Today the long promised calm weather finally arrived, already in the morning the seas were mirrorlike calm, so we lifted the anchor (the chain was completely overgrown already after 3 weeks) and motored to the mountainous island Taravai in the west of the lagoon. At first there was still some cloud cover and even drizzle, visibility not so great for spotting reefs, but fortunately the… Continue reading »
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2013
09
Jun
2013
05
Jun
Winterly Gambier
The weather report keeps promising warmer weather, but it never seems to actually arrive here. Winter’s coming here in the southern hemisphere and it feels like it. Yesterday I caught myself whistling ‘jingle bells’… When the sun’s out it’s hot, but the wind blowing from the south’s just icy cold. During the weekend we had constant wind around 25 knots, gusts up to 35 (that’s… Continue reading »
2013
02
Jun
Polynesian Hospitality
We heard and read about the Polynesian hospitality before we came to the Gambier Islands and were curious, whether people would still be friendly and generous to strangers, or whether they were already fed up with too many tourists taking advantage of them. We were positively surprised how alive the Polynesian hospitality still is. Everybody passing on the street greets with a friendly smile, people… Continue reading »
2013
28
May
Our first impressions of French Polynesia
Mangareva is the main island of the Gambier archipelago in the south-east of French Polynesia. Due to their location at the southern fringe of the tropics they have a mixture of tropical and temperate vegetation. The outer reef encloses these handful of islands and protects them from the ocean swell. The lagoon is calm as a lake — an incredible oasis in the middle of… Continue reading »
2013
27
May
Socks-and-soup weather
At the moment a low is passing by south of the Gambier islands sending freezing cold air up here. We’re shivering in temperatures in their low 20s–we’re just no longer used to temperate climates and have dragged the long trousers and hooded sweaters out of their hiding places in the back of the cupboard. Here it’s autumn and we just hope that the winter won’t… Continue reading »
2013
24
May
Pretty Mangareva
During the last week we’ve been trying to catch up with boat projects that have piled up over the past few weeks. We’ve been busy cleaning the waterline (incredible how much grows on a passage and how hard it is to get off), sewing the zipper of the lazy bag, washing and storing sails after the passage, doing the laundry (fortunately there’s a friendly German… Continue reading »
2013
24
May
Garmin GPSmap 4xx — How useful is a mini (4-inch) chartplotter?
On a small sailing yacht, power consumption is a real issue, particularly on passages. A wind generator is typically useless on a downwind course and often the sails shade the solar panels and there might be days with a thick cloud cover. Some electrical devices can be assumed to be running 24 hours a day: the fridge, some instruments (e.g. log, wind, …), a VHF… Continue reading »
2013
23
May
2013
21
May
Pitufa in French Polynesia
Finally we are where we long dreamed to be. We’ll spend the rest of the year exploring the Isles Gambier, maybe some atolls of the Tuamotus, and the Marquesas.
2013
20
May
Rainbow island
The approach to the harbour of Rikitea on the main island of the Gambier archipelago was a bit more exciting than we’d have hoped for being exhausted after 24 days at sea. The wind gusted up to 30 knots when we approached the pass through the outer reef (the archipelago is surrounded by a huge diamond-shaped reef, 20 miles diameter). We had to motor right… Continue reading »
2013
18
May
Arrived!
Arrived. Champagne & tapas. Sooo happy!
2013
17
May
Almost there!
Yesterday the wind got quite strong, in the evening we put the mainsail into the second reef–a wise measure: during the night we had up to 30 knots of wind. The Gambier Islands are just 50 nm away now and in order to arrive there in daylight we now have to deliberately slow down, which feels funny after crawling along for a week wishing for… Continue reading »
2013
16
May
Day 22 and 222 miles to go
We’ve been at sea for 22 days, still have 222 miles to go and expect to arrive in 2 days. We have strong winds now, Pitufa’s rushing fast towards her first South-Sea atoll. We can’t wait to finally get to the Gambier Islands! We’ve started with our ‘French in 30 days’ textbook, Christian’s reached the 3rd lesson, I’m warming up my highschool French and have… Continue reading »
2013
15
May
Rushing downwind!
The whole last week a weak, slow moving front (according to the NOAA forecast) followed us, resulting in fickle winds from different directions and complete calms in between. In the beginning we were glad to get some rest, be able to clean the boat, bake bread, etc., but after a while we got extremely impatient. Being becalmed means either crawling along with flapping, banging sails… Continue reading »
2013
14
May
350 miles to go
For whatever technical reason we could’t post on our blog for a while, but the problem is solved again. Thanks Thomas! After almost a week with light and fickle winds, it seems, according to the forecast, we’ll have good sailing conditions for our remaining 350 miles to go.++++++ Wir konnten fuer eine Weile keine Berichte auf unseren Blog schicken — aus welchem technischen Grund auch… Continue reading »