Pitufa.at

Tonga’s a developing country, but the hospital is surprisingly well equipped, the staff friendly, services are free for locals and very cheap for non-residents, but they don’t have enough doctors (a few GPs, one ear-nose-throat specialist, a pediatrician, a radiologist, one surgeon who has to play specialist for everything else and two part-time surgeons) and therefore the waiting halls are full–we spent 30 hours in… Continue reading »

Hundreds of boats sail across the Pacific towards the west each year riding the easterly trades, but only a handful sails eastwards–at least in the trade wind belt. Tough boats from New Zealand who want to sail to French Poly take a ride on the westerlies way down south in the ‘roaring fourties’ and ‘screaming fifties’–their names speak for themselves… When I checked in on… Continue reading »

Cruising’s not much fun when you’re not fit and Christian hasn’t felt well since May. We tried everything out the Tongan health system has to offer, but still have no diagnosis. After long pondering we’ve therefore decided to sail back to Tahiti. New Zealand would have been another option, but it’s winter there and difficult with the cat, sailing to Fiji and flying back to… Continue reading »

Just north of Tonga’s densely populated main island Tongatapu a barrier reef with a few tiny motus on it extends about 5 nm east and another 5 nm north. Yesterday we took Pitufa up to the south-eastern corner of this reef–just 8 miles as the seagull flies, but we still took 4 hours for this stretch of careful reef navigation (about 12 nm around the… Continue reading »

Yesterday the wind turned to the west and will stay like this for a few days and we sailed 6 miles to a motu with an anchorage that gives good shelter from the west. The entrance through the reef into the lagoon off Motu Atata is a bit tricky, but we planned it with the help of SAS planet (satellite pictures) and found a nice,… Continue reading »

Yesterday we reached Nuku Alofa (Tonga’s capital) after a pleasantly eventless passage. During the last night we had to slow down to reach the reef passage in daylight, first we put the main into the second reef, then we rolled up the genoa, then we took the main sail down completely and were still going too fast just under bare poles running in 25 knots… Continue reading »

We arrived today after another fast and rough passage in Niue. Niue is our first ‘Makatea’, a raised atoll–a flat coral plateau surrounded by cliffs. On our trip over the Pacific we sailed by other Makateas several times, but never stopped: Henderson Island close to Pitcairn, Makatea NE of Tahiti (This one gives it’s name to raised atolls), Rurutu in the Austral Islands, Mangaia, Atiu,… Continue reading »

Beveridge Reef is a submerged atoll, only a ring of coral in the open ocean. It has a wide pass, which we entered at 16:00 o’clock. We crossed the lagoon and are now anchored on the turquoise shelf with no land in sight–just surrounded by a ring of breaking waves. There are no other atolls around, the nearest land is the raised atoll Niue 149… Continue reading »