Pitufa.at

We’ve been in French Polynesia now for 8 years. It’s an amazing cruising area, but this year we felt ready to start a new chapter–a post-ship’s cat chapter with more sailing, more exploring, rougher anchorages, hotter summers (all things we didn’t want our elderly cat to suffer). Due to the Covid pandemic most countries in the Pacific remain closed, but Fiji is open for yachts under a strict quarantine and entry scheme, so we planned to sail there.

While we were in Austria, the first Covid cases popped up in Fiji (the Delta variant…), some areas went into lockdown and despite the fact that inter-island traffic for boats is now allowed again, we hear that locals lack information, are suspicious against strangers and some chiefs deny access to their lands (understandably so). We are uncertain how the situation will develop and in the past few weeks we’ve been torn between the urge to move on and the risk of leaving our ‘home base’, where vaccinations are well underway and the situation seems under control.

Yesterday we decided that leaving the safety and freedom of French Polynesia would be too risky right now. French Poly with the growing animosity against sailboats in some areas isn’t perfect, but at least here we know our way around, know where we are welcome and where not. So it looks like we’ll get another chance to explore a few islands that are still on our to-do list and to revisit some places we love!