Pitufa.at

Last week we had lots of fabulous encounters with boisterous, curious, cute “teenager” birds–cute brown boobies. On most inhabited atolls of the Tuamotus there are no more ground nesting birds and even here on uninhabited Tahanea too many visiting copra workers (but also thoughtless cruisers) have shied away nesting couples from many of the motu on the remote side of the atoll. This year we… Continue reading »

We sent this article in for Leeloo’s 20th birthday, but it took a while to get published Birgit Hackl: Cruisin’ with a Cat, Cruising World, November/December 2021.

We don’t want to fish and forage in the Tuamotus, so we buy lots and lots of provisioning before heading out. Making dinner plans we don’t ask “What do we fancy?”, but rather “What has to go next?” That doesn’t mean that we’re not cooking gourmet meals though. A few days ago one of the zucchini was getting squishy (resulting in zucchini risotto), then an… Continue reading »

The convergence zone keeps annoying us… One sunny day is followed by a grey, rainy one. Two days ago we sailed south across the lagoon for SE winds (which actually showed up), today we sailed N again close-hauled for predicted NE winds–we’ll see Due to the success of our travel book in German, I’ve decided to translate it into English. I started on “Towards the… Continue reading »

Nonos (tiny little sandflies, not much bigger than 1mm) were “imported” to French Polynesia with the sand ballast tall ships carried. They are known to roam the Marquesas and make many beaches off limits–mosquito repellent doesn’t bother them and the only protection seems to be a layer of coconut own (thick enough to drown them in it…). Unfortunately they are still spreading: sand is transported… Continue reading »

We just saw that one of our articles is on the online version of the Cruising World Magazine. Click here to read about home-brewing on a boat!

The Compass is another popular magazine (next to AllAtSea) that’s available for free in all the bigger chandleries throughout the Caribbean. We are therefore happy that they have published our article with tips and tricks to keep feline crew happy! Download the magazine here

Relying on other people’s waypoints for both anchorages and passage routes can be dangerous. Cruising blogs and compendia are full of bad or incomplete recommendations and generalizations from one-sample observations. It’s much safer to do proper research and practice the necessary skills to do your own route planning and make your own waypoints… Birgit Hackl, Christian Feldbauer: Waypoints–Boon or Bane?, All At Sea Caribbean, November… Continue reading »

The South Pacific Convergence Zone is having some fun with us at the moment. Its tail end is pointing towards French Polynesia and it seems the weather people are finding it impossible to predict how it will behave. The American GFS model and the European model predict completely contradicting wind wind directions and what we get in the end is usually not predicted by either… Continue reading »

Most people will agree that mass tourism is bad for the environment (except CEOs of big hotel companies maybe), because of all the pollution that comes with it. A certain amount of eco-aware tourism on the other hand really helps protecting nature. As soon as wild animals become a tourist attraction and the locals get some dollars out of that, they will refrain from killing… Continue reading »