Pitufa.at

Remember how we always raved over the cute, mostly empty village on Taravai? Well, now there’s four inhabited houses on Taravai instead of three. After waving goodbye to Birgit’s Mom on the tiny airport yesterday noon, we sailed to the village anchorage and took inventory of our new little land base for the next few months. To be honest it’s more a hut than a house, and we found it already populated by 5000 thousand house spiders (daddy long legs version), 2 puppy sized cockroaches (cocky and roachy seemede as shocked to see humans as we were to see them), a spider the size of a plate (mind you, not a dessert plate), an unknown number of rats (we just found impressively sized droppings and two abondoned nests in the dirty laundry the owners left in the cupboard), 200 geckos, 2 goats, a few hens with little chicks and of course 4 million mosquitoes. In two days of hard work we mowed the kneehigh grass (after repairing the dodgy mower that was apparently the first step to get rid of mosquitoes), raked the leaves into 10 heaps (to be burned, another step against mosquitoes), cleaned the roof in order to get clean water into the tank and swept the house (now there’s 4000 thousand spiders less). We’re happy to keep the geckos, chicken and goats, the rest will hopefully be persuaded to move on. Now we’re back home on Pitufa, feeling quite exhausted, but also satisfied with the quick progress of the work. Soon the house will be ready to move in. It’s been a while since we did things like mowing a lawn… +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Wisst ihr noch, wie wir immer vom suessen, fast leeren Dorf auf Taravai geschwaermt haben? Jetzt gibt’s statt drei schon vier bewohnte Haeuser hier. Nachdem wir Birgit’s Mom am winzigen Flughafen verabschiedet hatten, segelten wir gestern Mittag zur Dorfanchorage auf Taravai und machten eine Bestandsaufnahme unserer neuen, kleinen Landbasis fuer die naechsten paar Monate. Ehrlich gesagt ist es eher eine Huette als ein Haus und ausserdem fanden wir es bereits ziemlich bevoelkert vor: 5000 Hausspinnen (Weberknechtvariante), zwei Kuechenschaben so gross wie kleine Hunde (Cocky und Roachy schienen ebenso von unserem Anblick geschockt wie wir von ihrem), eine tellergrosse Spinne (wohlgemerkt kein Dessertteller), eine unbekannte Zahl Ratten (wir fanden Bemmerl in beeindruckender Groesse und zwei verlassene Nester in der schmutzigen Waesche, die die Eigner im Kasten hinterliessen), 200 Geckos, 2 Ziegen, einige Hennen mit Winzkueken und natuerlich 4 Millionen Moskitos. In zwei Tagen harter Arbeit haben wir das kniehohe Gras gemaeht (erst musste der marode Rasenmaeher repariert werden, dann folgte der erste Schlag gegen die Moskitos), rechten das Laub in 10 zu verbrennende Haufen (auch gut gegen Moskitos), putzten das Dach um irgendwann sauberes Wasser in den Tank sammeln zu koennen, kehrten das Haus (jetzt sind 4000 Spinnen weniger). Wir behalten gern die Geckos, Hennen und Ziegen, der Rest wird sich hoffentlich zum Umzug ueberreden lassen. Jetzt sind wir zurueck daheim auf Pitufa, ziemlich fertig, aber auch zufrieden mit dem Fortschritt der Arbeit. Bald koennen wir in das Haeuschen einziehen. Es ist schon eine Weile her, seit wir das letzte Mal einen Rasen gemaeht haben…

We’ve sailed back to the little motu Tauna to enjoy some more swimming, snorkeling, diving and beach walking (the shells here are just irresistable ) Birgit’s mom’s enjoying her last few days here, the flight back’s going to be long and strenuous (Gambier-Tahiti-L.A.-Paris-Vienna…) Despite the warm weather a virus is going around bringing joint ache, fever, a sore throat and a runny nose to its victims. Birgit had it last week, now it’s Christian’s turn. First we were worried that it was something serious (the symptoms remind of dengue or zika), but fortunately it lasts only 3 days…

There’s only one house on the little island Agakauitai right next to Taravai. Last time we were there only the three little piggies lived there. We were quite surprised to find additional 7 piglets this time. Yesterday we saw from the boat as the whole family took off for a walk on the beach. Quickly we raced there by dinghy. Instead of disappearing into the undergrowth the whole bunch greeted us excitedly and walked further along the beach together with us In German the expression ‘to have pig’ means the same as having luck. With that many pigs we can only be very lucky in 2014!

Birgit Hackl: Cruising with Cats, All At Sea Caribbean, December 2013, p. 42–44. Free download from allatsea.net.

We wish you all a smurfy Christmas and an equally smurfy new year!

The pre-christmas shopping frenzy has reached as far as the remote Gambier islands–everybody’s stocking up to bake and make pig champagne. The shops have been without sugar for a month, last time the supply ship arrived sugar was sold out within 2(!) hours. Yesterday the next one arrived and we started asking at the shops immediately, were sent away 3 times (not yet unpacked), but successful at the fourth attempt. Now we can bake christmas cookies
Now that we’ve stocked up we’ll head out to a tiny little motu on the outer reef, to snorkel and relax

Birgit flew to Tahiti at the beginning of December to pick up her Mom at the airport and to do some shopping (she bought lots of goodies at the big carrefour in Papeete and put them in a packet on a supply ship that will arrive here next week). After a whole week in hot, humid, busy Papeete it was just great to get back to the idyllic Gambier archipelago and to Pitufa. Home sweet home! Christian spent his week alone mainly in front of the computer making the google maps work again on our web site–good for Leeloo who had him all for herself for a while Now we’re taking Birgit’s mom to our favourite spots in the archipelago starting (of course) with Taravai

Yesterday was one of these incredibly clear days with southern winds (no longer chilly, but pleasantly cool) and a deep blue sky without a single cloud. We used it to hike up Mount Mokoto–apparently the second highest peak, but it looks exactly the same height as it’s neighbour Mount Duff (officially the highest mountain). The ascent wasn’t difficult, but extremely steep and despite the pleasant temperatures we were completely exhausted when we reached the peak after walking along a dangerously narrow ridge.
The view over the whole archipelago with the turquoise outer reef and countless sand banks and coral heads glittering in incredible shades of pastel blue and turquoise was simply breathtaking. If there is a place more beautiful than this one we haven’t found it yet

Finally the weather’s sunny and warm and we’ve started making dinghy excursions. Yesterday we visited Herve and Valerie (the caretakers of the village of Taravai) and got news of all the boats that we met here last time around–Valerie’s good at keeping in touch with people. We brought them a few presents (cookies, books, etc.) and in return Herve took us for a walk in the gardens, picking lychees, avocados, soursop, lemons, coconuts, bananas and papayas.
Today we set out prepared with long trousers, hiking boots and a machete to hike up to the peak of the little island Agakauitai next to our anchorage. Despite of our equipment we first got stuck in a swamp, walked around it only to be stranded in meterhigh, sharpleaved reed. We gave up and and decided to use the combination of low tide and strong footgear to climb on the volcanic rocks along the shore of the island. It turned out to be delightful: we climbed over colourful rock formations, found tidal pools teeming with life, little white beaches in between and all that with a view of the fringe reef surrounded by glittering turquoise, azure and green sea. The water’s so clear that we could watch the colourful reef fish from shore.