Pitufa.at

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 »

Watching reefs bleach and die makes me ashamed to be human. All those fishies looking up at me, the little clown fish trying to seek shelter in his bleached and dying anemone, the chromis in the algae-overgrown skeleton of a staghorn coral–they don’t know why the reefs are dying. But I know. Because of overfishing, erosion, pollution and of course global warming. All caused by… Continue reading »

Exactly one year ago we had to swim for our lives in the ripping current of the southern pass of Matuku after our accident with a local boat. We somehow made it through the surf, somehow managed to hold on to the sunken boat for an hour while waiting for rescue. Poor Maikeli didn’t and today we think of him and his widow and daughter…… Continue reading »

A cruising boat wants constant love and attention–our Pitufa’s no exception. One of the zippers on the sprayhood ripped out yesterday, so we went through our spare material, couldn’t find a new zipper, but at least a sturdy one we had cut out of an old backpack and got out our sewing machine. The problem was as usually not doing the seam, but getting the… Continue reading »

We have only found a handful of islands with seabird colonies in Fiji, so when we heard that little Yabu here in the island cluster just north of Kadavu is a bird sanctuary we were thrilled and wanted to check it out. Locals told us nobody’s allowed ashore (they only go there to pick up the natural fertilizer the birds produce, very clever!) and there’s… Continue reading »