Pitufa.at

Most cruisers hop quickly through the Tuamotus, only spending a few days on one atoll before heading to the next. We imagine that when they see the first one they think ‘wow, it’s round and flat with coconut palms!’ at the second one ‘aha, round and flat’ and the third ‘hmm, suprise, round and flat’ and so on . We’ve been in Tahanea now for three weeks, exploring around the lagoon and each motu seems actually quite different. Some consist of coral rubble, some are sandy, the vegetation of palm trees, pandanus, catchbird trees, tree heliotrope, grass and smaller shrubs varies quite a bit, some have bird colonies, other lots of coconut crabs–on each excursion we find something new. It’s also nice to have GPS tracks all over the lagoon to anchorages that are protected in different wind directions, so we could safely make our way in an emergency (sudden wind shift) even on an overcast day where the reefs are virtually invisible under the silvery surface of the sea. Today we motorsailed up to the northern reef again, because the weather forecast predicts that a trough will move by soon with the wind clocking round.