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.

Bora Bora

Not all that you read is true. This includes glossy travel write ups and cruising guides. In the case of Bora Bora it turns out that the glossy travel mag articles painting Bora Bora as "one of the more beautiful places on the planet"…are true. The unflattering cruising guides (mostly written many years ago) berate the place due to tourists and hotels. Neither of which need to bother you if you choose to anchor out and enjoy it for what it is. 

One can truly see why this is one of THE top honeymoon destinations. As Sally and I have a few friends nearing "wedding age", we highly recommend Bora Bora as a potential location for chilling out post nuptials (although you may need to take out  a second mortgage to do it).

The water is some of the clearest we have seen inside an atoll. There is the occasional boat / jet ski that sped past us but not nearly as many as in Moorea. We dropped the hook just after entering the pass as it is in 15 ft of fine sand which proved great holding when the wind picked up to 41knots (76km). With amazing clarity we can see each grain of sand on the bottom.

There is a lot to do here. Everything from diving with sharks and manta rays, to feeding bread to beautiful arrays of semi-tamed fish. We have never seen a as many spotted eagle rays as we did on a snorkel through a channel. There must have been 150 of the little buggers at about 20ft. 

For the well heeled tourist you can wait for a clear day and do a helicopter ride over the island. If the photos are anything to go by it must be a truly spectacular event seeing it from seagull height. 

For those on a slightly different budget, you can always climb the mountain on the island and see the view. 

This is probably one of the most beautiful places we have ever been to. It is definitely our favourite Society Island. The tourists seem to stay in the resorts and occasionally zoom to / from the airport or snorkel spots in fancy outriggers. There are charter boats but anchorages are measured in miles so finding ones own spot far from the crowd is not hard. There are also plenty of anchoring spots along the fringe reef. The eastern side of the island was far less busy than the west. The east was probably a lot better protected when the front hit as it is sheltered by motus with vegetation. 

The front built up 5 meter swells that dumped a lot of water into the atoll and as such our speedo was measuring 1.5 knots of current zooming past us (and we weren't even in the deep channel where it was probably rushing at 3 knots). Combined with the wind on the nose, our friends on Ninita needed a bit of help getting to the anchorage. We are often very glad we have a 10hp outboard and a hard bottom dinghy. 

We contemplated climbing the mountain like a few of our yachtie friends had already done, but decided instead to have a lovely bike ride around the island. It is interesting to see the comparison between the international resorts, pearl shops etc and the locals houses, some decorated with the occasional lawn ornament washing machine or rusty car (sans tires…or engine). 

Apparently Bora Bora used to attract 250k tourists a year. That figure has fallen to around 150k. As such there are a lot of dilapidated / closed resorts. This downturn has seemingly not affected some companies pricing strategy, as they still charge thousands of dollars per night.

The Mai Kai Yacht Club is a great spot to park the dinghy for the day whilst going ashore. They also have internet there, a swimming pool, dive shop and mooring balls at $50 for a week. Bora Bora Yacht Club is a little further away from the action, but better sheltered when the wind gets up as Mai Kai has 3+ miles of southerly fetch. 

We are sad we could not stay longer in Bora Bora as it really is a fantastic place but we must keep heading West and take the weather windows when they come!