Pitufa.at

During the last few days we fell into a nice routine: I worked on my translations in the morning, while Christian did maintenance jobs on Pitufa. In the afternoon we packed our dive gear into the dinghi and explored the dive sites in the vicinity. With the wind blowing between 20 and 25 knots (gusting up to 30) we didn’t dare taking our small dinghi… Continue reading »

I wasn’t really in the mood for writing any posts last week, because I damaged my ears on our second dive, got a “don’t stick your head under the water for 1 week” from the doctor and had to watch from the surface while everybody else had a good time in Bonaire’s underwater wonderland… Yesterday I tried going down for the first time again and… Continue reading »

We’re still in Grenada Marine working on Pitufa–the ten days we expected have turned into 3 weeks, but on Tuesday we’ll (hopefully) get back into the water. The mast has been repaired, we’ve finished sanding it this afternoon and now we’ve got the weekend to mount the hydrovane, put on a last layer of antifouling and finish a dozen other little jobs. We’re really ready… Continue reading »

The mast was pulled without further problems this morning, but our poor boat now looks like a wreck… The welder thinks repairing the crack won’t be a big problem, but unfortunately the welding machine broke this morning and we’ll have to wait until Wednesday to have it done. We’ll use the opportunity to sand the mast (we’ve been talking about doing this for ages) and… Continue reading »

The days fly by with all the work we’ve got to do on Pitufa while she’s on the dry. We’ve taken off the skeg, then the rudder and discovered that we need new bearings (as expected). Additionally the mechanic found that the bearings of the propeller shaft had too much play, so we replaced them as well. I’ve been sanding the hull for the past… Continue reading »

This morning at 9 we had an appointment at the boatyard to haul out Pitufa. We were quite nervous, because we had to take her into the berth stern first (so that the forestay wouldn’t be in the way of the crane). Unfortunately our smurfette doesn’t like going backwards–she usually goes unpredictably either sharp left or right… Not so this morning: she turned like a… Continue reading »

Today we went to the veggie market and then the fishmarket in St. George. However, we forgot two basic things you should bring to an island fishmarket: a bag (you don’t want the leaky ones you’re given there) and small change (the change you get there might well be covered in fishblood ). Anyway, right after we got back Christian did some belly-scraping (not his… Continue reading »

We’re still in Prickly Bay, doing lots of jobs on the boat and I’m also working as a teleworker on an e-learning program for a company in Graz. It’s just the right time for earning some extra money for the kitty box–we’ve already spent two monthly budgets on spare parts for Pitufa and we’ll soon have to haul her out to do a new anti-fouling… Continue reading »

Our guests have left this morning–it’ll take them 24 hours to get back home… We had a really good time: we visited the Seven Sisters Falls in the rainforesty interior of Grenada, tasted loads of delicious dishes at Fish Friday in Gouyave, went sightseeing in St. George and spent a few relaxing days anchored off Calvigny Island. Grenada is great to get around, cheap minibuses… Continue reading »

We’re still in Prickly Bay (Grenada) installing newly acquired gadgets. Today we bought yet another inverter–this ends a 3 month power-tool-free period on Pitufa (even though we managed to do all kinds of repairs during that time using manual drills, manual saws, etc. we even managed to solder by heating up the soldering iron on a blow torch ). Additionally we’re doing a thorough spring-clean,… Continue reading »

We’ve spent the last 2 weeks waiting for our liferaft (remember our encounter with the fishing boat in Suriname?) to be serviced. We had to ship it to Trinidad for that and it disappeared unaccountably on the way for a week, which left us quite worried and stuck in the rolly anchorage in Store Bay. Today it finally got back from the service station, so… Continue reading »