Wks 85-86: Toau to Tahiti (233nm)

With the return of the wind to we were able to complete our passage to Tahiti, where we were granted our visas and thus could breathe a sigh of relief at being allowed to stay here on Serenity and take some time to explore whilst we evaluated how the COVID restrictions would impact the rest of our 2020 plans.

Captain’s Log

18th April: Bid farewell to the various new friends in the anchorage and set off for Tahiti just after lunch. As soon as we left, the anchorage was best by a major series of thunderstorms, so we counted ourselves lucky to have timed our departure perfectly. The wind filled in nicely and we had a good night under sail.

19th April: Wind picked up a bit and then a bit more through the day such that we ended up sailing significantly faster than we needed to and our arrival time in Papeete shifted forward to the middle of the coming night – not a good idea for navigating an unknown coral pass. We put the deepest ever reef Serenity has had into the mainsail and even then our speed was averaging above five kts, but this was enough to shift the arrival time back to the daylight hours. Night watches were exciting as we all went through periods of 30+ knots, but things calmed down as we got behind the safety of Tahiti and prepared to make our arrival.

20th April: The port authority requested we delay our entrance until after a very large cargo ship had been guided through the pass, but this in turn made it very easy for us as we just had to follow them in. The marina appeared to be unmanned, so we picked ourselves a spot and then found the manager Frank who was a friendly if unorthodox personality and extended a very warm welcome. Finished off the formalities with Tehani from the Tahiti Crew agency, who helped us get approved for the normal visas – a massive result as we can now take our time in working out what happens next.

21st April: It took a while to realise, but we discovered that the marina had a complete lack of facilities other than the dock we were tied to – the new ones were still under construction (and indefinitely paused for COVID reasons), but they had decided to knock down the old facilities first. Thankfully the restrictions in Papeete are nowhere near as onerous as in Nuku Hiva, and so we took the opportunity to explore the town to find a laundry service (and enjoy our first proper exercise for many weeks), and also source some takeaway pizza.

22nd-24th April: After a couple of frustrating days working with the US State Department to see whether there would be any direct flights to the USA, Daniel and Camille realised that this was unlikely to be possible any time soon. On top of this, Daniel was keen to put this dead time to use and focus on his internet business, but the lack of WiFi in the marina was too great a barrier, so they decided to apply for permission to move off Serenity First and into an AirB’nB that would have a reliable high-speed connection. This was granted two days later and after a hectic morning reassembling all their possessions, we bid them farewell as they began the first stage of their journey home.

25th April: It was a strange feeling being back to just two on Serenity, and so Laura and I took some time to expand our footprint back to our regular two person cruising setup, including moving our sleeping location back into the forepeak – with our longest passages now hopefully behind us, we were keen to benefit once again from the breeze and headroom in the bow. The limited benefits of being in the marina given what we were paying was starting to feel oppressive and, with the battery issues finally resolved after five days of tests (one of them had an internal short that was pulling down the whole bank and needed to be removed), we decided we’d move out to the anchorage area the day after next.

26th April: Made our preparations for leaving the marina including topping up the tanks, disposing of all the garbage and going on a provisioning run to the local supermarket. Ran into the Danish crew of Impulse who had just arrived from Toau, and made plans to reunite with them for some island exploration the next week. Finished the day with some drinks with Matt and Sydney off S/V Impulse, who had been in and left Nuku Hiva before us and were a lot of fun to chat with – Matt is the Australian yacht broker for Elan and so was able to share some amazing tips on how to prepare for selling Serenity at the end of the year (assuming we can reach Australia!)

27th April: Tried to go out for a celebratory lunch, having heard that the rebellious nearby Bora Bora Lounge was allowing eat-in despite this not technically being allowed yet. But, no sooner had we sat down than the police arrived and kicked everyone out so we had to settle for takeaway. There was a strong cross breeze, but we managed to spring out of our slip without incident and motor the three easy miles inside the reef to get to the anchorage by the airport in Faa’a (made more exciting by the need to call Port Control to get permission to pass in front of the airport runway en route). We spotted S/V Tourterelle (friends from Panama) and found a good spot for Serenity nearby, grateful once more when Brucey set himself immediately in the lovely sand so that we could feel safe despite the deep water and strong winds.

28th April: Woke up to a beautiful, flat calm morning – the water was so clear we could see the bottom from the deck, even at 15m depth! Pumped up the kayak and went for a little explore before stopping by Tourterelle for a cup of tea and a catch up with Ian and Ann, and inviting them to come round for drinks the next day. Spent the afternoon enjoying our first swim in Tahiti and dusted off our freediving skills. Whilst I struggled a bit clearing my ears, Laura made it all the way to the bottom on her third attempt setting a new PB and showing that sometimes the best practice is absence?

29th April: A planned morning of jobs was thrown slightly off track when the dinghy engine wouldn’t start. But, we soon worked out that water had gotten into the fuel, and after a pass through our special filter, BJ was back in action! I visited our neighbours Derek and Leslie on Ocean Blue, who Ian and Ann had recommended as lovely and incredibly knowledgeable on French Polynesia, and enjoyed a cup of tea with my local briefing. Later, Tourterelle came round for sundowners, bringing some delicious homemade ginger beer to make a fancy Dark & Stormy! The perfect accompaniment to sharing stories of our Pacific crossings and how we’d each fared since arrival.

30th April: We had a mango that needed using, so Laura whipped us up a big stack of pancakes to go with it for breakfast. This was good energy food that allowed me to bust through a battery check and refill despite the heat (a lot easier with one less battery to manage), whilst Laura took a test drive to shore in the dinghy. It ended up being a 30 minute trip, but was manageable (since the water was fairly flat at this point…). In the evening, I discovered we’d been playing Mexican Train Dominoes wrong all these years, so we tried out a few games with the correct rules, which was much more fun!

Story of the week

After being spoilt by the taste of Tuamotu paradise during our time in Toau, arriving in Pape’ete was a bit of a reality check. Our cruising guides had spoken of a marina embedded within a bustling city full of cafes, bakeries, pearl shops and produce markets. Unsurprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic had shut virtually all of these businesses down and we were greeted by a scenic ghost town.

After our experiences in Nuku Hiva, we were expecting the pandemic control measures in Tahiti to be even stricter, as all of the cases of COVID in French Polynesia were concentrated on this island. As it turned out, the authorities and population here ended up being a bit more relaxed than in the Marquesas, which I can only assume is due to the improved health care facilities and better access to accurate information on the crisis.

For example, there were regular check points around the towns in Nuku Hiva to ensure that people were only travelling for essential business and that social distancing was being paid close attention, whereas in Pape’ete the police were only patrolling to monitor significant infractions (such as the Bora Bora Lounge trying to secretly serve lunch to eat-in customers) and people moving around the city were left alone. This was a real bonus for us, as our biggest desire after being cooped up for so long was just to walk and get some exercise into our legs, and so the lack of things to visit and do was certainly not a major frustration in our first week there.

Other measures were in line with the typical approaches across Europe (as you’d expect given the strong links with France), and so numbers in grocery stores were managed and hand sanitiser was vigorously applied to shoppers and carts. Face masks were strongly encouraged and most people seemed to have obtained masks decorated with Polynesian designs in bright colours. The curfew each evening was announced by a series of large vessels around the harbour exercising their mega-horns, but based on the attitudes we were witnessing I suspect that outside of the city centre people were still remaining outside.

The quarantine measures that we were most closely monitoring were the restrictions on movement of sailboats. Whilst we expected the international borders between countries to remain closed for quite some time, French Polynesia encompasses such a large number of islands that, now we were cleared in, there was more that enough ground for us to spend as much of 2020 exploring as we had available. The flip-side was that the success the authorities had had in controlling the virus here was through banning almost all travel between the islands. In fact, whilst the remote nature and limited healthcare of many of these islands was initially perceived as a weakness, it became a strength as it made it far easier to enforce restrictions on the movement of people and prevent any spread of the virus outside of Tahiti.

The extraordinary measures to combat the virus were announced / updated on a two weekly cycle, first through a televised announcement from the High Commissioner and then within a published document called the Arrete. So we started monitoring the local news in the build up to these events to see what the likely changes were; however, they rarely had any insight to provide, and in fact the verbal announcement from the High Commissioner was often contradicted in the following days by the Arrete!

The fact that we were managing this all in a foreign language only added to the confusion – when they say boats are now permitted to travel, do they mean all boats (what we initially thought) or only ferries (what they actually intended)? When they say movement is now permitted between islands in a group, are they including Tahiti (not at first) and are the Societies considered a single group (no, they were subdivided into the Windward and Leeward islands)? The silver lining was that trying to interpret these announcements offered us a novel excuse to get to know the wide variety of cruisers in the anchorage, who would likely be our cruising companions once the restrictions were lifted.

Parting thoughts

I’ll finish with my least and most favourite things about our first few weeks in Pape’ete. On the negative side, the works manager at the marina wins the uncoveted ‘idiot of the year’ award for his refurbishment of the marina facilities. Despite the fact that the new facilities (which look stunning and feature prominently on the marina website) are being constructed on a different site to the old ones, they decided to demolish the old ones before the new ones were complete. The new ones were already three months behind schedule when COVID happened, and obviously now work has stopped. The result is that the marina has no showers, no toilets, no laundry, no WiFi, no shore spaces. They don’t even have anyone monitoring VHF to assign spaces and catch your lines when you arrive. So everyone is pumping their waste into the harbour, showering on board and paying for a berth that doesn’t even include water and electricity. The fact that the lack of facilities aren’t made clear on the website is pretty underhanded, and they are profiting from the COVID crisis as there are very limited options for yachts in Tahiti – we weren’t impressed.

What we were impressed with was the local Hinano beer. After many months of drinking the fairly tasteless Panama lager (approaching the Bud Light end of the spectrum), the higher price point of the Hinano was initially a bit of concern – that is until the first taste. It is a super interesting lager given it is a mass produced ‘national beer’ and we are massive fans of both the hoppy flavour and the beautifully designed logo. We were also able to get a discount by buying the beer as the locals do, in crates of large bottles where you then get a deposit refund when you return the empties. More than worth the effort and a perfect cure for a stressful day fixing battery issues in a non-marina.