Pitufa.at

Measures and restrictions are changing hourly now, nobody quite knows what’s going on between rumours and info. Yesterday we heard that the island nations further west had closed their ports for sailboats (Cook Islands, Tonga), this morning we got an email from a friend that French Polynesia automatically extends visas for those who need them and that sailboats need to stay in quarantine for 14 days after arrival (time at sea counted), this afternoon we heard that no foreign vessels are allowed anymore here.
I got a text message from the police man in Rapa Iti (Austral Islands) that he’s sorry, but that they won’t allow sailboats in their bay and friends in Raivavae sent the same info. A charter catamaran brought the virus to Fakarava (Tuamotus), so that explains why people now see sailboats with fear and anger…
We’ll see what tomorrow’s news will bring.

Unlike most people who live ashore we are not constantly surrounded by radio and television with hourly news updates. Sometimes we don’t look at news for long periods of time as it’s usually just frustrating to read what’s going on in the world without being able to change anything, so quite often we focus on the big and small worries of our little world here…

We first read about the coronavirus on the BBC newsfeed we get via SSB radio and pactor modem–just headlines no articles. We were confused, asked friends via emails for explanations and started reading the headlines on a daily basis. The speed of the escalation around the world quickly had us worrying badly, we found another source of info, an Austrian news broadcast on the SSB radio (most other countries have stopped those oldfashioned broadcasts in the times of modern communication, but good old Austria still booms out with waltz music followed by news on 6155 AM at 6:00 UTC).

For us out here the world still looks the same and it seems impossible to imagine the locked-down cities, closed schools and shops and empty streets in Europe (and many other parts of the world).

Last week the virus arrived in Tahiti on an Air France plane, nobody knows how many people got infected on that flight and afterwards, but the first case was reported from Fakarava (an atoll in the Tuamotus). Most of the little islands have just a medical centre with a nurse and no means of dealing with an epidemic. The big hospital in Tahiti is far away (e.g. 900 nm from the Gambier where we are). There are rumours that Air Tahiti will stop inter-island flights, but the supply ships are supposed to keep on bringing goods to the outer islands–if they should stay away panic will rise quickly.

While most cruisers we know don’t worry too much we have stocked up on provisioning in the main village here (disinfecting everything and ourselves back home on the boat) and are preparing to go into quarantine. ‘Better safe than sorry’ is a motto that has been working nicely for us before, so we hope that our friends and family ashore stay safe and await further news.

Tahiti used to be a very convenient stop-over for us: once a year we went there to do a gigantic provisioning tour, stock up on spare-parts for the boat and all other things that aren’t available out on the islands. There were several options to anchor, but over the last few years sailboats have been shied out first of Arue and now the big anchorage off Marina Taina will supposedly be shut down in March, because influential investors want to build a hotel there. As the marinas are full during the high season, we are supposed to anchor down in Taravao (several hours by bus away from Papeete) without access to chandleries.

Sailboats are the target of a political propaganda campaign, blaming us for pollution, lack of fish, accidents in the lagoon, etc. The main argument is that sailboats use all facilities without paying anything. Of course that may be true for some live-aboards in the Societies, but most boats just stop for a few weeks (like we do), spend lots of money on shopping and it’s not exactly our fault that we’re not asked to pay a fee for rubbish and other communal facilities.

The atmosphere on the more remote islands is still as friendly as always, but for now we hope that there will be an option to anchor when we get back to Tahiti for our next shopping tour… We’ll keep you posted.

Read our article on this issue in the Blue Water Sailing magazine:

Birgit Hackl: Cruisers are no longer welcome in Tahiti, Blue Water Sailing, Winter 2020, p. 19–21. Read the current issue online.

Coral reefs suffer worldwide due to climate change and pollution–during our 6 years in the Pacific we’ve had to watch many reefs die…
Here in the Gambier we’ve also witnessed some damage, but there are still areas with 100 % healthy coral and especially this year we see young coral that prove that nature is still fighting and trying to recover.
The water temperature is cooler than usually in summer (26-27 degrees), which means that we wear two layers when snorkeling, but the coral thrives in cooler water!

We always make sure to anchor in sand and float our chain so we never touch and damage coral. Especially here, where many reefs are still beautiful it is painful to watch other cruisers anchor in deep water without any idea what their anchor and chain hits… Many put an ‘alibi-float’ to feel good about themselves, but anchoring blindly it’s pure luck if they don’t cause damage…

Each time we bring a banana-stack aboard a few blind passengers come with it. This way we ‘imported’ some geckos years ago who thrived in the smurfy environment. By now their great-grandchildren roam Pitufa. We don’t know how many we have, but we regularly see small ones in the garden under the sprayhood and adults everywhere inside and outside. Yesterday evening a seriously big and fat one was catching insects that had gathered in the light of the saloon lamp. It’s fun and interesting to have some wildlife aboard and we enjoy watching our little reptiles (they range from 2 to 15 cm) as they hunt, squabble over territory (get out of my basil pot!!!) and communicate with loud clicking sounds.

Leeloo used to catch and eat geckos, but by now she’s too old for such sporty activities and graciously ignores them…

Raroia impressed us with its wildlife–it’s among our top 5 atolls between French Polynesia and Tonga. We observed birds around the atoll, tried to estimate numbers and sent those to the ornithologist society SOP Manu in Tahiti. We also got in touch with the school principal and people from the mayor’s office and presented our pictures and findings. The general reaction was surprise and delight–locals don’t travel much and don’t know that it’s really special to still have motus with forest and bird colonies.
They promised to inform the population, make them aware of the treasure they have here and suggest how to help protecting it.

We hope those efforts will help the many sandpipers (endemic and endangered), masked/brown/redfooted boobies, sooty terns, crested terns, noddies (we even saw rare blue noddies), etc.

My mom still got the good news and was glad about it…

Now we’re on the way southeast towards the Gambier (maybe with a stop-over depending on the wind).

My Mom was always our biggest fan. I mainly wrote this blog for her, knowing that she’d turn on the laptop each morning, hoping for news or pics to have with her coffee. She was excited with us about wonderful experiences, disappointed and sometimes sad when we discovered harm done to nature. She fiercely defended our alternative lifestyle against whoever challenged her.
She visited us five times on the boat and we could share some of our favourite places on this beautiful planet with her.

My Mom died two days ago. I should have visited her more often, I could have phoned more often. I should and could have done so much and I would have–if only I had known that she’d leave us so soon.

Bigger atolls like Rangiroa, Fakarava or Makemo have medium-sized supermarkets by now that take credit cards and have supplies freshly flown in from Tahiti. Raroia is too small for that, so the arrival of the supply ship is a big day for the commune here. Today the ship arrived after a break of two months (they stopped their service during the holidays), so everybody rushes excitedly to the dock to get their parcels and stuff sent from Tahiti and the empty mini-market will be filled up again!

Unfortunately the village of Raroia is on the western side of the atoll, so we’ve been pitching badly in the waves from the easterly winds since we arrived here two days ago (that’s when the supply ship was actually due…) and we’re eager to get to the protected eastern side again.
The shop owner told us yesterday that he’d be busy unpacking all day today and would only start selling on Thursday, but we whinged until he promised to open the shop in the afternoon already–wish us luck for our quest for cabbage, carrots, potatoes and maybe even some apples

Our last egg from Makemo jumped into a chocolate cake yesterday and the last carrot from Tahiti joined some home-grown arrugula in a salad, so we can really use some fresh things…