Pitufa.at

After almost 4 years of boat life I flew to Austria yesterday morning local time Tahiti, so evening UTC or was it the day before yesterday(?)–the time zones got me all confused, at least I didn’t have to change the time on the watch thanks to 12 hours time difference Anyway, it took us 2 years to sail to French Polynesia and only 26 hours to fly back (31 from door to door) and my bio-rythm still seems to be lagging somewhere behind maybe Mid-Atlantic…
I’ll spend two weeks in Austria and it seems I’ve chosen just the right time as it’s almost tropically warm and sunny this week

After doing some maintenance on Pitufa in Tahiti we’ll head to the Society Islands to explore Huahine and Maupiti that didn’t fit into our schedule last year and maybe revisit Moorea, Raiatea and Tahaa.

After spending a year in quiet, calm places French Polynesia’s capital Papeete on Tahiti feels a bit overwhelming. About 250 boats sway on moorings or anchor off Marina Taina and they all roll and pitch like crazy whenever high swell comes up from the south and huge surf breaks over the unfortunately rather narrow fringing reef that protects the anchorage insufficiently. Two days ago it got so bad that we moved our matresses to the floor to get at least some sleep. Marina Taina’s overfilled dinghy dock’s a tough place for a small dinghy like ours and the location far outside Papeete means that we spend hours eating dirt on the dusty, congested roads waiting for buses and hitching rides while doing the usual hardware-store/chandlery ralley.

The positive side of being here is that we meet old friends again and that the huge supermarket Carrefour is within walking distance, so we can manoeuvre cartloads of provisioning over the bumpy sidewalk right to the dinghy dock.

Christian will stay here while I spend two weeks in Austria and after that we’ll try to get away from noisy, dirty Papeete as quickly as possible again.

Finally the weather seems to have settled again, the weather forecast predicts stable wind from the southeast so we’ll head out towards Tahiti in a few hours. It’s still cold and rainy here, but we hope it’ll get warmer with every mile we sail north!

For the past week we’ve had a convergence zone sitting between here and Tahiti and three lows have moved over Raivavae giving us just a one-day break with sunny weather which we used to rent bikes and cycle around the island. Otherwise it’s been rainy, grey and windy, so we spent the time doing indoor chores on a–depending on the wind direction–more or less bouncy Pitufa.

Raivavae is supposed to have the best anchorage in the Austral islands, but from the N and W only the outer reef gives protection. We had pretty nasty weather last night and today. Strong winds from N-NW (of course!) and several squalls with gusts up to 45 knots caused Pitufa to rock and roll in the anchorage. It was particularly bad around high water (now is spring tide!) when the reef cannot entirely keep awyay the massive waves.

At the moment, the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) is brewing up quite some weather between Samoa, the Cook Islands and here, mass-producing troughs and depressions like on a conveyor belt. And the GRIB forcast sees the next depression moving right over Raivavae in a couple of days…

Raivavae’s a small island, the coastal road that goes all around is only 23 km long. There are two ‘route traversiere’ (paths across from north to south) and we walked both of them last week. The tracks lead up the ridge through lush vegetation, large taro fields and countless banana plantations (who can eat so many bananas??). The scenery resembles the Society Islands and so does the ‘Ia orana’ the friendly locals shout out from their gardens. Down on the coastal road again we walked along the southern coast past little houses with manicured gardens and nice views of the narrow lagoon and the motus on the barrier reef. We had hoped to hitch a ride back to Rairua, but the only vehicles that passed us were bicycles, even though we saw cars next to most of the dwellings, so we walked all the way to the eastern cape and then along the northeastern coast, where the cliffs of the mountains ridge rise vertically skywards.
We had heard that it was possible to hike up to Mount Hiro (the highest mountain) from that side and after admiring the stunning view, decided to inquire about the path at the first house we saw a man mowing the lawn. The answer was a simple ‘oui’ and a big grin. Did he know where exactly the path started? Yes, here! What, in this village? No, right here! With an even wider grin he showed us around the house where a narrow footpath leads into the thicket. What a coincidence that we asked at exactly the right house… We’ll return next week for this rather ambitious hike.

Now it’s the weekend and we expected the same hustle and bustle that we’re used to from the Gambier, where fishing boats zoom out into the lagoon, children jump from the dock, youngsters plays loud music from their cars, families spend the day sunbathing and swimming on the village beach or take picnics out to the motus and the smell of BBQ hangs in the air. But nothing like that is happening here. It’s almost creepy quiet, only the sound of church bells breaks the silence–numerous denominations fight for the souls of the few islanders here… French cruisers who have spent the cyclone season here, just told us that it’s even forbidden to take a boat out into the lagoon on Sundays.