can reach the pass around high tide early afternoon. We haven’t visited this atoll yet, so we’re curious, especially as it’s famous for the masses of grey reef sharks in the pass.

We’re wobbling along with only 3 knots, the wind shifts around cloudy areas so that on top of that we’re going zigzag. We still don’t know to which of the Tuamotus we’ll make it this way–we’ll see. At least it’s very comfy sailing, with the boat hardly moving at all you barely notice that we’re on passage and even Leeloo is out and about.

We couldn’t resist the weather window (first southwesterly, than southerly and later southeasterly winds are predicted), so we quickly finished all business in Tahiti, got the boat into sailing mode (always a major event that includes obvious tasks like storing away gear, but also baking bread, renewing the kitty litter, etc. etc.) and set out yesterday afternoon towards the Tuamotus. Stomping out into 25 knots… Continue reading »

Last night we reached Tahiti at 1 o’clock in the morning after a very rough ride with 20 to 30 knots of easterly wind. In the lee of the big island seas and wind calmed down quickly and as it was a moonlit night we decided to sail in through the pass south of Taina Marina. Even with a GPS track and lit markers it’s… Continue reading »

It looks like this journey is going to end like it started a bit over a month ago: squally, windy, rainy, grey and nasty. Anyway, in between we were quite lucky, so no need to complain. 97 nm left as the white tern flies! At last we fly as directly as all the before mentioned birds. We made enough easting when we had the chance… Continue reading »

After almost two days we’re finally sailing again. What a relief to turn off the engine and just listen to the gurgling of the waves along the hull and the soft, well-known creaking sounds of the sheets and blocks. The wind is still just a breeze, the sea’s calm and we enjoy these hours of perfect sailing–soon it’ll pick up and we’ll be pounding into… Continue reading »

We try to avoid motoring whenever possible, as it’s a waste of diesel, the noise downstairs is deafening and the engine heats up the boat. At the moment the wind is very light (about 8 knots), but it would be enough to keep the boat going slowly, so usually we wouldn’t start the engine at that point. However, the grib files show that instead of… Continue reading »

Today we’ve had beautiful light-wind sailing with calm seas, small fishies jumping, big fishies jumping after them and birds hectically catching fish. We also caught a tuna in that bruhaha. Very often we feel like in a lifeless desert out on the ocean, so today was a pleasant experience. Unfortunately our ancient gennacker blew out just a few minutes after we had set it (a… Continue reading »

During the night the wind shifted north and then even to the northwest remaining light, so we had a very quiet, restful night with nothing to do but listening to audio books, munching chocolate pudding and taking a look around every 10 or 20 minutes. Maria, the westernmost Australe Island lies north of our course, so we’re officially back in French Polynesia. 400 nm to… Continue reading »

We had good sailing today, finally making miles towards the destination. On this trip material fatigue has started showing. Apart from the crack in the boom yesterday we had smaller things breaking. A shackle that holds down the running backstay snapped, today the sheet of the foresail ripped–nothing spectacular and all things that were quickly repaired, but it shows how hard the past few months… Continue reading »

I was catching up with sleep this morning when a shout had me stumble up on deck in record time: ‘The main boom’s broken!’ We quickly got the sail down and then Christian showed me a long vertical crack in the boom, just above the place where we had repaired it in Panama with an aluminium plate and rivets. While I still desperately checked on… Continue reading »

This morning we set sail again and this time our course on the chartplotter is set to Tahiti (620 nm as the Tropic Bird flies). We started out with wind still from the East, so for the first time on this trip East we’re tacking up and down which is quite frustrating. During the first 5 hours we sailed 31 nm to the NE, but… Continue reading »