US Passport Renewal 27 Aug 19

17º 35.903s 149º 36.871w

Wed Aug 28 2019

Isabel is about to go off on a 19-day yoga instructor’s retreat on Moorea – she’ll live at a beach house where she might be able to observe me cavorting in the nearby anchorage. Dunno. Anyway, before she begins that this Friday we’re hustling to complete all sorts of tasks so we’ll be ready to sail away after Shawnee arrives on September 18th.

Today we hiked down to the US Consular office, about 6.2 kilometers from the dinghy dock. Took us about 80 minutes at a good pace, decent exercise but I’m thinking we may take the bus back. This is our second visit to the place; last time we felt we were running late so we took a taxi which cost freakin’ $20, and when we arrived it turned out the place was closed. Didn’t say anything about that on the website. . .

So today we got here and took our place in line behind other folks looking to sort out birth certificate, visa and passport issues. We’re here to renew our US Passports which expire next April. Given our upcoming travel plans we don’t want to be too close to an expiration date as some countries like to see 6 months remaining on a passport before they’ll allow you to enter.

There isn’t a US Consulate in French Polynesia, but there is a “consular official”. Friendly American dude, speaks fluent French too, and he’s open once a week for a couple of hours plus by special appointment. We had all our bits and pieces together including new photos, so hopefully we’ll get this all done and then have another excuse to celebrate a small victory. Sooner or later we’ve got to get a good bottle of pink wine from Provence and pig out on a fresh baguette with pate and cheese and cornichons. I’ve sent my French pal Gerard photos of the pink wines we can purchase here with the request for a recommendation, but so far no response. Gerard and his lovely wife Sophie have a small winery down near Toulon, and if Isabel had her way we’d likely buy the place and move right on in.

We got an earlier start this time so we elected to walk and get a little exercise. Didn’t cost anything, and we got the added excitement of seeing a giant wheel/tire assembly roll past us and finally come to a rest leaning against the wall demarking the center of the 4-lane highway. We never saw the big truck it obviously separated from, never heard any crashing sounds or horns blowing, so it must not have been a catastrophic event for the truck. It certainly could have been for one of us pedestrians, as had that thing whacked one of us it could have resulted in serious injury or death. And people thing our lifestyle is dangerous! I’m pretty sure the most dangerous thing we do these days is walk down a sidewalk or drive a car. That is unless we travel back to the USA, where there’s a risk that some heavily armed nutter might open fire.

Back when I traveled internationally for work, the company security folks sent us notifications about personal safety and security risks in the countries we would visit. If I recall, this information was generated and released by the US State Department. I’ve never bothered to look at their website and see how dangerous they think a visit to the USA is these days. Probably wouldn’t be politically expedient for them to publish that information, and certainly bad for the tourist business. Other countries do warn their citizens of the dangers of traveling to the USA because of the random massacres of complete innocents by gun toting maniacs. There were lots of killings in Mexico, but most all of them were gang banger drug cartels folks having it out in turf battles. Occasionally it was corrupt cops killing social activists and burying them in mass graves. Civil society in the USA does seem to have broken down a bit over the last couple of decades, but we still seem to be better than that. Nevertheless the xenophobes and white supremacists do seem to be a growing cause for concern. We certainly feel very safe here.

The US Consular official works at it part-time, or at least he gets paid for a part-time gig but occasionally give it a nearly full-time effort. In any case we sat in the air conditioned (yay) waiting room with a small crowd of other folks while he did his thing, and after nearly 2 hours we were at bat. Dude turned out to be a great guy, and he’s got an agreement with the US State Department that allows us to apply for new passports but retain our own in the meantime. That’s quite exceptional, certainly something one cannot do while in the US and we never heard about that option while in Mexico. In any case we got through all the paperwork and had a great visit, learning a lot about the local area as he’s been married to a Tahitian lady, raising kids and living there for a while. Not a bad deal. He owns a computer store and is a programmer himself, so that’s the way he keeps new shoes on the baby.

Cost us $140 each to get the passport and passport card underway, and contrary to the website we were able to pay by credit card. After we were done we visited a restaurant he had recommended down the breezeway and celebrated another big success with a lovely lunch accompanied by a bottle of darn good pink wine from Provence. Just nothing like it on a sunny, warm afternoon. He had thought he might join us after his last client, but it all took so long that we had finished our coffee and poked our heads back in his office as we were leaving, asking how to find the bus that would take us back to our dinghy at Marina Taina. Darned if he didn’t insist on driving us there himself. Can you believe that? Our dealings with most bureaucrats around the world could generally be described as “service with a grimace”, but here in French Polynesia everyone has been just wonderful.

We arrived at the dinghy dock to find a German lady laden with groceries, looking for a ride back to her boat. She couldn’t reach her husband using WhatsApp – not her or his fault as the cell data system has been really flakey around here the last few days. Anyway we offered her a lift and had the chance to meet her English husband, another chance encounter with one of Isabel’s countrymen. Back on JollyDogs the captain of the zillion dollar hot rod catamaran “Gizmo” expressed his concerns about how close JollyDogs had swung to his ride during our absence. We had re-anchored prior to departure to try and center up between Gizmo and our pals on Sugar Shack; we’re all catamarans but even so our boats react differently to the local eddy currents and wind. We had discussed our concerns with both captains before our departure, indicating it was our problem to correct, so we bid everyone adieu, weighed anchor and chugged a couple miles to a less crowded anchorage. Less crowded because the Gendarmes kicked all the boats out a couple days ago. They may kick us and the few other boats out tomorrow, but we’ve about concluded our business here and are looking to sail back to Moorea anyway.

In case you’re wondering, I’m not anti-gun, just anti “heavily armed crazy people”.

French Navy Gunnery Practice 27 Aug 19

17º 35.965s 149º 36.992w

Wed Aug 28 2019

Well there we were anchored at Point Venus when a shindig broke out. Turns out there was a big international outrigger paddling competition between Moorea and Tahiti yesterday (Saturday) and the finish line was not far from JollyDogs. It’s quite a paddle across open ocean, maybe 12 or 15 miles or even more depending on the starting point, and there were apparently competitors from a bunch of countries as far away as New Zealand. At the headland where the finish line was there’s a big lighthouse. On that lighthouse is a big plaque that has a remembrance of Robert Louis Stevensen. Apparently he got a bit emotional when he visited that lighthouse, as his dad was the designer and involved in the construction. Interesting factoid.

When the paddlers finally arrived in the bay there were maybe 100 power boats loaded with fans, cheering them on and chasing the leaders to the finish line. The completely tranquil, flat water bay turned into about 2 feet of white water as the power boats churned about, many very close to us but fortunately nobody ran into us. This was a serious Tahitian party, and late into the evening a heap of boats were still rafted up blasting away with local music. It would seem a good time was had by all.

On Sunday we meandered down the channel to the anchorage by Marina Taina which would allow us easy access to buzz up and secure the dinghy up to Marina Papeete, then go see about extending my Carte de Sejour (long stay visa) for an additional year, and also visit a local dermatologist. I’m fair skinned as is Isabel, and keeping any eye out for developing skin cancer is a big deal to us. We had made an appointment a week prior without any problems, something we could never have done in the US as there seems to be a supply and demand issue.

The Dermatologist visit was impressive – a French physician trained in Paris had taken a 2-year assignment in Papeete. She spoke excellent English and looked us each over thoroughly. Isabel had a clean bill of health, and as usual I had to have a few spots burned off the backs of my hands, my forearms, my chest and my right ear. It’s nothing I did recently and we do our best to shelter from the sun these days; turns out my ill spent youth as a life guard and glider pilot are the major factors for problems now. There wasn’t a lot of knowledge about that when I was a young adult – hopefully kids these days are getting a better education on that subject. Anyway, it cost us a grand total of about $115 for the whole excellent experience. Even with our health insurance it would have been a lot more in the US.

We visited the Haute Commissaire (high commissioner) office to see about my long stay visa extension, and we’re certain neither of us has ever met friendlier or more efficient government bureaucrats. Even with a US passport which would expire before the long stay visa needed to be renewed the guy was cool – “just email us a copy of the new one when you get it”. Wow. Compare that to trying to dealing with a train ticket agent in France. They enjoy making your life hard, even treat their own countrymen the same way.

We celebrated our small victories with lunch at Les Trois Brasseurs, the one brewpub in Papeete. Smokin’ deal Monday – half off on their excellent IPA and pizza-like objects. We had hoped for some of that free WIFI, but it seemed the entire area was without data so there was no podcast updating or boat part shopping. At $10 per gigabyte of data our Google Fi plan is cheaper than the local Vini cell service, and generally cheaper than eating out just to get free WIFI, but sometimes it’s a great excuse to let someone else do the cooking and pouring.

Back from the excursion, a hammock ride ensued then off we went for our major provisioning run at the local Carrefour hyper market. They’re cool about letting you push their carts all the way back to the marina dinghy dock, so we loaded that sucker up. By the time the checkout lady got done ringing us up there was smoke coming out of her cash register, and my credit card got very warm to the touch. I think we spent around $725 on a cart load of groceries. Imagine all the credit card points were earning! Dammit man.

Anyway, all 4 of the cart wheels castor, so on the store’s smooth level surface you can drive the cart sideways and easily maneuver around inanimate objects like other shoppers. That feature becomes a bit of a liability when pushing the cart up an inclined surface, and downright dangerous when the surface slopes towards a cliff. It took both of us to keep the bloody thing on the nice new sidewalk, but we managed to reach the dinghy dock without spilling the contents. A young Danish fellow we had met a few weeks prior helped us get everything down the pontoon to the dinghy, and by the time I had it all loaded up there was perhaps 200 pounds of food and other bits aboard. Naturally this day was threatening to rain after weeks without any hint of such weather, but we made it back to JollyDogs without mishap or getting wet.

About that French Navy ship conducting gunnery practice. While anchored at Point Venus on Sunday morning we heard a VHF radio call on channel 16 announcing the position of the vessel and a warning to remain 10 kilometers distant due to the conduct of war exercises. Maybe some boats out there didn’t take the radio man seriously at first. The last radio call we heard from the French Navy vessel, there was very clear gunfire noise in the background, what I reckon was 50 caliber if not bigger. Maybe that helped get other boater’s attention. While conducting a flight test on the French Navy ship Guepratte, I had the good fun to witness such gunnery practice; they would toss a float or balloon into the water then take turns trying to sink it. Good fun, that. A bit more interesting was watching the radar controlled, turreted sea whiz gun fire at a radar reflective target they had deployed. That didn’t last too long and there was only 1 go, but those bullets are kind of expensive.

Just another day in the life of a cruiser.

JollyDogs notional itinerary 24 Aug 19

17º 30.044s 149º 29.794w

Sat Aug 24 2019

It’s always a bit of a guess. We write our coarse timing plans in the sand at low tide because ultimately weather patterns dictate the timing of our gross movements between individual islands and island groups. If you sail or are a pilot perhaps you understand; most other folks don’t get it. We can’t point into big wind and seas without a lot of difficulty which might include boat damage or personal injury. We can’t even go downwind or on a reach when the Southern Ocean sends big seas our way, or when a big blow comes through, and those can last for days or even a couple of weeks. We already rode one out while anchored at Hirifa, the Southeast corner of Fakarava atoll. The upside of that was a couple weeks of kite boarding and free diving lessons, and the motivation to get some canvas work done here in Tahiti so that the cockpit wouldn’t be rendered “miserably wet” during big windy rainy events.

We arrived Tahiti nearly a month ago and spent about 3 weeks getting boat repairs and upgrades done. Moorea is just 12 miles or so distant, it’s the only island close enough to visit now as Bora Bora is about 100 miles downrange and getting back this way would likely mean a difficult beat. Our pal Shawnee to arrive on September 18th. This week we’ll sort out US Passport renewals with the local consular official, purchase some kite boarding gear, do a bit of provisioning, and find help for some remaining boat projects. Isabel has elected to attend a 19 day yoga instructor’s training retreat on Moorea so I’ll be delivering her this Friday and collecting her on September 17th. Guess I’ll be enjoying my own cooking for a spell. An opportunity for Isabel to regroup and reset, and for me to focus on some boat projects that mean tearing the place apart for a few days, easier when I’m alone. Hopefully when we reunite everything will be “lookin’ good” and we’ll be ready to rock.

French Bee will get Shawnee from San Francisco to Tahiti for a ridiculously low price, and we’ll collect her at the airport here around 0700. She’ll likely get that day for looking around Papeete, and if conditions allow we’ll quickly relocate to Cook’s Bay or similar over on Moorea, a short enough sail to help her get her sea legs. That’ll be a whistle stop tour as we’ll be looking for the first weather window to begin working our way East through the Tuamotus, stopping at and hopping along the atolls as we try to improve our sailing angle up to the Marquesas. We’ll be looking for light Easterly conditions to move that way, and then when we get a good swing of the wind to the South we’ll lay a course for the Marquesas. One way or the other we’ve got to be there around October 12th, so Shawnee is going to be seeing some serious sailing, hopefully not much of it beating into wind and seas. Hope she doesn’t regret her decision to join us on this little voyage of around 800 miles as we do the two legs of the triangle rather than push directly into the predominate winds.

We’ll secure JollyDogs on anchor with a caretaker at Nuku Hiva’s Taiohae Bay and all leap on a little airplane October 16th to head back to the US. The latest we could get an inter-island flight back was December 5th, and we do intend to enjoy a major Marquesan cultural festival on Oa Puo December 13th – 16th, so back we’ll come after about 2 weeks in the US and 4 weeks in the UK. You wouldn’t believe how much $$$ I just spent on plane tickets. Even using frequent flyer points to fly British Airways round trip from the US to Heathrow, the taxes and fees were over $1000 for the both of us. French Bee Tahiti/San Francisco round trip was only $547 each. Our Nuku Hiva to Tahiti round trip cost more than getting from here to San Francisco!

Anyway, upon our return we’ll explore the Marquesas for a couple of months, say December through early February, then we’ll be looking for a good weather window to sail for the Gambiers where we reckon we’ll spend about 6 weeks. Pat and Celine, our pals from SV Voila called last night and they want to join us for some of that action, so we’re looking forward to seeing them later in January.

We’ll likely depart the Gambiers in early April and wander West through the atolls of the Tuamotus with the objective of passing back through Tahiti in early to mid-June. There’s a huge cultural festival called Heiva that we’re going to experience, but reports are that it might be more fun in the Leeward Society Islands, so we might aim for Huahine for that festival which is in early July.

Today’s plan is to mosey on West after Heiva, exploring various islands along the way to Tonga where we’ll spend month or two, then around late October we’ll make the passage down to the Bay of Islands in New Zealand – near the North tip of the North island. It’ll be about time to haul JollyDogs out for bottom paint and some other heavy maintenance, and time for us to be dirt dwellers for a bit. Probably get on a plane and go visit family in the US and UK, then pass back through Singapore or Hong Kong or other for some land exploration. The best way to explore New Zealand is by RV and there are plenty of old ones for sale, so we may become RV owners for a spell.

There’s this route called “endless Summer” where you do 6-month round trips from New Zealand Northwards to New Caledonia, Vanauatu, Tonga, Fiji, etc. so 2021 – 2023 might see us doing that, but eventually our visas for New Zealand will expire and we’ll likely head on to Australia for further exploration. JollyDogs was built not too far from Sydney, so she might like to visit her birthplace. Isabel and I met there in 1996 so we might enjoy a bit of reminiscing ourselves.

That’s today’s plan. We’re hoping to enjoy some guests along the way, but many folks can’t get their heads around the loose schedule we maintain. Most of the places we’ll visit will have some sort of land-based resort featuring amazing SCUBA diving and other activities, with airline service to Tahiti. Hopefully some folks will take a risk, and if we don’t manage to connect during their visit they’ll still have an amazing adventure. There are cruise ships and supply vessels that ply these waters for the less or more adventurous, and this is an absolutely beautiful part of the world.

So that’s the best we can offer right now for anyone who is seriously interested. Anybody? Anybody? Oh well, hopefully we’ll see you during a visit to the US or UK someday. In any case, we’re having a great time with our tribe of cruisers, and looking forward to reuniting with several close friends from out time in Mexico who will cross in the Spring. Woohoo!