Pacific Crossing: Farewell to French Polynesia and Bora Bora
Allen and Maria Wadsworth have been contributing information to Noonsite ever since they cast off their dock lines from the UK six years ago. As they continue their ‘Until the Butter Melts’ odyssey westwards across the Pacific, they have provided some more useful updates on the islands of Maupiti and Bora Bora – their last stops in French Polynesia before setting sail for Niue.
Published 9 months ago
Maupiti
The forecast for our arrival was 1.2 metre swells but it was very flat at the entrance. You can easily see the entrance swell ( if there is any ) as you approach.
Do not trust the Navionics chart depths when you leave the channel. We came across a depth of 1.9m when Navionics said 4.5m. We suggest using CPN charts as well. We draw 2.05m and dredged up sand in this area. There was also an old mooring line just before the surface at approximately 16°26.800’S 152°14.716’W.
The dinghy dock is situated next to the town dock. We saw about four small shops where you could buy groceries and a bicycle hire shop.
Bora Bora
When we took our dinghy to the main dock, a lady asked us to not move the dinghy to the left hand corner of the quay and not to tie it up outside the tourist office.
You can take your dinghy to the petrol station to get fuel. We’ve seen catamarans go over to refuel but no monohulls, so we’re unsure of the depths there. The local, skippered charter boats have been known to tie up alongside the main dock on the outer wall, we don’t know if they have prior permission or if it is just for a short time period.
Fruit/salad stalls are along the side of the road on the way to Super U. We found the more westernised supermarket to be Chin Lee, opposite the Mobil petrol station. We needed to ask for eggs as they kept them behind the till in Super U.
We took a half day tour of the island and used Vaha Tours. Adolf, our guide was very knowledgeable and spoke French and excellent English.
Checking out
The online clearance service was not working as of June 2023 – you need to go into the gendarmerie to complete your forms and allow at least three working days before you wish to leave. They need to see all crew on leaving, so either you all go in when you complete the forms or upon getting your Zarpe on the day you leave. Any non-EU nationals will need to get their passports stamped.
Completing the forms took about 40 minutes with about seven forms to complete, most of the same information on these seven forms but the gendarme (who spoke good English ) checked all our forms were completed correctly.
We went back three days later, he stamped our passports and then we had to take a letter to the post office, buy a stamp (130xpf – 2023) and then it gets posted by the post office to Tahiti. There is a temporary post office at the rear of the main post office whilst they are renovating the old one.
Phone contract
Cancelling your Vini contract! We telephoned them from Bora Bora and they said you need to go to a Vini store! There’s no Vini store in Bora Bora but they understood and said we could email them to cancel. Just in case things didn’t go to plan, we downgraded our contracts to the lowest amount but a few days later we received an email to say our contract had been cancelled.
Maria and Allen Wadsworth
SV Jamala
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About the Authors
Maria and Allen Wadsworth sailed from England in June 2017, crossed the Atlantic, with Jimmy Cornell’s Islands Odyssey. After a season in the Caribbean, they headed to Bermuda, then the USA for hurricane season, before heading south via the Bahamas, Cuba and Jamaica to Panama where they transited the canal in March 2019. After a stop in the Galapagos, they headed for French Polynesia where they spent several seasons due to the COVID pandemic before resuming their trek across the South Pacific to New Zealand in 2023.
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Follow their voyage at:
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Read their Noonsite Portrait of a Cruiser:
Related Reports:
- French Polynesia: Tuamotus, Tahiti and Gambier Islands
- French Polynesia – making sense of the anchoring restrictions
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The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of Noonsite.com or World Cruising Club.
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Related to following destinations: Bora Bora, French Polynesia, Maupiti, Society Islands
Related to the following Cruising Resources: Circumnavigation, Pacific Crossing, Routing
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