Pitufa.at

We’ve had a bit too much excitement for our taste during the last 24 hours, but now we’re safely anchored in Papeete, Tahiti. We arrived yesterday at night and had to sail along reefs right into an (to us) unknown anchorage right behind Point Venus at the northwestern corner of Tahiti. Usually we never enter an anchorage at night, but as this one’s very open and easily accessible we decided to sail in. Hearing the breakers on the reef without seeing them in the pitchblack night wasn’t exactly comfy, but we dropped the hook without problems and enjoyed a good night’s sleep after the passage.
Today we had to change the anchorage though, because a shift in the wind was predicted, that would have put us on a leeshore without protection. Right after we had lifted the anchor the wind dropped down to less than 5 knots, leaving us stumbling along with speed around 1 knot… After 3 hours we had finally managed the 2.5 miles and exactly when we entered the channel through the outer reef a squall started. From 5 to 25 knots of wind within a few seconds… Pitufa accelerated, we just made it round the first buoys and dropped the hook. Unfortunatley it turned out that the spot didn’t give enough protection, so we had to sail out the anchor again and drop it a bit further in once again. Adrian (SY Attila), whom we had briefly met in the Gambier, offered assistance and it was very reassuring to have an experienced sailor on board for the tricky manoeuver…
Now we’re happy to be snug in a protected spot and soon we’ll haul Pitufa out for repairs.

For a few days we’ve been fretting about a change in the weatherforecast. Instead of the predicted steady easterly trades we saw before setting out, the forecast suddenly showed a strong blow from the NW when we’d be approaching Tahiti. Strong winds on the nose when navigating close to shore in a boat without an engine worried us more than a bit. So we were happy when strong winds let Pitufa fly towards our destination yesterday (despite the meterhigh waves that even managed to spit into our usually dry cockpit), but they didn’t last long and soon we were stumbling along with 3 to 4 knots again. This morning we got out the gennacker (a lightwind sail that we usually don’t touch, because it’s really annoying in handling) and after an hour of work the blue bubble was flying high up and pulling Pitufa with 5 knots. Hurrah! The joy ended with a loud WHOOOOOOOOOSH barely an hour later when a seam ripped in the thin old fabric. Shit. Getting it down was a hassle as always, but in o ur uncommon sense of urgency we got out the sewing machine to mend the problem. The sewing itself just took about 15 minutes, the rest of the 3 hours of repair was changing threads, needles, adjusting tension, etc. on our Pfaff that obviously wasn’t happy with the sticky sailtape we had put on the rip before sewing over it. At the end of this shitty day we were exhausted and hardly dared looking at the new weather report. But what a suprise, the NW blow has been called off! It seems that hard work and efforts sometimes do get rewarded by the universe

After a quick start we got into funky weather yesterday. The sailing’s been quite varied, with wind shifts, squalls, rain and lots of work with the sails. We even had the chance to experience a calm period with still standing high waves–real fun being tossed around with flapping sails and without the temptation to just turn on the engine and motor for a few hours, now we know what sailing was like in the good old times . Now the weather’s sunny and breezy again, so we’re back to our routine of cooking and eating a lot, reading, entertaining Leeloo and hoping that the trip will go on uneventful.

We’ve been lucky with the weather so far and are making good progress. Also fishing was good: we caught a Yellowfin Tuna yesterday, i.e. tuna for breakfast, lunch, supper and for Leeloo of course. Today we passed Mururoa, the atoll where the French did nuclear tests until the 90s. The low lying atoll became visible when it was just a few miles S of us. It was a creepy feeling to be so near a site humanity abused so cruelly.

The weather report changed completely yesterday, so instead of having some more quiet days in Onemea we decided to head out today. Our friends who had agreed to tow us out couldn’t come at such short notice, but the crew of an American catamaran who had just anchored next to us the evening before didn’t hesitate helping us and at 10 o’clock this morning they towed us out of the bay. We were quite nervous about the whole thing, but everything went smoothly and now we’re on the way to Tahiti, sailing not very fast but comfortably. Just the right kind of start after 5 months in the protected archipelago!

This mornig we picked up the really last of our things in the house and left Taravai to explore more of the remainig places we have not been to yet here in the Gambiers. One of those places is the Motu Kouaku on the barrier reef in the south-east of the archipelago. The last few days the wind was blowing hard so the swell is still pretty impressive. Underway it was so bad that we began doubting whether we would find a calm spot to anchor. Large portions of the barrier reef in the south are so deep that the swell enters unhindered and we were tossed around like on an ocean passage. Only close to the motu the waves finally calmed down and we anchored with a nice view of the sandy motu. We brought out a stern anchor to keep the chain away from coral heads and us aligned to low swell that still makes it here.