Pitufa.at

French Polynesia has been in a lock-down now for 2 weeks. Low vaccination rates led to an explosion in cases after the delta variant arrived and really made this lock-down necessary. We fully agree that measures were needed to limit the spreading of Covid here. Yes, it makes sense to prohibit sports events and group activities where people gather. But why harass surfers and paddlers… Continue reading »

Those of ship’s cat Leeloo’s fans who are roaming remote places can now get the kindle version of her adventurous life. Usually internet is way too pricey here in Fr. Poly to tackle big uploads, but Vini (mobile phone provider) gave out lock-down data presents and I used it all up to create an e-book! Available now on Amazon

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 »

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 »

Ten years ago we set out from Pula (Croatia). We didn’t know then whether we’d like this life, whether we’d be able to deal with all the challenges it poses. We were happy, but also quite anxious… On the one hand it feels like yesterday, on the other hand we have experienced and seen so much during those years that it seems like a lifetime…… Continue reading »

We always like to think that all cruisers are reasonable, environmental friendly, nice people. Well, they are not. Two days ago we moved to the airport anchorage and anchored in 3 m depth on the shelf where we can see the bottom, know that we are nicely settled in sand and only need 20 m of chain. Our next neighbour was far away, the French… Continue reading »

While Pitufa was anchored alone off Marina Taina, the French catamaran Noee swang into her and scratched her paintwork. When our friend Adrian (who did a great job taking care of Pitufa while we were gone–Adrian Pataki who runs Diesel Clinic in Taina, call him when you need someone to look after your boat!) confronted him, he just called him names. We also tried to… Continue reading »

Travelling in times of Covid is complicated, requires lots of organisation, paperwork and gave us one adrenaline rush after the other… First we had to beg the Haute Commissariat to accept our reasons to travel (we only got the okay for the return flight when we were already in Austria–quite exciting…), then there’s a form for the folks from quarantine (non-vaccinated travellers need a special… Continue reading »

Going through pictures of Leeloo and all those happy memories I thought that Leeloo’s many fans around the world would probably like to see more about the unusual 21 years our beloved kitty accompanied us on our travels. “On velvet paws towards the horizon” will soon be available on Amazon–I’m working on it!

Thanks guys for all the good reviews! It’s great for me as an author to know that people are enjoying my stories… No complaints so far Richtung Horizont — Available as paperback and e-book on Amazon. You can order it here.

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!… Continue reading »