Pitufa.at

The Îles Australes are the southernmost and least visited islands of French Polynesia. We have started exploring Raivavae and we’ll see how many more stopovers on the way to Tahiti can fit into our schedule…

Waiting for a weather window is always frustrating. We get new forecasts twice a day and then the strategic games begin: we try to “sail” the cursor in expected daily runs through the area of the grib file where arrows indicate the wind speed and direction, trying to avoid becalmed zones and galeforce winds. Of course the further into the future the prediction goes, the more the planning resembles crystal-ball watching…
Anyway, we’ve been waiting for wind to go to Rapa now for 3 weeks, which lies south of the trade wind belt, has depressions moving by on a regular basis and isn’t easy to reach. We went to get the very last veggies time after time, kept Pitufa in oceangoing shape and kept on hoping. For the last 3 days the grib looked really promising, so we deflated the dinghy and secured it on deck, baked bread for the passage this morning, drugged the cat with her anti-seasickness medicine and were about to lift the anchor, but then we decided to get a last-minute grib. The damn thing had changed completely since yesterday, a low had changed course, gone was the steady wind for the trip, instead we’d be becalmed for two days only to arrive with scary strong winds in the tricky anchorage of Rapa.
We’ve learned the hard way that heading out into an unstable weather situation guarantees an uncomfy trip, so we’ll stay a bit longer and we’ll keep on playing the weather game…

Until three days ago it was really hot and calm, but then southerly winds set in, sending up chilly air masses with best regards of the icebergs down there The weather forecast had predicted light westerly winds, so we were anchored off the western motu Tenoko when a procession of squalls approached, hiding Taravai and Mangareva behind a dark grey wall. When the squalls reached us, the wind shifted south (not so nice being suddenly with the stern towards the outer reef and fetch building up over the lagoon), so we decided to head to the shelter of the village anorage of Taravai. We motored there against 25 knots of wind and heavy rain, reached the channel into the anchorage just before dark and the helmswoman was surprised and relieved how smoothly the manoeuvre through the tricky corners of the entrance went, despite gusts on the beam and the barely visible landmarks. Good that we’ve practiced that narrow, shallow entrance so often in good conditions before…

The cool southeasterly’s still blowing and many boats that have spent the cyclone season here, use it for a downwind ride to the Tuamotus or straight to Tahiti. Pitufa and her crew are also ready to go, but as we’re still hoping to make it to Rapa in the Iles Australes (the southernmost island of French Polynesia) this weather window didn’t really work for us and we’ll wait for the next one.

Autumn’s gifting us with gorgeous weather here this year. Last year it was already cool and windy in April, but at the moment we’re enjoying perfectly calm, sunny and hot days. Just looking over the pastel shades of the lagoon in the early morning when the mountains are reflected in the sea like in a mirror with the corals gleaming through the crystal clear water, we feel almost obliged to seize the day. So we split the days between chores that need calm weather (cleaning the hull, climbing the mast to check the rigging, etc.) and fun like kayaking, snorkeling, hiking and hanging out ashore on Taravai. Taravai’s getting more and more attractions: an extended petting zoo and hiking trails! Additional to their two charming goaties, Pierre and Lolo now have two horses and Valerie and Herve have two kittens and two puppies It was always difficult to hike on Taravai, as we had to cut tunnels through the dense vegetation and make our own trails. If you try something like that yourself, always bring a machete with you and think of our memorising rhyme when planning the ascent: pine, your’re fine, reed, you bleed Now it’s much easier, because Pierre has made a huge effort and has cleared a path along the old, overgrown road all the way from the village to the southern bay of Taravai. We walked it yesterday, it takes about 1 hour each way and features lovely views.

We used to call anchorages comfy as long as the dishes didn’t slide off the table, but after spending so much time in protected lagoons we’ve raised our standards to ‘no boat movement at all’. Yesterday’s anchorage on the western side of Akamaru didn’t quite come up to those expectations, we complained a bit about the rolling during the night, but enjoyed our visit to the friendly village and a kayak tour along the west coast even more.

Today we sailed down to the three small, high islands in the very south of the archipelago for the first time. It was an astonishingly pleasant sail, almost calmer than the time in the anchorage before–Leeloo even went sunbathing out on deck. We passed the ragged islets Manui and Makaroa and when we arrived at our destination Kamaka, the American owner of the island (the only private island around here) hailed us on the radio, sounding quite glad to have visitors and explained where we could anchor. We were really tempted to stay, but watching the westerly swell wandering by, we chickened out despite the assurances of the owner that we’d picked an unusally calm day for visiting his island We had considered sailing over to Pitcairn recently (about 300 nm away), but now we know that we’re just too spoiled to brave anchoring basically on the open sea, next to that ragged rock, where the full force of the southern ocean slams into Bounty Bay…