Pitufa.at

Finally the weather seems to have settled again, the weather forecast predicts stable wind from the southeast so we’ll head out towards Tahiti in a few hours. It’s still cold and rainy here, but we hope it’ll get warmer with every mile we sail north!

For the past week we’ve had a convergence zone sitting between here and Tahiti and three lows have moved over Raivavae giving us just a one-day break with sunny weather which we used to rent bikes and cycle around the island. Otherwise it’s been rainy, grey and windy, so we spent the time doing indoor chores on a–depending on the wind direction–more or less bouncy… Continue reading »

Raivavae’s a small island, the coastal road that goes all around is only 23 km long. There are two ‘route traversiere’ (paths across from north to south) and we walked both of them last week. The tracks lead up the ridge through lush vegetation, large taro fields and countless banana plantations (who can eat so many bananas??). The scenery resembles the Society Islands and so… Continue reading »

Waiting for a weather window is always frustrating. We get new forecasts twice a day and then the strategic games begin: we try to “sail” the cursor in expected daily runs through the area of the grib file where arrows indicate the wind speed and direction, trying to avoid becalmed zones and galeforce winds. Of course the further into the future the prediction goes, the… Continue reading »

Until three days ago it was really hot and calm, but then southerly winds set in, sending up chilly air masses with best regards of the icebergs down there The weather forecast had predicted light westerly winds, so we were anchored off the western motu Tenoko when a procession of squalls approached, hiding Taravai and Mangareva behind a dark grey wall. When the squalls reached… Continue reading »

We used to call anchorages comfy as long as the dishes didn’t slide off the table, but after spending so much time in protected lagoons we’ve raised our standards to ‘no boat movement at all’. Yesterday’s anchorage on the western side of Akamaru didn’t quite come up to those expectations, we complained a bit about the rolling during the night, but enjoyed our visit to… Continue reading »

The Gambier have a new attraction: a petting zoo! Pierre and Lolo (the cruisers who live on Taravai) have taken their two tame goats Fuego and Cacao (we’ve known them since they were babies) over to the tiny island Motu-o-ari off the village for holidays where they greet visitors bleeting happily. They marched all around the island with us and looked so sad when we… Continue reading »

You may have wondered why we haven’t posted in a while–we were just too busy to spend time on the computer. Right now we have visitors from Austria (Birgit’s dad and his girlfriend stay with us for 2 weeks) and with the gorgeous summer weather we can be really active: anchorages around the motus, Mangareva and Taravai, long walks along the coast and on the… Continue reading »

The summer weather is continuing, we’re having a good time anchored off Tauna doing some small jobs on the boat and excursions (snorkeling, kayaking, etc.) in between. Today there was less wind than the days before so we ventured out towards Motu Gaioio in the NE corner of the archipelago. It didn’t look that far on the chart, about 2nm (almost 4 km) away, but… Continue reading »

The weather’s still changeable here, but then it’s weird all over the region with lots of depressions rushing over Tahiti and down the poor Australes just west of us, so we don’t complain about a few rainy days in between. The only thing that’s annoying is that the humid weather’s just what the mushrooms enjoy–not the yummy ones, but the nasty ones that start growing… Continue reading »

We’ve had northwesterly winds plus sunny, blue skies now for several days, which is very unusual, but ideal for a visit to the northern corner. After the grey weather period we had, we enjoy the summer weather to the fullest. That’s something we’ve really learned in the Gambier: carpe diem–seize the day, you can never be sure how long the sun will be out! In… Continue reading »