Pitufa.at

I took the boat to a calmer anchorage on Saturday, thought I was doing a nice single-handed manoeuvre, but then the little rollbar behind the windlass that keeps the chain under control while it rushes out broke and all 70 m of chain rattled out high speed. Fortunately I was far away from the reef, but still not happy and feeling quite ill on top. Shortly after the harbour masters boat came by to shy me away–apparently this anchorage is now off limits…
After some arguing they let me stay, then friends came by and helped with the windlass repair, so all fine again.

This morning Christian and my Mom finally arrived, tired after 50 hours of journey and without their 4 suitcases–the luggage had been lost somewhere along the way.

Now we’re anchored off the airport in nice turquoise water, watching planes coming and going. Hopefully one of them will bring the missing luggage soon

After 3 weeks alone here in Taina, Christian and my Mom were scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning. Now I’ve just got an email that their flight from Vienna was cancelled, they were rebooked for the following day…

Here it’s grey and rainy after a 2 months of stable, sunny weather and a 3 m swell is forecast to arrive this evening. I’ve fallen victim to the constant air-conditioning-attack in Tahiti and feel feverish with a sore throat…

Since Christian flew to Austria last week, it’s just us 3 girls here (counting Leeloo and of course Pitufa). Life in Taina has been productive and quiet so far, but last night a 3m southwesterly swell arrived around midnight and made an end to our calm lifestyle. The reef that protects the anchorage isn’t very wide and swell turns the lagoon into a chaotic witches’ cauldron. At 3 in the morning Leeloo and I moved into our seaberth, now we’re still bouncing like a cork doing whitewater rafting.

I have to write this blog with one hand, because the cat insists that I stabilise and pet her with the other hand. Whenever I stop I get a taunting meeow. She obviously blames me for not turning off the stupid pitching, rolling and corkscrewing. I considered moving to a better anchorage, but doing single-handed manoeuvres in crowded anchorages is too much of a hassle and the swell is already supposed to go down in the evening.

Christian’s finger still looks a bit like Frankenstein’s monster, but it’s healing. The stitches will come out on Monday…

Today we wanted to fill up with diesel, but as Christian can’t really use his right hand at the moment we couldn’t follow our usual routine with me at the wheel and Christian at the bow. Instead he was at the helm and I had to get up the anchor chain (a messy business on Pitufa as it doesn’t fall straight into the locker, but has to be transported hand over hand from the windlass and into the locker behind). It’s good to switch roles from time to time anyway to be familiar with all jobs on the boat, so we saw that manoeuvre as valuable practice.

At the fuel dock we were told that they were out of diesel(!), so we anchored a bit further down from Marina Taina in the channel where we should be better protected from the SW swell that will turn the anchorage off Marina Taina into a witches cauldron (from tonight on until Friday evening).

We spent the last two days on the Southern side of Tahanea, checking out the bird motus there and counting nesting couples as we always do. There seem to be less every year, too many visiting locals (from Faaite) and cruisers drive them away…

It’s always hard to leave the Tuamotus and head towards the hustle and bustle of Tahiti, but we have to make some orders, organise some repairs, do tons of shopping and Papeete’s just a very convenient place for all that.
We’re just sailing towards the pass of Tahanea and then we’ll head downwind to Tahiti. 300 nm to go!

We’ve just had a perfect week here in Tahanea with sunny skies and mellow conditions. We snorkeled the pass a few times and had close encounters with manta rays that were feeding in the current. Back home we were greeted by our gang of blacktip reef sharks, who hang out around boats hoping for scraps. Whenever we caught a fish the shark feeding from the stern of the boat was quite a spectacle. Fortunately they calm down quickly after such a feeding frenzy and we could hop in and swim with them again. They are only between 1 m and 1.5 m, so humans are clearly not on their menu list