Pitufa.at

After having spent so much time away it was great to see the beauty of Austria with the eyes of a tourist. Historical towns, mindboggling mountains, clear lakes–Austria is indeed a wonderful place
View of Salzburg:

We’re spending a week on my Dad’s powerboat in Croatia! Beautiful bays and stunning historical towns–yesterday we visited lovely, little Rovinj…

The first orders are coming in on Amazon. I hope you’ll enjoy reading the book as much as I enjoyed writing it! I kept adding chapters as we were travelling along to have a direct, fresh narration of our adventures. You can read the first two chapters on Amazon to see if you like my my style!

We took a direct Austrian Airlines flight from L.A. to Vienna (good service, but no masks on the plane–not even the flight attendants!!) and spent a day there (thanks Gerdsch!!).
Austria’s capital with its beautiful historical buildings is quite impressive when viewed with Pacific islander eyes

Pitufa remains in Fiji, but her crew has gone walkabout! We’ve just spent two program-packed days in LA, doing aaaalll the tourist fun locations. Thank you Kristi for being such a wonderful host and tour guide!!!

The book about our first years cruising aboard our Pitufa is now available as paperback, ebook and hardcover. Come aboard and read about our beginner’s mistakes, fun adventures, wonderful encounters–experience the ups and downs of the cruiser’s lifestyle with us! 331 gripping, entertaining pages
Click here to see more info and to read the first two chapters.

Cruising in Fiji you can’t just anchor somewhere and do your own thing, you’re supposed to visit the main village of the island, introduce yourself to the chief, bring a present (sevusevu, a bundle of kava) and then you’re accepted in the village and allowed to roam around ashore and in the coastal waters. In guide books and on the internet we read how-to’s and advice on what to wear (long sleeves, a sulu, that’s a wrapping skirt like a pareu), how to sit during the ceremony (crossed legs for men, legs sideways for women) and what to say (not a lot, especially women) for the ceremony, but in the end it turned out to be a very relaxed and easy affair–Lomati is no longer as traditional and misogynist as traditional Fiji used to be.

Our host family has invited us twice for lunch at their home, we have invited them back on Pitufa, everybody in the village is welcoming and friendly and we try to repay the hospitality with repairs and meaningful gifts (we brought reading glasses along, sun glasses are also sought after, etc.). The headman asked us to help with a report to the government about the projects they have been doing here in the village (a footpath through the village, solar panels for each house) along with an application for new projects (a dock so they don’t have to carry the boats a few hundred metres through mud at low tide) and I ended up typing a few pages in Fijian… We have therefore decided to leave a laptop here in the village, so they can write reports and letters themselves (we did an introductory explanation and the teacher from the neighbouring village will also help with instructions). We get the impression that most yachties that come through try their best to help with repairs and gifts, which is great, as it ensures a friendly welcome for boats here!

Unlike French Polynesia, where the rich colonial mother country France finances a very advanced level of infrastructure, Fiji is independent and has to fend for itself.

Outer islands like Matuku (where we’ve spent one and a half weeks now) have no airport and the supply ship only calls once a month. The shop here is very basic and has run out of sugar weeks ago…Sat images show roads, but that was some iniative several years ago and they have been blown over by cyclones, washed away by rains and are overgrown by now. Some villages have a limited power supply through recently installed solar panels, others only have a generator that’s run a couple of hours per day. There’s no mobile phone network and only the school has wifi.

The island is fertile though, each family has a garden, where kassava (maniok), sweet potatoes, taro and cabbage are grown. Bananas and papayas are abundant and in summer they will harvest mangoes, melons, avocados, etc.
Everybody goes fishing and meat is only available when the villagers occasionally slaughter a cow or goat. The people here automatically live on a much healthier diet as if they could buy burgers and fries in the shop…
Due to the lack of electricity the villagers don’t have big freezers where they could store fish for export, so the reefs are not badly overfished and still teeming with life.
As there is no mobile phone connection, the kids don’t spend their days glued to their smartphones, but play with each other out in nature.

Matuku may look poor at first sight, but it’s rich in wildlife, village culture and quality of life.

We have spent two windy weeks in the shelter of the the island maze of Vanua Balavu. Today we head out again, destination Matuku, a little island in the southwestern Lau. 130 nm with winds of 20+ on the beam will be a rough, but fast ride.