Pitufa.at

In May we spent one and a half weeks on the hard in Vuda Marina, here are some impressions!

On the hard in Vuda

After 3 years in the water it was time to haul out again, even though our antifouling was still in surprisingly good shape! We stayed out for 10 days, changed the cutlass bearing, did 2 layers of antifouling (Carboline Alloy 100, great stuff for aluminium boats), some cosmetic paint jobs on the bow, renewed a thru-hull and did some interiour plumbing. Vuda is a nice yard with friendly staff, a restaurant with lunch specials and a bar as a meeting point, but even though we were lucky with the weather and only had occasional showers, the area around Pitufa was a swamp and the lack of chandleries made it necessary to run endless errands to hardware stores in town and the chandleries down in Denarau.

(16 photos)

Have you read the news? The High Seas Treaty aims to turn 30% of the seas into protected areas by 2030, to safeguard and recuperate marine nature. The president of French Poly announces one marine reserve after the other, browsing through the news about other Pacific nations one can be happy to see that most of the waters around the Marshall Islands are protected and lots of other island nations are installing marine reserves.

All’s peachy then, right? No more need to worry about the overfished ocean and we can all relax. So how is it possible that most reefs we snorkel out here in the Pacific are hopelessly overfished with only tiny fishies remaining? Why is it a rare occasion to catch a pelagic fish while trolling?

In Austria we have a saying that “paper is patient” and most of these ambitious protection plans remain grey theory indeed. In many cases the small print allows so many exceptions (for “artisanal” fishing, or traditional fishing, or commercial fishing as long as it’s local–at least on the patient paper, because who knows which international company owns the local fishing boat??) that waters are still happily officially fished empty. The next problem is that countries don’t have the resources (or interest) to control and police offshore waters where illegal fishing fleets happily roam with their AIS turned off.
In coastal protection areas corruption and nepotism prevent laws from being enforced, as there’s always somebody’s cousin’s cousin who needs the income from today’s overfishing (without a thought where tomorrow’s fish will come from) like we witnessed on an island in French Poly where the local police officer and biosphere representative also owns the fish trap where sharks, turtles and other protected species are killed and masses of parrot fish are taken for export.
So not everything’s peachy on this blue planet and we can’t just happily move on to other topics…

Birgit Hackl, Christian Feldbauer: Choosing a Cruising Boat, All At Sea Caribbean, May 2023, p. 36–38. download the whole magazine for free.

Finding an antifouling that actually helps against growth is tricky for the owners of aluminium boats. After lots of disappointments we finally got a great product in Tahiti: Carboline Sea Barrier Alloy 100. We had it on for 3 years, never had to haul out and when we did last week it still looked good!
We couldn’t find Carboline in Fiji, so we had it shipped in from New Zealand prior to the haul-out. We can really recommend it for other aluminium boats.

Christian had a fun day yesterday exchanging the hoses going to and (worse) from the toilet. After 20 years of use the job was overdue and pumping the toilet should be much easier now
In the meantime I was sanding some corrosion bubbles on the bow–climbing on scaffolding with angle grinder and orbital sander is not what the physio therapist suggested, but I can’t stand being idle in the boatyard…

It’s easy to avoid all those motions, especially on a boat, right? In the beginning I counted myself lucky that my ribs were healing quickly and I thought I’d be back to normal in a jiffy. Now it’s been two months since we had the accident and my ribs still refuse to get stable. I’ve been cautious all the time, only tried some gentle exercises, but apparently one of the lower ribs has still not healed (might be slipping rib syndrome, which can hopefully be cured by rest).
At least I can write and make jewellery, so that’s what I’ve been doing this week while avoiding movements and willing my body to finally heal.

Our friends arrived loaded with spare parts for Pitufa–one of them was a replacement for the battery monitor that got fried when we were hit by lightening in Suva. Yesterday Christian finally got round to installing it and the little job turned into a full day project as the shunt wouldn’t fit into the battery compartment and Christian had to remake the whole mounting. One of those annoying and typical boat jobs where there’s hardly enough space to reach the work piece, let alone using tools… I was assisting handing stuff and occasionally I ran to the medical cabinet for iodine (even small cuts need to be disinfected in the tropics), Flammazine (great cream for burns, e.g. from dripping solder) and Traumeel (miracle cream against bruises). Now the little box is installed and working and we can see the energy production and consumption again–so important on a green boat with only alternative energy sources!

My ribs are still causing me some pain and trouble, but snorkeling I hardly notice them! The Yasawas have been a bit disappointing underwater. We had assumed that islands that rely heavily on tourism would protect the underwater world for the sake of their attraction on visitors, but most places we have seen are heavily overfished and the coral is also not in great shape. Today we found a real gem though with healthy reefs, plenty of swarm fishies and even a turtle and a white-tippy reef shark came by to say hello!