Pitufa.at

This morning we are getting ready to leave Car o line Atoll. As hobby-ornithologists we enjoyed our stay here immensely–there are not many places left in the Pacific where such big colonies are still nesting. As going ashore is impossible unless the sea’s completely calm we didn’t spend as much time on the motus as we would have liked to, but of course the snorkeling… Continue reading »

Whenever the sea’s not completely calm going ashore is out of question here, so we’ve concentrated on the underwater world for the past few days. The reef looks different from what we’re used to: In the shallow water the coral’s mainly dead (apart from some baby staghorn giving it another try), but between 5 and 10 m and in some places down into the drop-off… Continue reading »

From our anchorage we saw something that looked like a boat far down south inside the lagoon. First we thought it was just some optical illusion with maybe a palmtree and a bush behind it, but with the binoculars it became clear that there was really some kind of boat, but how was that possible with no pass into the lagoon? Was is a wreck… Continue reading »

Today we took the dinghy out to explore some of the motus along the western side of the atoll. At high tide in calm conditions (like now, when there’s hardly any swell from the south or north) it’s easy to paddle the dinghy up the shelf of the outer reef and then on in the shallow water to the motu behind. They are all different:… Continue reading »

If you’re young and you’re hip and you happen to be an adolescent brown booby living on Car o line Island, there’s a new cool place to hang out: Pitufa! This morning when the cat and I climbed up the companionway there were two adolescent brown boobies (clearly recongnizable in their dark-brown feathers) sitting on the solar panel, ogling us suspiciously. They flew away when… Continue reading »

We’ve cleared out, the boat’s ready, the forecast looks like nice light-wind sailing, so we’ll set out from Raiatea in a few hours. It feels strange to leave French Polynesia, but then we know that we’ll come back towards the end of the year

During this southern winter we plan to sail first up north to visit Tongareva/Penrhyn (Cook Islands) and then we want to hop slowly southwards through the Cook Islands chain. By November we want to back in French Polynesia!

Our little girlie turns 18 sometime in July, but we neither have to worry about university choices nor driving licenses… Instead we have to tend to the geriatric needs (special diet food, soft landing areas underneath companion way and sofa that go easy on the back, etc.) of our aging ship’s cat. We wish you many more happy years, Leeloo!