Pitufa.at

During the year we’ve spent here, we saw lots of boats coming in with damages after the passage, had friends waiting here for ages for spare parts, got news from leaving boats who had to limp to Tahiti with broken rudders/masts/etc. We always counted ourselves lucky as Pitufa seemed immune to such mishaps, but now we’ve had bad luck ourselves: on the way to our favourite bay we caught a line in the propeller and did some damage to our shaft bearing. That means we should no longer use the engine to avoid doing more damage and instead of sailing off to the remote and unspoiled islands of the Tuamotus we’ll have to sail directly to Tahiti to haul out and do repairs. Ironically we still have to wait for a packet that will arrive from Tahiti with the supply ship next week, so we have wasted quite some money for the freight, only to transport the packet back to where it came from… Fortunately we know people in Tahiti who are already helping with organising things and helpful crui ser neighbours will assist us getting out of the bay (not quite simple because of the many reefs) without engine. An outhaul was due anyway, it’ll just happen earlier than expected, and the Tuamotus will still be there when we’ve finished the repairs, so the accident means a change of plans, but not the end of the world.