Pitufa.at

With 2700 cases/100.000 inhabitants, swamped hospitals and full ICU units the government has finally announced a new lockdown for 2 weeks. It’s a bit vague though: people are still allowed to go to work or shopping (necessary things), the international borders remain open, inter-island travel is limited to people with “important reasons” (which is a broad term as any business reason or family reason counts).… Continue reading »

We are anchored on a sandy shelf in a protected part of the lagoon of southern Tahiti. In front of us 4 m swell thunders against the outer reef in crazy avalanche-like looking barrels and behind us the deeper lagoon looks like a fast-flowing mountain river with eddies, whirlpools and standing waves… Pitufa gets swirled around by 3 knots of current, but we’re bouncing only… Continue reading »

489 new cases in the last 24 hours (with a population of only 270.000, 406 cases/100.000 in the last week), 1837 active cases and the ICU unit of the hospital in Papeete is full! During the first wave last year the numbers were low, then French Polynesia closed its borders and remained almost Covid-free for a long town. Now borders have been open again for… Continue reading »

Usually we have a jungle under the sprayhood, but when we left the boat alone, we had to get rid of the plants. Now I’m replanting and soon we’ll harvest arugula, spring onions, mint, basil and cilantro again! The chilis and bellpeppers will need a few more months though

This one’s in a small, regional newspaper, but they got all the facts right Thanks a lot to the Bezirksrundschau

Another article about us was published in an Austrian newspaper today. The “Krone” is Austria’s most read newspaper, but has a reputation for bad research. The numerous errors in the article are not due to faulty answers in the interview from our side E.g. our dear princess Leeloo was not a tomcat, but very much of a girly cat. They advertise our books, but wrongly… Continue reading »

Wherever the reefs have died around here, the rocks are covered in coarse turbinaria algae. A depressing sight. In such areas large, floating patches of those ugly plants cover the sea. They are a constant nuisance when the outboard sucks them in. Today they brought Pitufa close to a major catastrophe: We were motoring to a new anchorage inside the lagoon, when Christian noticed that… Continue reading »

By 8 o’clock the laundry’s on the line… We’ve done some stretching and exercises… …had a morning swim… …with a few stingrays for company! In the meantime the bread is out of the pan and we can have breakfast. A perfect way to start the day! (We’ll spend most of it in front of our laptops, but that’s another story )

When you sleep in passage mode on the floor and the coffee pot needs to be clasped to the stove, you know it’s time to get out of the Marina Taina anchorage… The reef is not wide and high enough to protect the lagoon from high swell, so whenever the swell gets higher than 1.5 m (yesterday it was 2.5…) it gets seriously bouncy in… Continue reading »

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… Continue reading »