Leaving French Polynesia ... after visiting Tahiti, Moorea, Huahine, Raiatea, Tahaa and Bora Bora together with Sara and Alex

Sans Peur
Grete & Fred Vithen
Thu 13 Jun 2019 02:40
Bora Bora, Vaitape 12 June 16 30 44S 15145 14W


We left Papeete, together with Sara and Alex, for Moorea 27 May. Tomorrow we will sail to Maupiti and the last small island in French Polynesia to visit will be Mophelia (Maupihaa).

Sans Peur entered French Polynesia in Nuku Hiva, Marquesas, last year October 17.
All together we, Grete and Fred, have visited 3 Archipelagos; Marquesas, Toamutos and Society … exploring 16 islands making 46 stops. Most of the time we have been anchoring.
Distance sailed about 1600 Nm.

Today we will check out from French Polynesia here in Bora Bora and our next country to visit will be Cook Islands, Rarotonga. That will be 3 nights away from Mopelia.

Our new great crew members Sara and Alex arrived in Papeete 22 May and will stay till the end of July.
With the new crew members my life (Grete) is so much easier, no stress when mooring and when picking up buoys. Galley duty they love…. and I am happy.
They are a great help and nice company.

Exploring the islands means some trekking and walks (very hot hot hot), a few happy hours (Huahine Yacht Club was nice), testing some local food and a lot of snorkelling.
Fresh tuna, “blanc” (white) and “rouge”(red), is one of the few things that are available here at a reasonable prices. Really nice as steaks and sashimi.
We also tried to make the local Poison Crue (like Ceviche). Nice but hard to find all the necessary ingredients.

Snorkelling has been by far the most popular activity in this climate. Around 30 C in the water.
Best so far:
- Moorea, stingrays and sharks.
- Huahine, drift snorkelling behind the outer reef (along the dingy).
- Tahaa Coral Gardens, drift snorkelling in clear water.
- Bora Bora, Tane, amazing coral structures.


Sara & Alex edition:
We arrived late on 22nd May and took a local taxi to the harbour where we were met by a jolly man (pappa/Fred) by the entrance of the harbour.
It was a very nice sight and the four of us stayed up chatting the whole night and probably destroyed my parents/Grete & Fred's sleeping pattern
for a short while as we went to bed way passed their usual bedtime.

In Papeete we stayed for a few nights which allowed us to acclimatise to the weather, time difference and high prices of food and drinks compared to Asia.
We went for happy hour at the Trois Brasseurs which turned out to be a super fun and lively night with all locals gathering here to drink beer, sing along with
the Ukulele band and turns out they were celebrating mothers day.
Great evening at a nice place with the kind of atmosphere you want at every happy hour - you couldn’t help to leave with a big smile on your face.
I think we were all quite done with Papeete at the time we left and we were excited to see what the other French Polynesian islands had to offer.

At this stage, we have visited Tahiti, Moorea, Huahine, Raiatea, Tahaa, Bora Bora with 2 more to be added on our way to Cook Island as dad mentioned above.

Our most loved thing to do is snorkelling in the clear and warm waters which allowed us to see the following:
- what we think was the love dance of 5 eagle rays on the bottom beneath the boat
- Sara saw an eagle ray leaping out of the water
- large corals with colourful small fish
- drift snorkelling which we have never done before and resulted in a few scratches when you got too enthusiastic to follow a certain route and got stuck in the shallows between corals
- big and gentle sting rays and black tip sharks swimming around and on you

We are eating great home cooked food in the evenings and it is nice to finally be able to prep and cook by yourself, something we have missed whilst backpacking for 5 months.
Although, we have to do some more excersises besides the occasional trekking otherwise I think we will gain a lot of weight due to the good and sometimes lazy life on the boat…

We really like being on Sans Peur again as crew and we are looking forward being fully pledged sailors by the end of our time on the boat.