Pitufa.at

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 fighting with our elderly inflatable kayak that stubbornly tries to head into the wind or to align with the waves (there was quite some chop coming over the outer reef) it felt considerably further… We then walked around the island, had a picnic and finally started paddling back towards our tiny motu (Tauna) and the barely visible white dot next to it (Pitufa). As you can see from the fact that I’m now sitting here writing a blog, we’ve made it back. We’ll definitely sleep well this night, but getting up tomorrow might be a different story

Out here in the Pacific geology isn’t something theoretical that happened in ancient times, but even to the untrained eye an obviously ongoing event. Continental plates are moving, the sea bottom rises and from a depth of about 3000 m a new, actively vulcanic island rises (like Fernandina at the western end of the Galapagos archipelago). The ragged cliffs rise higher and higher, developing a lush vegetation on the fertile soil, while the ocean crashes unhindered against the shores (like in the Marquesas). In tropical seas corals start to grow around the island at some point, forming a protective fringe reef with a calm lagoon inside (like in the Society Islands). After some time the high islands start sinking down into the sea again, leaving only the peaks of the mountains as islands, while the fringe reef becomes an outlying barrier with motus on top (like here in the Gambier). At some point the mountains disappear entirely, leaving only a coral ring with some motus behind ( like in the Tuamotus). Sometimes the bottom rises under an atoll, lifting the coral shelf high up (like Henderson Island in the Pitcairn group). The fringing reef of the Gambier is sinking slowly back into the sea, in the east and south it’s completely submerged already, only in the north it’s still a continous motu barrier. The stormy Pacific batters these small oases in the vast ocean continously. We were very surprised when we returned to Tauna this summer (our first and still one of our favourite motus) to find the sandbank gone (it had previously stretched out a few hundred metres from the island) and the motu itself ragged and considerably smaller. A severe storm has caused that damage in spring. Remember the eulogy blog for our dinghy that was murdered by a freighter in Tahiti and the adjoining picture of it sitting on a sandbank? Well, that’s exactly this sandbank and it must have left the surface of the sea at approximately the same time as our dingsi did… We asked our friend Herve, who grew up in the Gambier and he remembers more motus that have disappeared since his childhood, so geology really happens within a short time here (about 30 years ago). We’re now back in Tauna, enjoying the shrunken, but still gorgeous motu with its colonies of white terns, noddies, greater crested terns, some red-footed boobies, and frigate birds.

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 all over the furniture and inside the lockers whenever we have to keep the hatches closed in the rain.
The best remedy we’ve found so far is to wipe everything with vinegar water and then safe the varnish by adding a layer of lemon oil. In rough seas we sometimes wish for a bigger, more stable boat, whenever we do provisioning we’d love to have more lockers, but when fighting the mushrooms we feel that Pitufa’s rather too big for us

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 this weather the colours here are mindboggling: motus so white you think you’ll get snowblind and sparkling turquoise shallow sandbanks dropping off into the darkblue of the lagoon remind us of our time in the Tuamotus, but turning around we see the emerald green forested high islands in the background that we missed during our stay in the low atolls.
This morning we took the kayak out for a snorkeling tour along the bommies that dot the sandbank behind the outer reef and were amazed once again by the crystal clear water, the huge fish swarms and the healthy condition of the corals here. Nature in the Gambier is lucky to have escaped overpopulation, mass tourism and industrialisation so far.

Today we dropped off Christian’s sister on the airport island. After two weeks of activity-filled holidays with snorkeling (her first shark encounters!), kayaking and hiking (up Mt. Mokoto) she has to get back to chilly Europe and for us it’s back to daily routine jobs (quite some maintenance jobs are waiting).

On Sunday we visited Akamaru, the third biggest high island of the Gambier, for the first time (unbelievable, but yes, there are still new corners to discover for us around the archipelago ) and were really impressed. Only three houses are still permanently inhabited (10 houses are used on weekends), most of the population left during the 1950s and the school was closed in the late 60s, but the village is incredibly manicured and decorated with the newly renovated church in white and blue gleaming like a piece of Disneyland
We walked along the mainpath through colourful shrubs and flowers, up to the old cemetery in the forest and chatted with a few friendly people who were enjoying a picknick on the beach and welcomed us ‘to paradise’. This morning we were ready to lift the anchor when a boat on the way to Rikitea got alongside and the people we had met the day before handed up two big bags of tomatoes, pumpkins and reddishes–it’s just impossible not to love Polynesia

We have Christian’s sister visiting at the moment and like usually with guests we enjoy doing the holiday program with hiking, snorkeling and exploring along with her.
We wish everybody who’s reading along with us a happy, interesting, healthy and satisfying year 2015!

Unfortunately our tenants are leaving our flat for a bigger one, so we hope to find new tenants soon. If you know somebody looking for a gorgeous garden flat in Graz, let us know

While we were in Makemo, our 6-year-old batteries suddenly died of old age (not surprising really, we should have changed them when we had the chance in Tahiti, but there was so much else to do, we somehow couldn’t get around to do it…). We had no mobile phone connection in the protected eastern corner of Makemo where we spent most of the time and could only start making phone calls after returning to the village on the first of December. While crossing the lagoon, we got into a thunderstorm, rain splashing down, no visibility, I steered standing on two rubber mats wearing rubber gloves and was still slightly worried about the lightning around us. Everything went fine though, but we later heard that our neighbouring boat that had remained in the anchorage was struck by lightning and lost ALL their electric and electronics!

It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon when I called the two cargo ship offices in Tahiti (only two ships go to the Gambier every 3 weeks) and they told me that one of them was already completely full and the other one would leave the next day and, with some luck, might find a little space for our 3 new batteries (clearly, they’re extra busy before Christmas…). I immediately called the chandleries in Tahiti, found one that had 3 suitable batteries on stock and was willing to send them to the cargo ship–if they would still take them. The next day the mobile network was down in Makemo, so we had to sail off without knowing whether the batteries had made it into a container or not.

We arrived in the Gambier on December 8 at night (slightly scary to rely on blinking buoys and the GPS track in a pitch-black dark night after dusk and before moonrise) and snuggled into our favourite bay on the protected western side of Taravai. The next morning we were really tempted to just clear up the boat in the quiet bay and relax a bit, as the man at the office had assured us that the cargo ship would not arrive until the 14th. Somehow we wanted to double-check though and as there’s no mobile phone connection in that bay we reluctantly lifted the anchor again and sailed towards the village. As soon as the mobile showed some reception bars, I called the office again and was informed that they had changed the schedule–the ship would arrive on the 10th instead (today!!). If we had been delayed by weather/wind or stayed in that bay a day longer, the batteries would be sailing back to Tahiti by now…. Phew!

So we sailed directly to the village, the cargo ship arrived this morning, the batteries were in the second container they opened, they fit nicely into the compartment, Christian installed them immediately and they’re loading already.

We are so used to having to deal with delays and complications whenever we have to order something that we couldn’t quite believe how smoothly everything worked out this time