Pitufa.at

The only way to be really comfy in an open anchorage like in Honiara is to be huddled in a protected corner with the bow pointing into swell, so that’s what we did for our last two visits to the capital of the Solomons.
I used to dread manoeuvres with Pitufa (no bow thruster, long fin keel, huge prop), but with lots of practicing I learned to handle her (with all her peculiarities). Now people actually comment on our quick and efficient manoeuvres when bringing out stern anchors or doing a med mooring

Doing a med-style mooring isn’t hard: We do a circle of the area to check depths and attachment options, check where neighbouring boats may have their chains and anchors, watch the swell and plan the angle of alignment to avoid rolling. We launch the dinghy and then we drop the hook on the GPS mark I set on our reconaissance round. We set the anchor in gentle reverse in the direction we want to be facing for swell alignment, then Christian pays out lots of chain (enough to allow me to get close to the sea wall) and I slowly steer Pitufa in reverse (correcting the angle with forward impulses) on the line we’ve decided on.
Christian gets the dinghy ready and pulls a rope towards the shore, quickly hops up to tie the line while I do my best to keep Pitufa in place. I watch the rope, make sure the bitter end remains on Pitufa and tie it to a cleat as soon as Christian is done with the knot ashore.

Once Christian is back aboard he pulls up chain again and we optimise tension between stern line and anchor chain to be nicely aligned. In Honiara we brought out a second stern line to the neighbouring wreck of a fishing boat, to be able to adjust the angle we were facing and avoid rolling in swell.
The whole manoeuvre takes about 10 minutes and with some practicing it works smoothly even in rough conditions
What’s really helpful is the fact that we have 40 m of floating line on a drum on the stern that can easily unravels while Christian pulls it from the dinghy. A floating line also reduced resistance in the water, so steering the dinghy is easier!

Smurfy welcomed today’s oh-no-fishy aboard! Why oh-no-fishy? Because we never catch one when it’s convenient…
Today we were sailing goose-winged through an uncharted area full of reefs with the help of sat pics and just as a squall hit, the genoa got backwinded and rain was suddenly pouring into an open hatch, this king mackerel decided to bite! Smurfy didn’t care about the brouhaha and I spent the rest of the boisterous passage processing fish. Glad to be at anchor now!

I can highly recommend hydrocolloid plasters for the onboard pharmacy. They are ideal for cruisers as they seal off a (clean uninfected) wound perfectly from dirt, flies, bacteria and you can even go snorkeling with them. They were readily available in French Poly, but not in Fiji or Vanuatu and even in Austria I had to order them at the pharmacy and the ones I got there weren’t as waterproof. When I was in Australia 2 weeks ago I stocked up on the brand we remembered from Fr Poly: Duoderm–they are waterproof for hours of snorkeling and feel just like a second layer of skin…
After I removed the stitches from my knee 2 weeks after surgery, I put such a hydrocolloid plaster on the scar and when it came off a week later, the scar had fully healed underneath that protective layer. I took that pic yesterday, exactly 3 weeks after surgery

After a long waiting time for us, finally a visiting vet came to the vet-less clinic in Honiara and we used the chance to take Smurfy for a vaccination boost AND to have him neutered. People were assuring us that he’ll be tamer without testosterone in his system, but I have my doubts as he was more aggressive as a kitten than he’s now as a grown cat.
Anyway, we hope for the best!
He got into watchdog mode as soon as we got back into the harbour of Honiara. So close to the shore, wrecks, neighbours and passing traffic he’s anxious all day long and tends to make up for his insecurity by biting us–just to assure himself that he’s a big boy.
title="WhatsApp Image 2025-07-29 at 21.24.40" width="500" height="888" class="alignleft size-large wp-image-9016" />

The last time he saw roads, traffic and lots of people was last year when we took him to the vet as a baby, so he was really scared when we went ashore this time and just hid in his box.

Arrived at the vet he was horrified by all the meowing and barking patients–our big bully turned into a small kitten again…

We had to leave him at the clinic in the morning and were only allowed to pick him up in the evening. He was fine, everything went well and after a day in hell with anasthesia, pain, howling neighbours, no food and pee-wet newspaper in his cage he was the happiest cat on earth when he got back home to Pitufa. He hopped up his ladder, ran to his food bowl, polished off half a can of tuna and forgot completely to be angry with us

Ever since we set out sailing we’ve relied on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for weather info and warnings. But NOAA data and warnings on storms, earthquakes, climate, etc. are not just important for sailors, but for everyone around the world. That’s why the orange administration thought it was a great idea to cut their staff and budget brutally down.
Yesterday there was a massive earthquake off Kamchatka and islands and countries around the Pacific were threatened by a possible tsunami. We’re on the NOAA email list and received an initial warning just an hour after the earthquake, followed by hourly updates. They predicted 1-3 m waves for CHILE… COSTA RICA… FRENCH POLYNESIA… GUAM… HAWAII… JAPAN… JARVIS ISLAND… JOHNSTON ATOLL… KIRIBATI… MIDWAY ISLAND… PALMYRA ISLAND… PERU… SAMOA… AND SOLOMON ISLANDS.
We’ve received such warnings before and they usually were downgraded before the wave arrived, so we remained in our anchorage, but were ready to leave for the safety of deep water in case of reports of massive tsunamis from islands closer to the epicentre than the Solomons. We kept googling, found some news pieces from Japan (50 cm) and eventually Hawaii (up to 2 m), but no official reports from NOAA that we (and many other worried people) were waiting for. There must be hundreds of weather stations and buoys out there–how is it possible, that in our super-modern, connected world such data isn’t readily available in case of emergency?
We think the reason might be budget cuts…
In the end it was a non-event in the Solomon Islands, we didn’t notice anything odd and when the NOAA numbers finally came in (long after the wave had passed), Honiara (the capital of the Solomons) was mentioned with a 10 cm wave. We’re relieved, but still worried about the lack of information flow.

We don’t see many sea birds here, but when anchored close to shore the chorus of birds consists of an amazing array of different voices! The most raucous and visible are the groups of white cockatoos that flit from tree to tree and always seem to have something to quarrel or chat about. We hear lots of different warblers and pigeons, but they mostly remain hidden in the dense foliage of the forest here. In some remote areas we got lucky and saw hornbills–incredibly impressive, large birds. Long before you actually see them you hear the THWUMP THWUMP of their wings–almost like a helicopter!
Here’s a tame hornbill we met in PNG

There are different kinds of parrots around, here a tame couple that lives in Simon’s nature reserve

Both the hornbill and the parrots are free to fly around, but come when called in the hope of getting some goodies

While I was in hospital with the staph infection Smurfy gave me (okay, indirectly as the bacteria entered the blood through a Smurfy scratch) he thought it was a cool idea to pee on my bed, so Christian (who was overwhelmed by the boathold already) spent a day washing sheets and pillows. Fortunately the mattress cover was due to be replaced anyway–we had bought the material in Vanuatu last year and never got round to changing the top side. So yesterday we washed and reused the lower part of the cover (it’s a crazy shape), pinned the top piece in place, then I sewed two sides with the machine, we gently stuffed the soft latex mattress in and then I spent the rest of the afternoon stitching the remaining two sides by hand..
As the sewing machine was out, I remade the mosquito screens today–vital to have tight-fitting screens in an area with malaria.
Smurfy supervised all projects as usually, helping paws always in the way… How can anybody be such a monster and still look so cute and innocent?

Still standing! Battered, swollen, but happy to be back home and out of the dirty harbour of Honiara. 1 week since the surgery to clean out an abscess on my kneecap after a staph infection from a little scratch on my ankle… 6 more days, then we can get the stitches out and I’m allowed to dip into the Pacific!

The western Pacific islands are notorious for bacterial infections. Despite constant disinfecting one of my many Smurfy scratches got infected while we were working at Simon’s Nature Reserve.
A nasty bug got into my bloodstream, chills, fever and then my knee spontaneously went melonsized.
A day later (July 2) we went back to Honiara, antibiotics IV at BS Medical, ultrasound at Frontier radiology–thanks to all the doctors and nurses who tried their best to help me. When the infection persisted after a week (and most of my veins had been burned and clogged by cloxacillin IVs) we got worried that we were dealing with MRSA resistant bacteria and they don’t have antibiotics for that in the Solomons.
After a call to our insurance I hobbled on the next flight to Brisbane on July 9, took a taxi to the emergency of Royal Brisbane and Women’s hospital and was admitted after a few hurdles. Clindamycin antibiotics soon kicked in, but the doctors still recommended surgery to clean the abscess that had formed on my kneecap.
The lovely surgical team played Rage against the machine for me and let me watch the procedure, but I was still surprised that they insisted on a 4 cm incision instead of minimal invasive–maybe they thought a Solomon-style procedure was more fitting for a tough island girl…

I saw the wound for the first time two days after surgery, looking all dry and clean, but huge. Yet another story my scarred, knobbly knee can tell. The new one’s going straight across an old gravel rash from when I was 16 and went too fast around a curve on my moped, to the right the one from when a piece of cliff came off with me in french poly and on the outer left when I slipped from a rock searching for dear little Leeloo in the bush.

I was so happy to be walking almost without a limp when I got out of hospital the same day– half an hour later migraine, nausea, cold sweat. All symptoms disappeared as soon as I lay down and came back when I got back up. Did some reading: cerebrospinal fluid leakage from a needle puncturing the system during a spinal block. Called the hospital, the hospital who said I could come into the emergency and sit there for a few hours to get admitted, or rest at home and call an ambulance if it gets worse. I went for the latter and today it’s getting better. Can’t anything ever be straightforward with me??

I’ve just finished a short summary of our visit to the Eastern and Northeastern Islands of PNG. This area used to be quite popular, but for the last decade rumours of violence and crime (that are certainly true for parts of the mainland) have kept sailboats kept away. We enjoyed the little islands very much and would like to encourage more cruisers to visit–the islanders would be happy to have more visitors coming to their stunningly beautiful anchorages
Here’s our short cruising info

The season-start discount is coming to an end–just one more week
Order your Pitufino now and get 15% discount!
There’s a brandnew model out: Pitufino V1.2 comes with analogue inputs, digital outputs and Victron ports for battery monitors, etc.
More info on the Pitufino webpage

… and the last 14 of these years 24/7 365 aboard our Pitufa–I suppose these count double??
We got lucky and found each other as teenagers, so we got to grow (up) together

We’ve been busy all week, but now the solar installation for Simon is finished!
Christian (and plenty of helping hands) mounted 3 of our used panels together to have one big panel

Then Simon’s brother Charles built a post where the panel will have a maximum of sunshine

Then we had to lead a mighty long cable high up to keep it safe from playing kids and scratching chickens

And install charger, inverter and battery in Simon’s house for communal use

All done, the lights went on and people can charge their gadgets

We ordered a new chain and new solar panels from Australia and had them sent to a freightforwarding company and they were meant to send them here on a containership. Sounds simple, but it turned into an epic story when OPFL in Brisbane after being super responsive suddenly no longer reacted to emails or calls. Just when we were convinced that they had sold all our stuff on ebay they got in touch again–apparently it’s a one-woman business and that woman was in hospital for a while and nobody put our things on the ship we had agreed on. In the meantime two other ships had left, but finally our things set out on their trip and arrived with just a month delay in Honiara. BJS (the company that works together with OPFL got them through customs and delivered quickly and efficiently AND they gave us a mighty discount to make up for the long waiting time. Instead of the 300 Euros we expected, we only had to pay 170 Euros–a real bargain for half a cubic meter on a containership!
So despite the nerve-racking waiting time we can still recommend BJS in Honiara and their freight forwarding partner OPFL in Brisbane.
All things arrived without damage and even without a discount it’s a real bargain. You should definitely not order with them if you’re in a hurry, impatient or tend to nervous break-downs.

We’ve just spent 3 days on Honiara’s dusty roads chasing parts for the mooring and solar installation and of course we’ve done some more provisioning for ourselves. Once again everything went fine, nothing got stolen and yesterday we sailed over to Simon’s bay again! We didn’t get much sleep in the loud and rolly anchorage in Honiara and this time Christian caught a big-city bug, so today we’re just sorting through the chaos and cleaning up the boat, but soon we’ll get to work
Simon went to Honiara with us to (hopefully) get help for his chronic bronchitis and asthma at the hospital. The plan was to take him back home yesterday on Pitufa, but he’s still getting some treatment there this week. At least we can now call him, because we’ve already given him his new smart phone
Thanks again to Cornelia, Martin, Josef, James, Kristi and Jon for their donations!!