Clearing into French Polynesia

The expensive way or the easy way, choice is yours. There was a lot of table discussion in Panama before we left regarding people's strategies for clearing into French Polynesia. If you are a European national, this is no problem. Hence Sally was fine however I was the issue.

There are 2 official ways to clear in. 

1. Pay a large bond equivalent to a very expensive one way ticket out of French Polynesia. 

2. Pay an agent $250 (per vessel - regardless of crew numbers I believe)

The trouble with the bond is that you need to have roughly $2000 per person. They then nail you by exchanging your dollars/ pounds / whatever currency into Polynesian Francs at a shitty exchange rate. Then when you come to get it back, they nail you in reverse to convert to your required currency. There is also a "handling" fee of about $30 too. No idea what the spread is on the exchange rate, but you are not going to be any richer.

As for the agent, there is the argument that it allows you to buy duty free fuel if you use them. I am sure there are other ways to get it if you need it though. 

What a number of vessels did was book 100% refundable air ticket out of the country for 90 days time. You can book online on Expedia for example for a 1 way 100% refundable ticket. You can then show your ticket to immigration and then once cleared in cancel the ticket. No money lost.

OR - Just write up return flight details on your computer. Convert it to PDF and place it on a memory stick. Take the memory stick to immigration, they print off your flight details and welcome you to French Polynesia. It really was that easy. 

There is also a bit of confusion about having to go to Tahiti to "clear in" officially as all the outer islands are only Gendarmerie. We traipsed off to Papeete to seek out the "yacht master" to clear in and although filled out a form that said we had arrived in Tahiti, did not have to see customs or immigration again as our passports were already stamped etc. 

You can probably skip this step…(others did)

Clearing out of Bora Bora was painless. Filled out the same form as when we cleared in. Then had to post if off to Tahiti (the stamp was once 55 XFP cents, now it is 75… that's inflation for you) 

I waited longer in the post office to get a stamp than I did in the the Gendarmerie to clear out.