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 take about 4 days to Anatom.
500 nm to go!

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 reefs than anywhere else before (underwater was the best place to be during the hot summer months) and helped install a marine reserve on the island of Matuku.
We got incredibly lucky and didn’t experience any strong winds during our 2 cyclone seasons here–of course we had a plan for the worst case scenario and cyclone holes to run to, but never needed them.
What made our time in Fiji so special though, are the fabulous people we met: Vinaka vaka levu (thanks a lot) to our families in Matuku, Ono and Fulaga! We really enjoyed your hospitality and friendship. Let’s keep in touch, we’ll come back to Fiji at some point!!
Vinaka vaka levu for all the lunches and hikes to Tiko, Penina and the girls in Matuku!


Vinaka vaka levu to Cama, Tuni, Tui and everybody who helped with the Tabu marine reserve!

We had lots of fun with Waqa, Marica and Sai! Vinaka!!


All the best to Maika and Mata in Fulaga!


Vinaka vaka levu to all the other fabulous people who made us feel so welcome here!!

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 fun). The trick is to leave the old windows in, sew on the new ones and THEN take out the old material to make sure you don’t lose the shape.
Here’s the magic moment when the old window comes off and reveals the shiny new one!

We spent 2 days replacing all 5 windows this week, but this time with 0.75 mm that will hopefully last a long time!
BTW, our DIY instructions on this kind of job and many more can all be found in our book “Cruising Know-How” on Amazon

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 preparations list

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 the window repair in Tahiti was too thin, so we have to do it again after just 2 years), the wind instrument on the mast no longer works and has to come down and then we have to do a last shopping round, prepare the check-in for Vanuatu and the check-out for Fiji and, and, and…
With all those tasks looming ahead like a dark cloud on the horizon we wanted to make our last day “out on the islands” extra pleasant, so after the usual morning chores (bread, laundry and then some hull cleaning) we took Pitufa out to the reef for the last time to go snorkeling there. We had a great time in the fabulous underwater landscapes of the barrier reef of Gau with some patches of healthy coral and others sadly bleached. Towards the end of the snorkel a sea snake came by and then a well-sized lemon decided to say hi and really make this a special day! So we saw our first proper-sized shark during our last visit to Fiji’s underwater world…
We finished off the day with a walk on the beach and a sundowner on Pitufa with the parrots ashore singing us a good-bye serenade (well, squawking a serenade, but it’s the thought that counts)

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 in the fins , so we are not worried when we see one. All the ones we’ve met so far were less than a metre, but in Gau we saw one that was at least one and a half metres! We looked it up, apparently males grow to 80 cm and females to 1.40, so we must have encountered a fully grown, female yellow-lipped sea krait – exciting!

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 a multitude of different bird songs from the neighbouring shore and snorkeling we encounter reef sharks and sometimes turtles. Most of them scurry away when they see people (they are still hunted here in Fiji), but this one seemed oddly curious or maybe just shortsighted…
“What’s that strange fish over there?”

“Let me take a closer look…”

“Oh no, it’s a human predator!!”

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.
We took down the lazybag before the onset of the squally weather and spent two days on the project: the hardest part was getting off the old zipper and velcro (about 8 metres of tightly stitched tenara double seam), then 4 metres of zipper left, 4 metres right and the same for the velcro–we couldn’t have done it without Miss Pfaff, our sturdy sewing machine…
Now the lazybag’s back on, the mainsail’s up as well and we’re ready to go!