Pitufa.at

The TV report about us that was broadcast on Saturday in Austria can be found on the ORF website for one week: Oberösterreich heute, 22.5.2021, Segelnde Auswanderer

Here is the link to the article that was published in todays’ issue of the Austrian newspaper OÖNachrichten:

https://www.nachrichten.at/meine-welt/reisen/segel-setzen-richtung-freiheit;art119,3401730

In order to promote our book I wrote to some TV and radio stations in Austria, not expecting much–and was veeeery surprised when quite a few were interested. Pitufa’s crew will be on ‘Oberösterreich heute’ on Saturday at 7 pm and talking for half an hour in the ‘Linzer Torte’ (Radio Oberösterreich) on Sunday at 9 am. I’ll post internet links once we get them! There’s also an article about us in the OÖ Nachrichten magazine in the Saturday edition, travel section.

Today we are driving from Upper Austria to Graz. Drinking lots of water is generally healthy, but not a great idea when you’re on a highway… Finally a service station, by now it’s a full emergency, I grab a mask, run to the entrance –and get stopped by a smiling lady in a dirndl dress. No negative covid test, no entry, she informs us friendly, but firmly. I briefly consider peeing my pants, but Christian waves our vaccination passports and we’re granted entry. Just in time.
The new reality hits again.

Our travel book has started selling on Amazon, now we need some reviews to encourage other buyers… If you’ve read the book and enjoyed it (which I hope ) please leave a friendly review on Amazon!

Now also the e-book version is available on Amazon.
You can order it here.

French Polynesia’s borders were closed for a while, now they have opened up, but only for American tourists – funny, as the US handling of the Covid situation did not seem exactly like a success story, maybe the colour of the dollar gives heightened immunity?
All other travellers must still apply for a special permission to travel and present important motives. Christian’s passport expires in May, we could not manage to get a new one remotely, so we had to tackle tons of paperwork and applications to get to Austria before the expiry date… The permission of the Haute Commisariat to fly, Covid tests, forms for each transit country–quite nerve wrecking to be standing in queue after queue, each time hoping that the person behind the counter will accept the pile of paperwork.
We flew with Air France via Vancouver, Paris and Munich (our flight was cancelled, rebooked and changed 6 times…) and it was quite full–surprising when you consider the complications involved…

Anyway, we made it safe and sound to Austria and are now enjoying a couple of weeks with friends and family. Austria in springtime is lovely with fresh greens and blossoms everywhere, but still waaaay too cold for our delicate tropical bodies

We’ve just published a little account of our travels on Pitufa (in German) that’s now available on Amazon!
Available at Amazon (Paperback and e-book)

Yesterday I had some appointments in town and did my runs between different locations by thumb – hitchhiking works really well in French Polynesia, especially when you hold up a sign where you want to go.
I got chatting with a very nice Polynesian woman who picked me up, we talked about the Tuamotus, how we cruisers are blamed for pollution, harming nature and then I mentioned how few motu with endemic vegetation and birds are left and what a pity it is that the locals just burn the motu down for copra.

There were a few moments of silence and then she said: “I’ve just come back from Rangiroa and that’s what we did there for a week. With the raising of the subsidies for copra the families are fighting who gets to work which motu…”

She agreed that it would be good and important to protect a few little spots of nature, but the money’s just too good. The government claims that raising the prices for copra is a measure to help people during the covid crisis, but why don’t they give out funding for other projects? If the speed of destruction picks up there will be no nature left in French Polynesia within a short period of time.

It’s not even an argument to protect wild nature for the sake of tourism, because tourists expect coral rubble and rows of palmtrees. That’s the image of the South Sea that we have and not fertile islands with trees and soil…

French Polynesia is doing a good job to prevent Covid-19 from spreading. People generally still wear masks in shops and public places and remain cautious. Vaccinations are going on rapidly, in many places everybody 18+ can get an appointment for a shot.

However, we have noticed that some cruisers think that as soon as they have their two shots they can drop all precautions, they are already kissing again and going back to business as usual. Vaccinations only give a partial protection from experiencing severe symptoms, they are NOT a 100 % protection!

It’s really not so hard to wear a mask, wash your hands regularly and wave a friendly hello instead of kissing cheeks…

Raiatea in the morning is quite often simply magical: the lagoon is glassy calm, the island is mirrored on the surface of the sea and soft, white clouds sit on the soaring peaks. The landbreeze that gently blows down from those mountains is incredibly fragrant–a mixture of flowers and pine scent. We usually use this cool morning air to do exercises on deck before it gets too hot. Today we got the dinghy up on deck, unpacked the sails and prepared the boat for a passage. We’d love to stay, there are still many quiet corners left we’d love to explore, but we have to sail to Tahiti! A steady northeasterly is predicted for the next day and we’ll use it to sail the 110 nm there.

We’ve been hanging out around Raiatea and Tahaa (the two islands share one, big lagoon) for two weeks now. The infrastructure around these islands is very convenient: 4G internet, little supermarkets everywhere that get stuff from the supply ships several times a week, but sell also local produce. The nicest way to get locally grown fruit and veg is to walk down the coastal roads: whenever somebody has too many bananas/pamplemousse/rambutan/avocados/… they just set up a table in front of their property–great to get fresh things and to have a chat.

We’ve anchored in various spots and most locals who go by with their boats give us a friendly wave. Only the NW side of Raiatea (Pr. Mirimiri) is ‘famous’ for disliking cruisers. In the muddy bay there we got chased away a few years ago ‘because we destroy the coral there’ (in mud??) and this year a boat came by out on the shelf to tell us that we were disturbing their spearfishing area (by parking there?). Two years ago a local cut the anchor chain of a cruising boat and according to the verdict of this February he was found guilty and got a fine of 50.000 CPF (approx 500 USD), because he had ‘an understandable reason’…

It’s a hot autumn here, so we’ve spent quite some time in the water. Many reefs are dead and overgrown with algae, but some coral in the shallow areas is in surprisingly good shape, despite temperatures above 30°C. There are not many fish around and the ones we see are small and skittish–there’s too much spearfishing going on. At least we’ve seen a few turtles, and they were rather relaxed, so they don’t seem to get hunted here anymore.