Pitufa.at

Yesterday it was completely calm and in the afternoon we decided to use the opportunity and lower the foresail, because we had seen a few chafed areas on the yankee last time we were sailing and we wanted to put some tape there before a real damage occurred. When we had the sail down we realised that it was already too late, the leech line had chafed several metres through the edge of the sail. Ouch. We were not sure whether our Pfaff house-hold sewing machine would manage the thick sail (6 layers), but the tough all-metal machine from the 70s bravely zigzaged through the strong material (not without some squeaky complaints, but that’s our Miss Pfaff…). Amazing how often we need the sewing machine that we bought more as an afterthought before setting out. I had not touched a sewing machine before we went cruising, but fortunately the Pfaff is as simple as it gets, so no special training required.

It was already getting dark when we finished the job, but we managed to get the sail back up before the sunset. I celebrated this successful day by spilling a full cup of cacao on the kitchen counter which is on top of the (top-loading) fridge. An hour of self-induced happy cleaning followed.

The last days we were busy with internet tasks. After almost two months without internet acces (except for emails via SSB radio) the list of tasks is long. The i-net access here in Hao is slow but we certainly won’t complain as it is free!!!

I used this opportunity to fix some bugs on our web page. There were some issues concerning mobile friendliness, now most pages, including the photo galleries should be easy to view on small screens. Another bug was in our prevailing ocean wind atlas. Apparently, users of Google Chrome web browsers were unable to open windroses.

If you are cruising to, from, or around French Polynesia, you may be interested in checking in on the PolyMagNet. It’s an English-speaking SSB net where vessels underway can report their position and conditions, and boats at anchor pass on info about weather, anchoring, events, etc. in their area. It’s on air twice every day at 1800 UTC and 0400 UTC (8:00 AM and 6:00 PM Tahiti local time) on the frequency 8173 kHz USB.

During the past few days the weather hasn’t been great, so we did a maintenance week:
We dedicated one day to the Tohatsu outboard engine (changed the gear oil, greased all squeaky parts, replaced the worn out propeller, repaired the old propeller to have a spare one, etc.), resewed the dodger that is stretched between lifelines and toerail to keep spray out of the cockpit (the ‘pitufa’ letters were coming off and needed restitching all aroundaroundaround…), glued new handles onto the dinghy, spent one day with the Yanmar main engine (changed engine oil and filter, retensioned the V-belt, etc) and checked the watermaker (replaced the sediment filter, etc.).
It’s impossible to get bored on a cruising boat…

Our last visit to a supermarket (still in Tahiti) was on October 10, so more than 6 weeks ago and you could think that the diet on Pitufa is getting boring, but no, with some creativity (and of course the fresh greens from the boat garden) we still manage to keep up our gourmet standards

For breakfast/brunch we usually have fresh bread and cheese (for me) and salami-style sausages or patés (for Christian), for lunch we prepare a salad (using self-grown sprouts, spinach from the garden, the last remaining (bought) carrots, ocassionally a can of beans and left-over rice, pasta or quinoa) or a muesli with self-made yoghurt. In the evenings we prepare our main meal of the day and here’s for example what was on the menu last week:

- Tartare from a freshly caught snapper (chopped fish, chopped gherkins with honey, mustard and fresh cilantro) with buchwheat bread

- Poisson cru (raw fish marinated overnight in lemon juice with pieces of apple, beans, thai basil from the garden and onions in self-made cocounut milk) with rice

- Pasta with fried fish in a creamy white sauce with cabbage and basil from the garden

- Fried Snapper and steamed parsley potatoes and pumpkin in sauce hollandaise

- Stir-fry with snapper, (canned) bamboo sprouts, (canned) water chestnuts, thai basil from the garden and coconut rice

- Snapper in a crispy sesame seed panade with creamy pumpkin and mashed potatoes

- Potato burgers with (canned) sauerkraut

- Pizza with cheese, (canned) mushrooms and (canned) anchovies

- Teriyaki-style tofu with home-grown mung-bean sprouts

Bon appetit!

Last weekend our anchor winch started making ugly, grinding sounds and we got very worried, because neither the prospect of manually heaving up the anchor while moving regularly around the atoll during wind shifts nor sailing to a place with an airport to order spare parts and wait endlessly for them seemed like much fun. Fortunately Pitufa is a self-sufficient boat with lots of spare parts, scrap pieces and tools aboard, so we disassembled the winch hoping to be able to repair it here. It turned out that a bushing Christian had made during an extensive overhaul 1.5 years ago had been worn out. We didn’t have a bronze part in the right dimensions, but our neighbours on SY Ednbal had a hose coupling made of brass that almost fit, so Christian got out the lathe and got it into the right dimensions. The next day we assembled it again and voila–no more nasty sounds.

During the past 2 days the weather was calm and we explored three motus in the south that we hadn’t seen previously and discovered 4 more couples of nesting masked boobies–that brings the count to 15 couples of these beautiful and rather rare birds. It’s so sad that there aren’t many uninhabited atolls with endemic shrubs and trees as vegetation left, because sea birds need these safe havens to raise their chicks. Here on Tahanea we saw eggs and chicks of red-footed, brown and masked boobies when we were here in September (2 years ago) and now the same between October and November so it seems the nesting season goes on for quite a while.

This morning the wind picked up again and we sailed to a reef on the southern side. Instead of the predicted 10 knots we got 15 to 20 and we were bouncing miserably, so we lifted the anchor again and sailed to the small island in the middle of the lagoon where we had already spent a calm week during easterly winds. This time we finally named it: Ilot des schtroumpfs–Smurf Island

Last week the wind was predicted to turn from the North to the West, so we did a last snorkel in the pass (on the northern side of the lagoon), then lifted the anchor and used the calm weather to take Pitufa out through the pass, quickly caught a yellow fin tuna and were back inside the lagoon of Tahanea within an hour. Afterwards we sailed down to the southern side to hide behind a reef during the predicted westerly winds (it shifted twice between east and west instead, so we alternated between anchorages west and east of the reef…).

Two days ago a strong southeasterly set in, so we moved to the well protected southeastern corner of the atoll where we’re now sitting behind a motu while it’s blowing 25 knots and gusting up to 40. Timing is everything in an atoll! It’s important to always keep an eye on the weather and move in time. Of course the numerous GPS tracks we have by now all over the lagoon help us to reach safe spots (within distances between 5 and 15 miles) even in bad visibility…

We use the windy weather to do some sewing jobs and other domestic tasks to keep life comfy on Pitufa: we brewed beer (already the second batch ), made yoghurt (a weekly task), baked bread (every second day anyway), did tuna preserves, etc. etc. We’re almost out of veg provisions we brought, but with the thriving garden and different kinds of sprouts we still eat as well as one month ago when we set out from Tahiti