Pitufa.at

On Friday the primer was sprayed on, during the weekend we did the first two layers of antifouling, so now Pitufa’s battleship grey and blue. The primer has nicely dried over the weekend, today the painter does some more fairing, tomorrow we’ll hopefully get the paint sprayed on and Pitufa will turn white on the topsides and we’ll do two more layers of black antifouling. In the meantime christian sweats in the bilge installing new sea valves and general plumbing, i assist and try to get my normal ‘boathold’ duties done in between (laundry in a bucket, baking bread, etc.).

During our first visits to boatyards Leeloo was horrified by all the loud machines and many people, by now she knows the routine and hangs out in the cockpit while the travellift thunders by…

Today the first two coats of primer will be (hopefully) sprayed on. In order to protect the rest of the boat we had to spread a layer of plastic all around the toe-rail and up to the life lines. Weirdly enough, there’s never enough proper scaffolding in a boatyard, instead we have to pile up differently sized blocks of wood put planks on top and hope for the best while balancing up there in 2 or even 4 m height…
We used up quite some plastic foil, masking tape and nerves with one of us standing on rickety make-shift scaffolding and the other one leaning over the railing and fixing straps of masking tape on the wildly fluttering foil (yep, of course there was a stiff breeze blowing). Keep your fingers crossed that it won’t rain on the primer!!

We hauled the boat out on Friday and started work immediately. We want to do a new antifouling as usual, but after more than 10 years the paint on the topsides has started cracking in places and so we have decided to have a professional painter spray it newly to get Pitufa all shiny and pretty again. Of course the old paint has to come off first, the cracks need fairing and so we are sanding and grinding all day long to prepare the hull for the painter. There’s a dozen additional jobs on the list and we’ve taken off the windvane and the swimming ladder, made a new through-hull, etc. etc. The weather has been a bit unstable with tropical downpours in between, despite the claims of meteo.pf that it was ‘cool, breezy and sunny’, so we hope for more settled weather when the paintwork starts.
I’m writing this blog at 6 in the morning, my shoulders and arms hurt from working the orbital sander all day long and the first sounds of workers arriving come up from the yard. It’s gonna be another hard day on the hard

After almost a month of boat projects in Tahiti we’d love to take a few days off, but we have an apointment to haul out in Raiatea on Friday, so we have to set sails towards the Iles sous le vent today. The forecast predicts a stiff breeze, so we count on a rough, but fast ride. Leeloo has already got some seasickness drops and we’re just busy with last preparations. 130 nm to go!

Last Monday we thought it’d be a clever idea to quickly add another battery to have 500 Ah instead of 400. The batteries live under the pilot berth which serves as storage, so all those boxes went into the saloon. It turned out that the additional battery didn’t fit into the plastic box we had intended for it, so Christian decided to custom-make a fiberglass container.

In order to reach the fiberglass kit we had to empty half of the forecabin (our second storage space) into the saloon and he didn’t quite finish the project on Tuesday.

On Wednesday we had a long before reserved rental car, so we went shopping and added a car-load of shopping bags to the saloon chaos.

On Thursday I stowed away the provisioning while Christian wanted to finish the battery project. When he turned on the soldering iron, a crackling sound and smoke announced the death of our inverter (the device that turns 12 V from the batteries into 230 for electric devices). I hitchhiked to town and visited all chandleries searching for a new inverter. I finally found one, but it was too late to do the paperwork in order to get it taxfree (for a yacht in transit), so I was told to ‘simply’ come back the next morning.

On Friday I hitched another ride to town, while Christian got the old inverter out. In order to install the new inverter (under the nav-table, not exactly easy to reach and work there) we had to take out all drawers from the nav-table, so 3 drawers filled up with tools ended in the saloon and we spent the rest of the day fiddling with cables in places that only a midget on a stick could reach.

Today is Saturday and we finished the inverter installation (drawers back in, hurray!), closed up the battery bank (yippieh, two matresses and 10 boxes out of the way), turned the forecabin back into storage space (yeah, there goes the rest of the boxes), vacuum-cleaned and wiped the floors and now we can finally sit down in the saloon again!

When we were in Tahanea (atoll in the Tuamotus) we were horrified to see that Copra production had started on some of the few remaining bird motus. Last year we had tried to convince the mayor of Faaite (the neighbouring atoll to which Tahanea belongs) to turn the southwestern motus into a protected zone. No success.
This year we met the family who owns and uses the motus in the South while they were there to collect, open and dry coconuts. We visited them a few times and tried to make friends. We made a list of why protecting the wildlife on their motus would be of advantage for them and how they could make much more money with alternative ideas than the little they get for copra, e.g.
-installing moorings next to the pass and charge for them (we would provide them with material and help with the installation
-organising excursions for tourists to the motus (snorkeling, bird watching)
-organising traditional meals for tourists
-building an eco-lodge sometime in the future
-etc., etc

After some intial hesitation the father and his three sons seemed genouinely interested and they promised to talk with their family once they had returned to Faaite and to contact us.

Last week the phone rang and we were excited–such quick news had to be good ones! Disappointment followed quickly when the father explained that his oldest son (whom we had not met) had decided that our plans and ideas were ‘for women’ while ‘real men make copra’. The destruction of natural vegetation and quiet habitats for many species of birds will go on for a few bucks…

Ever since we arrived in Tahiti we’ve spent half of the time running around to get things and the other half to install them. Nothing’s ever straightforward, usually some little missing bit comes up during repairs/maintenance/installation and the next day is spent hitch-hiking to machine shops to have something altered or made. We’re making progress though, even though Pitufa keeps looking like a building site. The problem with living on a boat while repairing things is that you constantly live in chaos…

This morning we were ready to leave, but then we got the latest weather forecast and started to struggle with the decision: instead of steady winds we’d have a squally night followed by light winds for a day… In the end we decided to stay for another two days and set out with hopefully more settled weather on Wednesday. In the meantime we’ve sailed down to the little bird island in the lagoon, where we’re now bouncing in winds from the NE (and not E as predicted). We see it as preparation for the passage

Today we are getting Pitufa into passage-mode–always an tedious job after an extended period in a lagoon. Big jobs like washing and storing the kayak, getting the dinghy on deck and preparing poles for a downwind-course are obvious, but there’s dozens of other tiny chores like declattering cupboards, baking bread, baking cake as a passage-treat, wiping the floors, (we sleep on a mattress on the floor during passages), preparing fishing gear, cleaning the cat’s toilet etc. etc. Additionally Christian’s servicing a genoa winch, to make sure everything will run smoothly.

We are reluctant to leave our favourite atoll, especially as we’ll have to deal with orders, repairs and shopping in Tahiti and then a haul-out in Raiatea. We’ll leave tomorrow morning as the forecast promises steady southeasterlies. 290 nm to go!

We have moved on to the westernmost anchorage on the southside of Tahanea to check out the last of the three bird-motu clusters. Fortunately this spot remains untouched, boobies are circling the two little motus and preparing for the next nesting season. Only few palmtrees grow here, so apparently they weren’t worth making copra here.

A long white sand-bank stretches out from the motu towards the anchorage and we used to collect shells on the snow-white sands. Yesterday we collected 6 buckets of plastic rubbish and burned it. Of course that’s not even a measurable part of the plastic wave that suffocates the Pacific, but that’s all we could do for the moment. If everybody started with themselves and did as much as they can do (even if it’s just a little bit) the world would be a better place.
Another advantage: I have quite sore muscles on my thighs and bum today from all that bending down to pick up rubbish, so protecting the environment’s good for a trim figure!