Pitufa.at » Photo Galleries » Cyclone season 2020/2021 in Raivavae

We wanted to spend a few quiet months in Raivavae to work on projects and to go easy on our elderly ship's cat. We enjoyed a gorgeous summer, had fun with cruiser friends and local friends and found unexpected nature gems. An anti-cruiser campaign led by the protestant priest gave our summer a bit of a bitter after-taste. Not many sailboats make it to Raivavae so his claims they were polluting and destroying the lagoon seemed extreme. We tried our best to explain and improve relationships...

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1/44: We approached Raivavae after a beautiful sail, the last day was calm enough for Leeloo to come up on deck!
2/44: Flying the gennaker is gorgeous...
3/44: ...getting it down a pain ;-)
4/44: Christian's first drone flight!
5/44: A drone gives new and sometimes scary perspectives. The eastern side of Raivavae's lagoon is full of coral heads...
6/44: Drone view of the outer reef
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10/44: A beach BBQ with SY Nomad and SY Garulfo
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15/44: The underwater world was also nice, despite overfishing and coral bleaching...
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18/44: We loved the little uninhabited motu on the eastern side.
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20/44: Raivavae has most probably the prettiest beaches in Fr. Poly
21/44: A few bird motus remain
22/44: We've never before enjoyed such long, calm and sunny phases in the Australs before.
23/44: We decided not to do any passages during this cyclone season and let Leeloo enjoy a quiet time.
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25/44: We were invited to a big wedding, our friend's son got married and the preparations lasted a whole week.
26/44: Banging taro into poi takes a long time.
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28/44: The protestant priest who conducted the ceremony. We were impressed that he tried to protect the last fishies with a traditional ban, a rahui, and less impressed when we heard that he wants to ban all sailboats as well as part of his scheme to protect Raivavae...
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30/44: During the festivitites people tried to keep up social distancing and masks
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32/44: Everybody got to take lots of leftovers home
33/44: A long sandbank off the northern side
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36/44: We hiked up Mt. Hiro twice this year
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39/44: In the SW we found real nature gems with primary forest.
40/44: Only some motus feature bird colonies, all the rest was used to dump cats the locals didn't want anymore...
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42/44: Pisonia grandis is a real survivor, even more fallen or dead trunks one trees sprout...
43/44: Giant clams are abundant in the lagoon, but the locals eat millions of them that can be found in large "graveyards"
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