Pitufa.at

When we arrived more than two months ago in Tahiti we naively planned to get a few things done that need the infrastructure of the big city and to be off soon again. Since then we’ve been put off with delaying tactics and lame excuses. There’s a general unwillingness to take responsibility, blame others instead and of course the hope that a problem that’s ignored for long enough will disappear by itself. Whenever we have to depend on somebody else here we soon get a feeling of fighting windmills. The anchorage here in Taina has been windy and choppy for a few days–a bouncy Pitufa that keeps us from sleeping and extra splashy dinghy rides don’t help with the mood. Yesterday our mobile phone got drowned during such a dinghy ride, so we’re incommunicado for the time being.
On the positive side we’ve realised reading through the log that we’ve made steady progress on all the tasks that we can handle ourselves. While staying in Tahiti and Moorea we’ve repaired the anchor winch, found and repaired a leak in the kerosene tank, adjusted the main sail, repaired the deck light, mended the hatch covers, fixed a new railing netting, resewed part of the sprayhood, cleaned the sea strainer and the diesel filter, recut new matresses, filled up the diesel tank, bought and stored full provisioning for the next season for us and all spare parts we could think of for Pitufa, adjusted new terminals for the life lines by lathe, changed the impeller on the engine, installed new hoses for the freshwater system, got a new tap for the bathroom and redid the silcone in the bathroom–so our time here hasn’t been entirely wasted

We’ve been stuck in Tahiti since last week, struggling with delayed appointments, unfriendly staff at chandleries and a general feeling that the world’s not cooperating with our plans.
Somehow the herb garden under our spray hood got infected with lice and some strange, mould-like disease. My frantic efforts at cleaning the leaves and fighting the lice manually had not much effect, so with a very heavy heart I cut off a few healthy looking branches from the thai basil, the mint, the basil, the oregano and the spinach to layer, harvested everything else and dumped the plants and the soil into the sea feeling like a mother drowning her green babies.
In the evening we had Vietnamese spring rolls with handfulls of coriander, thai basil and mint wrapped in and there are still enough herbs in the fridge for a curry and pasta week.
At least we can get fresh soil from the hardware store here, the pots are thoroughly cleaned and I hope that I’ll be able to start a new garden with the saplings I’ve saved and new seeds.

Last year we did lots of hiking in Moorea and usually found our way (even though sometimes in circles) to our destination (or at least A destination) despite the fact that most paths have no signs (we suspected that tour guides with entrepreneurial spirit removed them to support their business…). The two hikes last week to the waterfalls on the eastern side were also simple to find, so we were optimistic when we set out towards Vaiare from Cook’s Bay to find a track over the mountain ridge. We were confident enough to take a young American couple from the neighbouring boat with us, but we couldn’t find the beginning of the track on the outskirts of the village, got confusing info whenever we asked for directions, then someone mentioned that there was hunting going on in that area and we heard more and more shots. We didn’t want to accidentally end up on a local BBQ (imagine what ridiculous inscription that would make on a tombstone: “mistaken for a pig in Polynesia”), so we changed plans and hiked into the other direction towards Opunohu Bay and up to the Three Pines Lookout that we’d been to before (even though the path from this side was quite hidden and a local walked a bit with us keep from going astray).

Yesterday we moved from the reef anchorage just at the outside of Cook’s Bay to the interior of the bay where we’re now anchored amidst a fleet of Puddle Jumpers (boats that sail from America to New Zealand/Australia in one season). It’s funny to hear American voices instead of the French we’ve got used to. For most of them their 3 months allowance in Fr. Polynesia is coming to an end while we lucky Europeans can stay for 3 years (afterwards import tax on the boat would be due)

After a series of fare-well dinners and drinks with Liesbet from Irie, we motored from Vaiare to Cooks Bay on the northern coast of Moorea on Thursday. On the way we caught a giant wahoo, so we’ll have fish for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next couple of days (in addition to some pressure-cooked jars for some time later). Don’t worry, we’re having a different dish every time (thanks to Birgit’s cooking creativity).

We have finally settled back into the pleasant daily routine of boat life in a quiet anchorage. The Tahitian winter weather with hot sun, but crisp air is quite invigorating and we use our high level of energy to get jobs on the boat done and to explore beautiful Moorea.

In the past few days we’ve reinstalled the deck light, made some adjustments to our mainsail (more sliders), cleaned the bottom, repaired a tiny leak in the kerosene tank (it kept losing pressure), and mended the elderly covers of our hatches. We also got our trekking sandals out and walked to three beautiful waterfalls in the vicinity. Yesterday we attempted to hike up Mt. Mouaputa, an impressive peak with a little peep hole at the very top that we’ve been admiring from down in the lagoon. The trail led steeply up through dense jungle vegetation, and we had to climb over and under branches and enormous, winding roots and stumbled over the slippery rocks when the path led up a creek. We were hoping to make it up to the ridge to get at least a glimpse of the view over the lagoon, but after 3 hours we gave up, had our picnic without a view, but in the middle of a beautiful, lush rain forest and slithered back down to the valley.

I got back on Friday after an exhausting journey (31 hours from door to door…) enjoyed quite a jet-lag in the bouncy, uncomfy Marina Taina (seasick medicine in the anchorage, hurray!) and on Sunday we moved on to the much calmer and nicer anchorage off Arue. From there we ran some errands on Monday and today we left busy Papeete behind us, to sail the 10 mile hop over to beautiful Moorea. The French weather report talked of 7 to 10 knots with ‘mer belle’ (‘beautiful’, meaning calm seas), so we expected some lazy motorsailing. What we got instead were 25 knots close-hauled and to call that sea beautiful you had to seriously be into big waves and whitecaps… At least it was a quick sail, but when we tried to find an anchoring spot off Vaiare (we’d never been to the eastern side of Moorea before) we had a hard time finding something between 30 m (the lagoon) and 2 metres (the reef shelf, but we draw a bit more than two…). Now we’re anchored a bit precariously near the reef, so we’ll search for a better spot tomorrow.