Pitufa.at

…according to the proverb and a boat without a cat isn’t one either–at least in my humble opinion I’ve now been alone with Leeloo on the boat for two and half weeks, but it’s impossible to feel lonely with a furry companion who’s always around and always talks back

I love the way…
…she climbs up the steep companion way stairs looking like a little monkey.
…she rolls around on the bimini enjoying the morning sun.
…she welcomes us home at the stern chatting animatedly about the many things that must have happened on the boat–even when we were only gone for half an hour.
…she wants to have her meals at the same time we eat (social eater).
…she works out on her scratchboard on deck sharpening her claws (and nowhere else)
…she hops on the couch in the evening waiting for us to join her to watch a film.
…she shouts “bray-ow-ee!” (out of the way, here I come) while jumping up to our bed.
…she gallops over the deck and on to the bimini around 4 in the morning sounding like a herd of elephants.
…she crawls under my blanket after her nightly adventures on deck (all cold paws and bristled fur in the cold of the Tahitian winter at the moment).

I could strangle her though, when she then insists on me getting up to feed her at 5 in the morning, even though she has wet and dry food in her bowls. She’s always been picky and in her old age she eats nothing but high qualitiy diet catfood which is not available here in French Polynesia. Well, nobody’s perfect Fortunately Christian will soon come back with a bagful of cat goodies…

EnglishBlogText

As I’m alone at the moment I spend most days below deck, working on my sofa-upholstery-renewal project, writing articles or making jewellery. After such a productive day I try to stretch my legs doing long walks around the yacht club area and up in the surrounding hills in the evenings. Arue is a suburb of Papeete (the city has long overgrown its borders and incorporated the former villages of Mamao, Pirae and Arue furthest north), too densely populated to count as a village, but too small to count as a real town.

Wherever I go friendly faces smile at me on the road, when I smile back a melodic “Ia orana” follows. When I wander into residential areas people wave out from their gardens and ask if I search for someone and need directions.

On a Sunday, like today, people gather around little streams for a picnic with friends, or they just sit on the back of a pick-up truck with some beers. Quite often someone has brought a ukulele and others join in singing.
The Polynesians are cheerful, friendly people and they certainly know how to have a good time. It’s easy to feel at home here.

Christian left for Austria last Wednesday morning, so Leeloo and I have been alone on Pitufa for almost a week. We have been good girls, produced about 20 pearl necklaces during the first days and today we sewed two new covers for the sofa upholstery. Well, to be honest, I did most of the work, but Leeloo supervised and sat on everything that was work in progress
Another 2 weeks and the smurfy family will be united again!

Since we set out we’ve bought new mattresses twice–each a little bit more expensive than the last one, but still not comfortable. Last week we decided to go for high quality and bought two latex matresses.

Our bed in the aft cabin is very oddly shaped so we have to buy 2 queen size mattresses, cut them into shape and resew the cover. What sounds simple in theory turned into a 4 day project…
Cutting the latex was done rather quickly, but the stitched, padded cover proved impossible to work with. The interior seems kept getting undone (despite our efforts to stop the thread and secure it with double seams in the sewing machine), the foot of the sewing machine kept getting tangled in the soft padding and in the glue residues on the inside of the padding and then it refused work altogether. Only a cleaning, grooming and oiling session persuaded our ‘Miss Pfaff’ to continue sewing… After 4 days the interior of the boat was covered in threads, padding and mattress pieces, but we succeeded, filled two rubbish containers and spent the first really comfy night since we moved on the boat

Christian got me a chain for my birthday and it’s all shiny and pretty! 70 m of 10 mm chain would be a bit bulky for a necklace, but they suit Pitufa’s bow just fine

The Maggi chain we bought two years ago started rusting after 6 months and by now it’s already disintegrating, losing material and leaving a rusty mess on deck every time we lift or lower the anchor, so it was really time to get rid of it… We cannot recommend Maggi chains (Italian brand, galvanized aqua 4, grade 40) for other cruisers!

Yesterday we were anchored off ‘smurf island’ in the middle of the lagoon. During the night a northwesterly wind set in (the forecast had nothing but easterlies predicted…) and we got dangerously close to the steep reef off the island. We brought out a second anchor at 1 o’clock in the morning and spent a rather restless night with fortunately not strong, but consistent winds from the north and even northwest. At dawn the wind picked up, we got the dinghy and the kayak up on the already precariously pitching deck, let the line of the stern anchor drift with a buoy attached and started the engine, worrying whether we’d be able to get up both anchors or if they’d be stuck under coral after the windshift. We had to manoeuvre close to the rocks, but fortunately both anchors put up no resistance and we could sail up to a protected anchorage next to the west-pass. All that happened before breakfast…

After lunch we took the dinghy to the pass for a drift snorkel and were amazed to see lots of little black fins sticking out of the water and splashing around–manta rays! A group of about a dozen of these big rays were swimming just under the surface with wide open mouths, filtering out the plankton and splashing the surface with the tips of their large, black wings. We swam with them for an hour, watching them gracefully ‘fly’ in and out of the strong current, while we tried to stay in the shallower water just out of the current. We’ve seen mantas a few times, but never that close and never for so long. An awe-inspiring experience!

Unfortunately we no longer saw the big dog-tooth tuna that had turned into old friends at the west-pass. When we arrived 8 boats were anchored here, maybe some of them had tuna steaks for dinner…

The French Polynesian Meteo as well as the grib files predicted a disturbance with wind clocking to the north, then west, south and finally southeast. During such episodes the southerly and/or southeasterly winds are usually strong which the Polynesians call ‘Maramu’.

Ideally we would hop from anchorage to anchorage around an atoll to be on the protected side, but in an atoll as big as Tahanea with wind shifts during the night that is just not possible. We therefore did the next best thing and moved to an anchorage behind a reef sticking out from the southern side of the lagoon that offers protection to all sides but the north. We arrived yesterday with light northerly winds and anchored on a leeshore, shortly later we were bouncing in short, steep waves when squalls from the north set in, but fortunately the wind shifted to the northwest during the night and we were fairly well protected behind the reef while the wind was blowing with 25 knots sustained and up to 40 knots during squalls.

This morning dawned rainy and grey, Pitufa’s sitting in calm water in Southwesterly winds and we’ll stay in this anchorage for another day.

Tahanea was the first atoll we ever sailed too. We were enchanted by the bird colonies and healthy reefs and expected other atolls to be just like that. We were disappointed wherever we went. On populated atolls the motus were all burned down (‘cleaned’) at some point and the endemic shrubs replaced by coconut plantations where people make copra that is then turned into palm oil. Here in French Polynesia the price of copra is subsidised, so the locals are encouraged to continue burning down the last remaining motus with natural vegetation–the only places where birds can dwell and nest.

Additionally coconut trees only have shallow roots that cannot resist the assault of the ocean and so erosion starts once the endemic shrubs are gone. There are many uninhabited little atolls in the Tuamotus and we used to think that they were wild, unspoiled places, but we found out that even these were turned into plantations by well meaning organisations in the past. Quite often rats were accidentally introduced during the copra raids and these rodents finish off the eggs and chicks of remaining nests.

Last year a few people from the neighbouring atoll of Faaite moved to Tahanea, which had been uninhabited for an extended period before, and we can already see the effects. We were hoping that they would limit their activities to the large, long motus in the north, east and south of Tahanea that were already cultivated before and feature mainly coconut trees (and rats). But revisiting the 3 motu clusters in the Southwest that used to be bird sanctuaries we see fewer terns (their eggs are considered a delicacy) and yesterday we were shocked to find a copra drying rack, a basic hut and plastic trash on one of the bigger bird motus. In October 2014 we were anchored in front of exactly this motu and wrote a blog post called ‘the sounds of a motu’ describing the cackling, squeaking, chirping and roaring sounds that reminded us of the South American jungle. This morning we listened again, but could only hear a few sporadic calls. The quietness of the motu is a silent cry for help.