Pitufa.at

When we were about to lift the anchor to leave Raivavae two weeks ago, our anchor winch stopped working and I had to crank up the chain manually. But with Tahiti as the next stop, the moment our windlass had decided to quit was actually not so bad.

With the help of a good friend here in the anchorage off Marina Taina I took the winch completely apart. The reduction gear had almost no oil left and two of its bearings had rusty balls and didn’t rotate very well. The oil seals were apparently worn out by the rough, rusty shaft. Fortunately there is a well-stocked shop for bearings and oil seals in Papeete (‘Evo’ in Fare Ute). We’ve got the shaft ‘cleaned’ and the new bearings pressed on at a machine shop in Papeete. An even more severe problem was the winch motor as its rotor spun so eccentrically that it had scratched the stator. So also the motor’s got a new bearing and a new bushing (which I made myself from a bronze water-pipe fitting). Having the motor already apart, I sanded the brushes and the commutator.

Now everything is assembled with self-cut gaskets and our 30-year-old windlass (it’s a 1kW Muir Cougar) is running smoothly again like a new one. Total cost of overhaul: EUR 200.

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 to fly back (31 from door to door) and my bio-rythm still seems to be lagging somewhere behind maybe Mid-Atlantic…
I’ll spend two weeks in Austria and it seems I’ve chosen just the right time as it’s almost tropically warm and sunny this week

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 got so bad that we moved our matresses to the floor to get at least some sleep. Marina Taina’s overfilled dinghy dock’s a tough place for a small dinghy like ours and the location far outside Papeete means that we spend hours eating dirt on the dusty, congested roads waiting for buses and hitching rides while doing the usual hardware-store/chandlery ralley.

The positive side of being here is that we meet old friends again and that the huge supermarket Carrefour is within walking distance, so we can manoeuvre cartloads of provisioning over the bumpy sidewalk right to the dinghy dock.

Christian will stay here while I spend two weeks in Austria and after that we’ll try to get away from noisy, dirty Papeete as quickly as possible again.

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 Pitufa.