Making landfall in Tahiti was a bit of a culture shock, to put it mildly. We arrived in the Marina de Papeete in the centre of the capital of French Polynesia. We could have been in France. Shore power for the air-conditioning was very welcome, as were the multiple nearby Carrefour supermarkets to reprovision the boat. It was the first real “Western” experience since Panama City. Less welcome were the massive cruise liners that came and went each evening into the dock adjacent to the marina. Offbeat became covered in the soot from their funnels.

We also had numerous contractors available for boat fixing. We removed our sail cover (a 3 hour exercise) and had it repaired by Tahiti Sails. This had torn due to UV damage to the stitching back in the Galapagos islands. We also had further investigation into our charging problem on our port engine. It turned out to be a short-circuit in the alternator. This will probably have to wait until Fiji or New Zealand to be replaced. Fortunately we have lots of battery charging options: the starboard engine alternator works, we have solar panels, the Watt and Sea Hydrogenerator and the diesel generator.

The dockside bars and restaurants were also a great luxury. We caught up with friends from the fleet, many of whom we hadn’t seen for weeks, including a fine dining experience with Laura and Keith from Fisk. We finally said goodbye to Phil after 3 months with us, we’ll miss his humour and boat fixing skills! It was also great to have Anne-Laure back with us after being home for 2 months to avoid the long Pacific leg from the Galapagos to French Polynesia.

Tahiti is an interesting island, with similar history to the other islands in French Polynesia. The fantastic Musée de Tahiti explained how the islands formed and how the early Polynesian’s populated the region coming initially from south-east Asia. We took another tour of the island visiting yet more Maraes and also seeing more modern history including the scene of the Surfing competition at the 2024 Olympic Games.

The highlight of our trip was probably the 4×4 tour that Anne-Laure and I took, together with 3 American couples, across the middle of Tahiti. This took nearly 8 hours to cover 42km on a track that was barely passable. Our guide and driver is a local Tahitian, it’s hard to believe he does this trip 4 times a week.

After a week in Papeete, with our tours and boat repairs completed, with the crew now down to David, Anne-Laure and Lucy, we headed inside the reefs past the airport, asking permission over VHF from Port Control to cross the runway first. We refueled at Marina Taina and then made the short crossing to the nearby island of Moorea.

Similarly mountainous, like Tahiti but with barely any tourism, Moorea took us back to the relatively peaceful anchorages we’d been used to. We anchored in a sheltered bay, took a hike up a nearby hill, our legs struggling as we haven’t been giving them much exercise.

Before we set off to Raiatea and Bora Bora, to finish our time in the Society Islands, we had one of the best snorkelling experiences of the trip so far at “Shark City” in the reefs. I hadn’t even realised that I was filming both sharks and rays at the same time until I reviewed the footage!