And just like that, our time in French Polynesia has come to an end. Yesterday, we sailed out of Tiputa pass at Rangiroa — the largest atoll in the Tuamotus and the only one with a Gendarmerie where you can check out of the country — and pointed north towards Hawaii.
Like most non-EU citizens, we had a 90-day visa for French Polynesia, but unlike most reasonable cruisers, we only budgeted two months to explore this part of the world. We spent a month in Nuku Hiva waiting for parts and wedding attendees, so we rushed through the atolls of the Tuamotus, leaving most stones unturned and most coral unsnorkeled. It felt a little unconscionable considering how far we sailed to get here, but it was worth every nautical mile for the magic of quiet days with dear friends in the perfectly clear, calm water of the atolls’ lagoons.
After dropping anchor in Tahanea, there was a lot we didn’t do. We didn’t wonder if our anchor chain was wrapped around a coral bommie, because we could see all 20 meters of it right down to where the anchor was set in white sand. We didn’t wake up at night when the movement of the boat changed, because the water was so still that the boat didn’t move. We didn’t spend a single minute thinking about what to buy, because there wasn’t a store within 80 miles.
We did snorkel until our foreheads had permanent indents from our masks. We saw disinterested black-tipped reef sharks, curious remoras, spotted grouper, blinking parrot fish, fluttering trigger fish, intricately-patterned butterflyfish, and a million types of wrasses.
When the weather was calm, Steve towed Paul behind the dinghy on a skimboard. When there was wind, he wingfoiled.
James and Paul discovered the joys of weight belts and Kevin’s unofficial Navy Seal training. He had them swimming down 20 feet, filling their masks with water, and emptying them before resurfacing. He started throwing things in the water for them to retrieve with and without fins, starting with a winch handle and working up to our stern anchor.
I finally felt like I could turn the oven on without melting and went on a baking tear. Paul and I spent a few hours making hamburger buns and french fries. I made loaves of sourdough and opened a can of (delicious!) shelf-stable New Zealand butter that’s sold all over French Polynesia. We made naan to eat with Melissa’s amazing curry with pineapples.
While the weather was calm, we moved to a less protected anchorage on the west side of Tahanea. (Forever to be known as the Gary Larson Memorial Anchorage on No Foreign Land.) The reef here was teeming with fish, many we’d never seen before, and the nearest motu had lots of boobies including a sweet, fuzzy baby in a nest and alert parents taking turns incubating thier egg on top of their big, webbed feet.
Our quiet, happy days in Tahanea were bittersweet, too. We were constantly thinking about our friends on Rocket Science who would have been with us if transmission issues hadn’t forced them to less-remote Fakarava — where they were spending their days figuring out how to get a transmission delivered before their visa expired. We were closely following Hepatica’s slow passage from Mexico, cheering when they finally crossed the equator, imagining everything they’d enjoy in Nuku Hiva, and regretting that we wouldn’t get to hear about it in person. (Though we will be seeing them on YouTube.) We nearly missed Sentijn, who arrived at the anchorage in Tahanea just as we were heading out. We had just enough time to catch a glimpse of Dean’s boat-made marble maze from afar and yell a quick goodbye. Most of our boat friends will be continuing west towards New Zealand, while we head towards home, so turning north from Tahanea felt like a parting of ways, the end of a chapter.
There wasn’t much time to reflect on our overnight passage to Fakarava, however, as the seas were uncomfortable and a series of squalls kept us on our toes. In order to time our arrival at the north pass with favorable current, we sailed a long route with only the genoa out, which made it easy to quickly reef when we saw winds up to 44 knots and unfurl again when the breeze backed down to 15 knots.
Fakarava is the second largest of the atolls in the Tuamotus and a common stop for cruisers looking to provision in the village of Rotoava, as well as tourists arriving by plane. After a nap, we met Rocket Science at the Pearl Farm, an actual pearl farm, but also a hotel restaurant where you can drink a beer or milkshake sitting at a table in the water while nurse sharks swim by. It was a lovely soft landing after almost two weeks away from civilization.
The next night, we had a proper dinner out with Rocket Science and their Dutch friends on Pandion and Paradiso to celebrate Caroline’s birthday. The mahi was delicious but the real highlight was the three-man band (ukulele, guitar, and gut bucket) who seemed to be having the time of their lives playing Polynesian and French songs, and even some American mashups.
We scoured the grocery aisles for fresh lettuce and Tim Tams and snorkeled with Mara and Griffin who led us to the best spots including a bommie right in the middle of the anchorage. For the first time, we saw unicornfish, birdnose wrasses, Picasso triggerfish, and a moray eel. I loved approaching schools of little blue chromis hovering around tree-shaped coral and watching them dart into the branches. But the highlight was the day James discovered an octopus.
James is always the last off the boat, but the first to find an interesting animal. Melissa (a vet) has seen thousands of animals, but really, really loves octopuses. (In the time we’ve known her, Melissa flew back to Anchorage and got a beautiful, super realistic octopus tattoo.) It was a total delight just to watch the two of them face down in the water, waiting for the octopus to emerge from its hideout and squealing through their snorkels when it changed color and texture.
On Flyer, Steve and I looked at the calendar over and over, working backwards from a July 1st arrival in Kodiak, factoring in provisioning and crew pick up in Honolulu (we can’t wait to see you again, Cameron!), and cross referencing the long list of French holidays in May when immigration offices are closed. No matter how many times we tried to find more days into the month, it looked like we had to keep moving. That meant saying goodbye to Rocket Science — who were still waiting for their transmission in Fakarava — until we reunite in Seattle. We had one last meal together with Mara’s amazing hummus, just one in a very long list of amazing things Mara has fed us over the years. The next day, Griffin buzzed us in the dinghy as we left the anchorage — a mirror image of our arrival in Nuku Hiva but with a lot more Napoleon Dynamite and Austin Powers catch phrases yelled back and forth.
En route to check out at Rangiroa, we spent our last two nights with Dark Star at Toau, a quiet atoll where we checked the “snorkel a pass” box on the list of Tuamotus musts.
It’s hard to put to words just how much Kevin and Melissa’s easy companionship and steady support have meant to us since our accidental sleepover in the Channel Islands seven months ago. They’ve seen us through three transmissions and associated emotional roller coasters. We spent Christmas together in Agua Verde. We met Melissa’s aunt and uncle when they visited La Paz. We spoke every night on our 22 day passage from Mexico to French Polynesia.
On our last night together, under the stars, Kevin jumped into the water with some incredible underwater lights and made us one more once-in-a-lifetime memory. Paul overcame his nerves and jumped in next, then Steve and James couldn’t resist. There was hooting, hollering, laughter, amazement, and mostly gratitude.
After one more mostly uneventful overnight passage, we anchored at Rangiroa which looked like a metropolis after Toau. We watched guests at the Kia Ora Resort snorkel from their overwater bungalows and headed to the restaurant for lunch and COLD DRINKS!! What a luxury.
Steve rented a scooter and dropped off our passports at the Gendarmerie. We had dinner with Atisha (Roger and Jenny, who we met back in the Channel Islands, and their friends visiting from Australia) at a family restaurant where the pre-teen son acts as maitre’d, waiter, and busboy while speaking perfect English. Riding back to Flyer on the dinghy that night, the little needlefish that swim just below the surface of the water were jumping like crazy and a couple jumped right into the dinghy with us.
The next morning, Olivier, a taxi driver and the unofficial mayor of Rangiroa, picked us up at the dock and drove us 6 miles to the village of Atuana where we found plenty of provisions for the trip to Hawaii — including as many cartons of Rotui fruit juices as we could carry— then to the Gendarmerie to collect our passports. We were ready to go.
Now we’re alone again on a beam reach towards the equator and family futures betting has opened for the date and time of our crossing. If all goes well, we’ll be eating poke and shave ice in Honolulu in about 17 days.
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