April 20 – May 1
Our time in French Polynesia is coming to a close. We arrived nearly two years ago in the Marquesas and have had many great times. But if your boat stays longer than two years, you need to pay an import tax that would come to tens of thousands of dollars. So we needed to be out of the country before May 12.
We took a trip into town and visited the Gendarmarie (police station), to get the details about the process for exiting French Polynesia. There are forms to fill out, different agencies that need to approve this or that and we wanted to make sure we did not have any snags on our way out. It all ended up being straight forward. Once we knew which day we were leaving, we went to the Gendarmarie about 3 days early. They sent the forms to offices in Papeette and the approvals came back in a couple days. One more trip in to pick up our completed forms and we were all set.
On our trips in to town we also spent quite a bit of time provisioning. You need to go to several different places as some have better produce, others better dry goods, etc. But we worked it all in with our trips to the Gendarmarie and got well stocked. I also found a hardware store I really liked and came back several times. The jumper cables ended up being very useful.
We also had time to play tourist. We moved Calista down to Faaroe Bay on the east side of Raiatea and took a kayak trip up the river to the botanical gardens.
We had visited them earlier but there is supposed to be a guy who gives tours of the area, including his property where a French version of Survivor was held a few years ago. Unfortunately he did not seem to be around so we missed out on that. But the kayak trip up the river was still lots of fun!
We also had time to reconnect with Giles, a friend I sailed with in 2016 on my Panama to Darwin trip. We were both crew on a boat called Rhumb Runner (a very nice Amel ketch). Since then he bought his own boat and will complete his circumnavigation in about a month when he reaches Thailand, where he bought the boat. It was great to see Giles again and catch up on his travels!
After fueling up and a few more details, we were ready for a May 1 departure. Stay tuned for the next post!
You both look great! I’m jealous.