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”.
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