Pitufa.at

When the anchor drops after a long passage, but the boat keeps pitching and rolling merrily, you know you’ve arrived in the Marquesas… Unlike the other archipelagos of Fr. Poly, these islands have no protecting fringe reefs and their coasts and bays are open to the waves and mighty swell of the Pacific. During El Nino years they are supposed to be safely out of… Continue reading »

Onyl 75 miles to go, so we hope to arrive in Nuku Hiva tomorrow morning.

Today we have got a nice ESE-erly breeze and are on a direct course to Nuku Hiva. 190 miles to go on a course of 19 deg. Summer is coming and we are sailing towards the equator — it’s getting incredibly hot…

The light winds continued. This morning it was calm enough to take a bath in the Ocean (while holding on to the ladder). Now we are on the way north towards the Marquesas.

After a night of very light winds the dreaded calm finally got us this morning and we ended up motoring (the waves were still too high to just sit on the water…). After a few hours the engine died–the clogged fuel line was fortunately easy to find and clear. Now we’ve just got enough of a breeze to keep Pitufa sailing again with 2 to… Continue reading »

The forcasts claim, there is no wind today, but we are riding 20+ knots from the SE. Wild, but definitely better than motoring.

We are out at sea again. Not much wind at the moment in this area, so we hope it will pick up soon.

We arrived today in Ahe and anchored off the village in the South of the small atoll. Work on the giant Mahi Mahi we pulled in just before the pass is still in progress. It took us two days for a distance we easily could do in less than one in the right winds…

It’s slow going, tacking so close-hauled. To make 70 nm as the bird flies we’ve had to sail over 100 since yesterday. First it was very squally with Pitufa heeling down to the toe-rail in the gusts. Of course the fishing line snapped tight during one of these squalls, Christian had a hard time pulling the medium sized Bonito in while trying not to fall… Continue reading »

We left Tikehau at noon, the destination is yet unknown. We will see how far east the wind (on the nbose) will allow us to go.

After we had left Bora Bora, we slogged in two tedious days of sailing very slowly, as close-hauled as possible in light winds to Raiatea and then on to Huahine. On the way to Huahine we considered heading on straight to the Tuamotus, but the weatherforecast predicted fickle winds, so we decided to stop once more. We were lucky to do so, because 4 miles… Continue reading »

After two days close-hauled sailing (crawling along walls rather than walking on the floor…) we’ve reached Tikehau.

After a few complications we are finally on our way to the Tuamotus. We hope the wind will last.