Pitufa.at

I had barely touched European ground when I met the fate of all happy, innocent, tropical islanders when they are exposed to nasty civilised viruses–I fell ill. At least I got away with a sore throat and a snotty nose and I hope to recover soon (unlike so many fellow islanders in the past…).

After almost 4 years of boat life I flew to Austria yesterday morning local time Tahiti, so evening UTC or was it the day before yesterday(?)–the time zones got me all confused, at least I didn’t have to change the time on the watch thanks to 12 hours time difference Anyway, it took us 2 years to sail to French Polynesia and only 26 hours… Continue reading »

After doing some maintenance on Pitufa in Tahiti we’ll head to the Society Islands to explore Huahine and Maupiti that didn’t fit into our schedule last year and maybe revisit Moorea, Raiatea and Tahaa.

After spending a year in quiet, calm places French Polynesia’s capital Papeete on Tahiti feels a bit overwhelming. About 250 boats sway on moorings or anchor off Marina Taina and they all roll and pitch like crazy whenever high swell comes up from the south and huge surf breaks over the unfortunately rather narrow fringing reef that protects the anchorage insufficiently. Two days ago it… Continue reading »

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 »