Pitufa.at

Our blog entries from underway will come to you via old-fashioned SSB and will be automatically sent on to pitufa FB (we haven’t given in to the temptation of Starlink yet, I call it Stinklink because of the air pollution all those rockets taking up satellites cause), so there won’t be any pics while we’re at sea. It looks like a rough, fast passage, should… Continue reading »

In June 2022 we arrived in Fiji, uncertain how long we’d stay, but soon we knew that we’d need plenty of time to explore this beautiful cruising area. We were enchanted by the crazy mushroom-like lime-stone formations of Fulaga and Vanua Balavu and enjoyed the high volcanic islands of the southern Lau group, Kadavu and Loma-i-viti Group. We spent more time in the water exploring… Continue reading »

2 years ago we published how-to articles in several magazines after replacing the plexi windows of our sprayhood. Now it ripped AGAIN–the material we got in Tahiti was just too thin. At least we could look up our own tips and tricks and how to do this without too much swearing (yes, there was still some involved, wrestling 4 metres of resisting sunbrella really isn’t… Continue reading »

Our old, feeble deck lights were no longer working and we found a powerful replacement. Unfortunately the new light is square, while the old one was round… Christian make-shifted a solution, literally fitting a square peg in a round hole 2 trips up the mast and now we have a light strong enough to host a football game on deck! Another task ticked off the… Continue reading »

We were planning to return to Suva in May anyway, but now we are forced to sail there slightly earlier, because our fridge has developed a leak… As soon as we’re back in the capital we have to have that fixed, then an overhauled pump will (hopefully) arrive from the US for our watermaker, we have to fix our sprayhood (the material we got for… Continue reading »

Here in Fiji we quite often encounter sea snakes while snorkeling and watch them foraging for food on coral reefs and heading up to the surface occasionally to take a breath. They are extremely venomous, but fortunately not aggressive and apparently their mouths are too small to bite something as big as a human (maybe a pinky toe would fit, but they are safely hidden… Continue reading »

Many of the anchorages we visit even in remote places are devoid of life, no fish in the water around the boat, hardly any birds to be seen. Therefore we really appreciate lively surroundings, like here in Ovalau: most mornings a group of dolphins swims by in the lagoon, swarms of tiny, silvery fish are skipping over the surface fleeing some larger predator, we hear… Continue reading »

Windy and rainy days are maintenance days on Pitufa. The zipper on our lazybag had broken due to UV exposure–even though we had sewn on a protective flap a while ago: the velcro pads to keep the flap down weren’t big enough, so it got blown open regularly in strong winds and that was enough UV exposure to make the plastic of the zipper brittle.… Continue reading »

This morning we awoke to a perfectly calm lagoon, Pitufa was floating in a sea of turquoise surrounded by coralheads, so Christian took the dinghy out to take some pics of our pretty, little Sparkman & Stephens. Of course there’s laundry on the line–you’ll hardly ever see Pitufa without this kind of decoration When we set out we used to collect used clothes, towels, etc.… Continue reading »

After some sunny summer months we’re having rainy weather (it’s the rainy season after all) and Kadavu’s lagoon gleams in 2 shades of grey instead of the usual 50 shades of blue and green. We are accumulating more and more damp things on the boat without being able to dry them out, below deck it’s steaming with all hatches closed and mould is growing faster… Continue reading »

Even though we only spent a brief time in the Caribbean, we’re still writing for the popular AllAtSea magazine there! January’s issue featured “Never bored aboard” about hobbies while cruising, there was a reminder to “Protect Parrotfish” in the February issue and now I’ve just downloaded the March issue and found our “Ode to the hydrovane” about our tireless helmsman Wayne Vaney You can either… Continue reading »