Pitufa.at

French Polynesia has been in a lock-down for three days now. The rules are very strict: people must stay in their homes except for very urgent errands, cruisers are not allowed to go ashore, all water activities are banned, etc. We were able to get some diesel and petrol from the supply ship two days ago, now we are provisioned for several months and won’t… Continue reading »

Measures and restrictions are changing hourly now, nobody quite knows what’s going on between rumours and info. Yesterday we heard that the island nations further west had closed their ports for sailboats (Cook Islands, Tonga), this morning we got an email from a friend that French Polynesia automatically extends visas for those who need them and that sailboats need to stay in quarantine for 14… Continue reading »

Unlike most people who live ashore we are not constantly surrounded by radio and television with hourly news updates. Sometimes we don’t look at news for long periods of time as it’s usually just frustrating to read what’s going on in the world without being able to change anything, so quite often we focus on the big and small worries of our little world here…… Continue reading »

Tahiti used to be a very convenient stop-over for us: once a year we went there to do a gigantic provisioning tour, stock up on spare-parts for the boat and all other things that aren’t available out on the islands. There were several options to anchor, but over the last few years sailboats have been shied out first of Arue and now the big anchorage… Continue reading »

Coral reefs suffer worldwide due to climate change and pollution–during our 6 years in the Pacific we’ve had to watch many reefs die… Here in the Gambier we’ve also witnessed some damage, but there are still areas with 100 % healthy coral and especially this year we see young coral that prove that nature is still fighting and trying to recover. The water temperature is… Continue reading »

Each time we bring a banana-stack aboard a few blind passengers come with it. This way we ‘imported’ some geckos years ago who thrived in the smurfy environment. By now their great-grandchildren roam Pitufa. We don’t know how many we have, but we regularly see small ones in the garden under the sprayhood and adults everywhere inside and outside. Yesterday evening a seriously big and… Continue reading »

Raroia impressed us with its wildlife–it’s among our top 5 atolls between French Polynesia and Tonga. We observed birds around the atoll, tried to estimate numbers and sent those to the ornithologist society SOP Manu in Tahiti. We also got in touch with the school principal and people from the mayor’s office and presented our pictures and findings. The general reaction was surprise and delight–locals… Continue reading »

My Mom was always our biggest fan. I mainly wrote this blog for her, knowing that she’d turn on the laptop each morning, hoping for news or pics to have with her coffee. She was excited with us about wonderful experiences, disappointed and sometimes sad when we discovered harm done to nature. She fiercely defended our alternative lifestyle against whoever challenged her. She visited us… Continue reading »