Pitufa.at

Today around noon we passed our half-distance mark.
After a very comfy and quiet first half of the night we passed from dark cloud to dark cloud with gusty wind and drizzle. This morning the sea was high again and confused. It’s a scary view when an especially steep and high blue mountain looms up over Pitufa’s side. It seems certain that the wave will wash over the deck and into the cockpit, but at the last moment Pitufa gracefully lifts and the wave slides harmlessly by–some spit a bit of spray into the cockpit as if angry that they didn’t make it inside.
We know that in Pitufa we have a capable, seaworthy and trustworthy boat. Whenever I get worried when the wind picks up I think back to our very first sailing trip. We had bought Pitufa in Mallorca and sailed her–just the three of us–across the Med to Croatia. Off the coast of Albania the wind increased more and more from the northwest (where we wanted to go), to a point that sailing against the elements became impossible. After fighting for 2 days we hove to, looking the procedure up in our storm tactics book first. As predicted Pitufa turned 50 degrees to the wind with a double reefed mainsail and the rudder working against each other, she stayed in a stable position. We collapsed still in our foul weather gear on the floor in the saloon. After 15 minutes I decided to go up to take a look around, under deck I thought that wind and waves had subsided, it seemed rather calm. Up in the cockpit it became clear that the waves had become even higher and steeper with the wind howling like a girl’s choir in the rigg with 45 knots. I thought I’d pee myself looking up at the steep 4 m waves that tried to crush us, but Pitufa held her bow into the wind, lifted with every slope and let the waves slam sideways into her belly. With a surge of pride in our brave boat I went back under deck, feeling oddly safe and protected in the middle of the gale.
Pitufa’s faithfully carried us around half the world already and now she’s carrying us towards our first south-sea paradise: 1450 nm done 1450 to go!