 "blueberry") is actually the German word for bilberry (a number of other German cartoonists have made similar puns relating to bear names in their stories, including Rötger Feldmann aka Brösel), that a typical sailorish sailor is called an (old) "seabear", and that sailors are prejudiced to be quite often "blue", i.e.drunk.The novel was originally written in German, an English translation was published in the United Kingdom in 2000 and in the United States in 2005, an Italian translation in 2000, a Chinese translation in 2002, and a French translation in 2005.