Pitufa.at

Our friends Valerie and Herve will spend some time in Tahiti and are therefore looking for someone to rent their pretty little house on Taravai (the second biggest of the Gambier Islands, French Polynesia) between March and July 2016. The house comes with a beautiful garden full of tropical fruit, a white sand beach and a calm and protected anchorage just in front of the garden.
It’s an ideal opportunity for cruisers who would like to have some time off the boat (e.g. to varnish inside) or for landlubbers who would like to experience life on a tropical island (autumn weather in the Gambier).
If you’re interested contact Valerie Gnanapragassam, valerie.gna2012@gmail.com

To get some impressions of Taravai, browse our photo album:

Ile Taravai, Iles Gambier

We visited Taravai, the second biggest island in the archipelago, in June 2013 and instantly fell in love with it: rugged mountains, pristine corals, remote bays, beautiful beaches, and only a handful of friendly people.

(50 photos)

…or at least with a modern version of it We hadn’t made it to the central part of the northern coast yet (the anchorages are open and difficult by boat and there’s hardly any traffic going up there so no point in hoping to hitch a ride), but reading the guides about this rugged piece of coastal line we were eager to get there. Yesterday I chatted with the young post woman and she explained that she had to cover 3 offices at the moment (Taipivai and Hatiheu and Aakapa on the northern coast), because her colleague has been on leave for 5 weeks. I casually mentioned that we were searching for a way to get to Aakapa and she immediately offered to take us with her the next day. The only problem: she has to leave at 6 o’clock in the morning to be there by 7…

So today we set the alarm to 4.30 (getting the hiking things, taking the dinghy ashore and marching to the meeting point took a while) and met Norma and her mom at the agreed point and time. The road to Hatiheu is very steep, but still partly paved and in a fairly good condition. The stretch further on along the coast is a dirt or rather boulder road with more potholes than flat bits. While Norma opened the post office in Aakapa we walked through the tiny village and further west up along the coastal road to a ridge with magnificent views over the wild northern coast with ocean surf fringed bays, volcanic cliffs and pillar-like rock formations. We got back just in time when the post woman closed the office again at 10.30 and back in Taipivai still before noon. We went to the shop in search of a thank-you gift. Fortunately the shop owner’s Norma’s cousin, knows her taste and was able to point us in the right direction

Three factors are really grinding down our nerves and energy in the Marquesas: the rolling in the open anchorages, the heat (how can you get anything done when you’re sweating like a pig even in idle mode?) and the nonos (in places where they make it to the boat).

Hooumi bay is reasonably calm (at least with a stern anchor), the nonos haven’t found us out here and the past few days we’ve had grey rainy weather so it’s been a bit cooler–even inside the boat as we’ve arranged various canvas tents on the fore and aft deck so that we can leave the hatches open even when it’s pouring down (or when the sun is burning down).
We’ve used the pleasant conditions to work on a project we’ve been postponing for months: the tap in the kitchen sink was completely rusty (a low quality piece we had bought in Panama…) and the woodwork around the sink was also in a sorry state due to the saltwater that’s especially hard on varnish (we have a saltwater tap in the sink to save freshwater when doing the dishes).
On Sunday we removed the old tap (we needed a saw to get the rusty fittings out), the gross mouldy silicone and then we sanded the wooden panels. Yesterday we started varnishing, today we’ll add 2 more layers and tomorrow we’ll be able to install the new tap (this time we bought an expensive one–hopefully it’ll last longer) and have a shiny new galley

January is a good month for us, at least publication-wise. Both magazines, All-At-Sea Caribbean and Ocean7, have new articles of us in their January issues.

Birgit Hackl: Plant a Garden on a Cruising Boat, All At Sea Caribbean, January 2016, p. 42–46. Free download from allatsea.net.

Birgit Hackl, Christian Feldbauer: Nachtwachen, OCEAN7 01 (Jänner/Februar) 2016, p. 44–46.

After we had cleared the boat after the passage, cut the tuna and had breakfast it was still only 9 o’clock in the morning, so we contemplated what to do. Head straight for the bunk and catch up with sleep or use the sunny weather to explore the island? We decided to seize the day, launched the dinghy and headed to Vaipaee’s dock. There was quite a crowd on the dock cleaning fish and hammering open shellfish and we were informed about the upcoming New Year’s Eve Party for the whole island and immediately invited.

We wandered on through the little town that is mainly hiding under a dense canopy. The valley’s of Ua Pou are quite lush, but hitching a ride to Hane (the next village) we found that the mountains of Ua Huka are less impressive and much more arid than on the other Marquesan islands.
As our first ride had taken us 11 km through mountainous terrain we were a bit worried about how to get back, didn’t linger too long in Hane, but immediately started back on the same track hoping that at least a few cars would pass us.
A car coming from Vaipaee stopped and the friendly Polynesian woman asked us where we had started walking, where we wanted to go and then she waved us into the backseat. She would take us to the easternmost of Ua Huka’s 3 villages, where we’d have some time to look around before going back to Vaipaee with her. We gladly hopped in and were suprised when she made a detour to her house in Hane where her husband had just finished cooking lunch and insisted that we’d have sashimi, fried tuna and rice with the family. After lunch Karen took us over to Hokatu to meet her sister, chatting about Ua Huka and the Marquesan culture and waving to everybody from the open window–apparently everybody here is either related or close friends. Karen’s sister gave us some Marquesan apples and then sent us off with yet another sister to the local artisanat and museum (she opened both buildings just for us) and then we went on a fruit quest. Imagine us in a pickup truck with two giggling Polynesi
an middle aged women, a daughter in law with a long stick on the truckbed and all watching out for ripe mango. We soon spotted a branch right over the road with juicy mangoes, the daughter in law used her high position on the truck to quickly fill a woven basket with mangoes, then pamplemousse and a few breadfruit.
After a few more stops Karen delivered took us back along the coastal road (Ua Huka’s road system only connects the 3 villages in the south, the rest of the island is unpopulated) and right to our dinghy that we overloaded with fruit. Even after all the time we’ve spent here, the Polynesian hospitality never ceases to amaze us…

We had a very merry Christmas indeed. There was a fun international fleet of cruising boats anchored in Hantefau, we had a dinghy raft-up with drinks, tapas on different boats and for the 25th we asked the friendly people of the neighbouring village Hapatoni whether we could have a pot-luck at their little artisanat hall. They didn’t only agree with our plan, but decided to join us, so in the end we had a huge buffet with Polynesian specialities and the dishes the Canadian, American, Italian, French, Mexican, Spanish, Finnish and Austrian cruisers brought with them. It was a wonderful party with lots of interesting cross-cultural conversations (some including lots of pantomime), games of Petanque, Scrabble and even Bingo in the end