Pitufa.at

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• Just quickly booking a flight…

  Yesterday we decided to book flights to Austria. Go online, book–easily and quickly done, right? Not so for cruisers: with our wobbly internet connection it took me all afternoon to open sites, compare and finally book two legs simultaneously on two different airline sites (super stressful to juggle dates while keeping both pages busy without a time-out). Got the last two available seats, all done,… Continue reading »

• Makogai

  The past week we’ve had a strong Southeasterly blowing and it came (a bit surprising) with constant rain and grey weather. We sat out the nasty weather at the little island Makogai, a former leper colony. Until 1969 patients were isolated here and a few buildings remain. Now there’s a marine station on the island and we were thrilled to visit it and find out… Continue reading »

• 11 years on Pitufa

  This week we have our 11th cruising anniversary. Incredible how time flies… In 2011 the three of us we set out with little experience and big dreams. Lots of those have come true, but there’s many more out there and we keep chasing the horizon

• Sail repair days

  On the way here the mainsail chafed badly on the spreaders while it was flogging in light-wind conditions. One of the batten pockets got chafed through–smack in the middle of the sail, impossible to repair with our machine, as we cannot roll up the rest of the sail small enough to fit in. We prefabricated the batten pocket with the machine, but then had to… Continue reading »

• Arrived!!

  The passage ended as it began–with fickle winds and lots of sail changes. On our slowest day we only did 78 nautical miles, on the fastest 150 We had quite a few hours with only 6 knots of breeze and an interesting hour with 35 knots gusting up to 43 when a front passed over us. All good now, we arrived yesterday, the friendly officials… Continue reading »

• Cook Islands Cruising Info

  Good news, the Cook Islands are opening up for cruisers again! As of current travel info May 1st, 2022, sailboats can visit, but the check-in is only possible in the main island Rarotonga so far. Check the official government page for updates and details http://www.mfem.gov.ck/customs/arrival-and-departure-information-for-marine-crafts. And here’s the link to a pdf with the full law text. The form CICS 29: Advance Notice Of Arrival… Continue reading »

• Galapagos sharks

  I enjoyed hanging out with those cute and nosy sharkies so much that I decided to get one!

• DIY: How to replace sprayhood windows

  Birgit Hackl, Christian Feldbauer: Replacing the windows on the dodger, All At Sea Caribbean, May 2022, p. 46–50. Download the whole magazine for free.

• Lack of nature protection in French Poly

  Reading and watching the news you’d think French Polynesia was a nature paradise. Almost each week the president, PEW and other organisations announce new protection zones in the Pacific around Fr Poly , rahui areas around islands (traditional bans) and anchoring bans for the nastiest polluters–us cruisers. Turtles have been protected for a long time, the same goes for sharkies. Unfortunately that’s just theory: protected… Continue reading »

• Making friends and enemies

  Each morning we read the news and each morning we get upset about how we humans treat our planet. We can’t change those global issues, we can only try to make a small difference starting with ourselves. We tend to go one step further and address behaviour that we witness in our little world (e.g. anchoring in coral, disturbing bird colonies, treating remote places as… Continue reading »

• Waiting

  After we had to interrupt our passage because of the broken track on the mast, the repair was rather quickly done, but we had missed our weather window. We need really stable weather for the 1.900 nautical miles to Fiji and it’s rare to find a weather window that actually lasts 2 weeks and goes all the way. Before Covid we could have stopped in… Continue reading »

• Read Online: Article in Cruising World “Know your Weather”

  Christian Feldbauer, Birgit Hackl: KNOW YOUR WEATHER, Cruising World, April 2022. Read the online version of this article.

• Damage underway

  During a 30 knot squall the track for the genoa pole got ripped out of the mast–incredible with what extreme forces a sailboat has to deal, the big foresail is over 60 m2… No way we could manage the downwind trip without a genoa pole. We have to interrupt our trip for repairs.

• Nana (good-bye) French Polynesia!

  After wonderful nine years year we are on our way to new adventures–Fiji, we are coming! Watch video here on www.pitufa.at winken_drohne

• Pitufino

  Pitufino is a nav data Wi-Fi gateway, NMEA multiplexer/converter and pilot controller. It translates between nav devices from different generations and talks straight to your smart phone, tablet and laptop. Turn your mobile into + fully featured nav instruments + an engine dashboard + an auto pilot remote control + an anchor watch. Have it all under control from anywhere on your boat! Learn more… Continue reading »