Pitufa.at

We were racing all day long yesterday averaging 6 knots, but we still didn’t get to Palmerston before midnight. Fortunately a boat we know from the Marquesas and the radio net gave us the exact coordinates of the mooring here, so we managed to pick up a buoy in the dark.

Surprisingly enough the dreaded journey eastwards turns out to be more pleasant than the passage in the ‘right’ direction two months ago. Instead of the sickening rolling motion that we were used to downwind, Pitufa is now ploughing along in fortunately light winds (15 knots from the SSE) doing steadily 60 degrees on the wind. We’re not heeling too much and the boat seems calmer… Continue reading »

Early this morning we reached Beveridge Reef with the last dying breeze. Just in front of the pass two whales surfaced just next to the boat, spouted a few times and disappeared again with a last wave of the gigantic tail fin. We have used this welcome break in the passage to wash some things that got salty underway, air out towels and clothes, go… Continue reading »

The wind has finally shifted to the north, but we were pushed too far south already to reach Beveridge Reef before dusk, so we’ve slowed down to get there tomorrow morning. Entering an uncharted submerged atoll at night didn’t seem very tempting, despite the fact that we have our old GPS tracks to follow.

Yesterday it was blowing hard from the Southeast again, we set the windvane to ‘go-as-hard-as-you-can’ and Wayne Vaney sailed Pitufa straight towards Niue. When we contemplated the evening grib, we found that he was probably right: there’s a phase with easterly winds coming up–no good beating into that. Instead we decided to take a break in Niue and wait for the next clocking of the… Continue reading »

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 »