Pitufa.at

Yesterday we explored Ua Pou a bit: we walked up from ‘our’ bay on a little path to the coastal road and then for two hours north, because we wanted to get a view of the gigantic stone spires the island is famous for. Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy, so the highest peaks were hiding from us, but on the other hand the overcast skies saved us from a potential heat stroke on the road. Our initial plan had been to hitch rides, but during our march north not a single car passed by–as soon as we turned back we were lucky though and a pick up came by and gave us a ride. The houses are smaller, the main road isn’t paved and only few people seem to own a car–apparently Ua Pou’s the poor little sister of Nuku Hiva… Today we prepared the boat for the passage south (took the dinghy on deck, flushed the outboard with freshwater, took the mobile solar panel off, baked bread, stored everything savely away etc.), because it seems there’s a favourable weather window during the next week to sail back down to the Gambier. Sailing along the island we got more spectacular views of the sheer cliffs and monoliths of Ua Pou, nevertheless we were happy to leave the island behind, because sailing on the western coast with little wind, but gusts howling down the mountains wasn’t an easy task. Now Pitufa’s stomping ahead slowly–instead of the predicted 12 knots beamreach, we’re facing 18 knots closehauled. Hopefully the wind will change when we get further off the island, to make the ride less bumpy. We haven’t had much luck fishing around the Marquesas, and when the lure went tight this evening we excitedly ran to see what we had caught and were quite shocked to see that a booby (our favourite seabirds) had caught the lure and was being dragged behind the boat underwater. What a horror. We quickly slowed down the boat, got the poor guy up and freed his beak from the hook. Af first he was just lying still, but then he started coughing up water and sat up. After a while he started flapping and we helped him back into the water–hopefully he’ll recover