Well we put our order into the local shopkeeper here in Raroia via email a couple weeks ago and got a very friendly response the same evening. It was a Friday. Maybe after happy hour. Anyway, the supply ship came on Sunday and Monday we followed a couple of our other cruiser pal boats down to the village – they had already worked out a course through the minefield of bommies, and it just seemed just plain sensible to follow along rather than blaze our own trail. Glad we did too, as there were a couple of sneakers along the way. Fortunately the sun was out for the most hazardous part so we could spot the boat sinking hazards with plenty of time to spare.
Got to the village, dropped the hook, set the chain floats and pulled down hard. All set. The town policeman had come down to the quai to check on us and waved us ashore. As the only fluent speaker of French, Isabel represented us – we dinghied up to the quai and got the skinny from “the man” who was completely friendly and accommodating, having received our details via text a couple days before. We motored back to brief the other folks then packed up our shopping bags and computer bits and headed ashore. Been a long time since we’ve seen anyone who didn’t live on a sailboat.
We finally found the tiny shop hidden a bit off a street, and Isabel settled in to wait her turn. Apparently only one at a time being admitted due to Covid-19 restrictions. I wandered down to the post office to purchase some internet time from the local VINI hotspot. Around $30 got 10 hours of connection time with no guarantee of any specific bandwidth, and although it’s turned out to be pretty poor speed the banking is all done, the mail is checked and being scanned, the bills are paid, and email is caught up. The signal is so weak I have to sit no more than about 30 meters from the post office where the router lives.
Turns out the shop claims to have lost our shopping list so rather than get what we wanted we got what they were willing to sell us. Naturally they’re not going to sell us stuff reserved for the other cruisers whose lists they didn’t lose, or stuff they need to keep in reserve for local inhabitants use. Also the ship didn’t bring much in the way of fresh vegetables and no alcoholic beverages, and only beverages 14% alcohol by volume and below can be sold, i.e. no Tahitian rum. Bummer dude, but them’s the breaks. All in all, Isabel is pleased with her purchases, we’ve still got about half our cash left, and it’ll be a few weeks until the next ship comes. In the meantime we’re working on getting the money transfer process worked out to pay the personal shopper in Tahiti, which means we’ve got to work through our pal Angus who lives in Strasbourg and banks with a couple of French banks. Hopefully one of them can transfer money to a French Polynesian bank, because Transferwise can’t and PayPal isn’t an option here. That’s a tough nut to crack and one that cruisers need to understand up front. As usual cash is king, but many atolls and the entire Gambier have no cash machines and locals actually bank with the local post office. We’re hoping to figure out what French or French Polynesian banks can move money to the post office so we have that option to pay local store keepers.
We’re still not allowed to move between islands until at least April 29th, the 2-week extension from the original 15 April quarantine requirement. When we are finally allowed perhaps we’ll sail the 70 nm to Makemo and reprovision there before joining some friends in Tahanea, an uninhabited atoll on the way to Fakarava. At this point we just want good weather and suitable locations for kite boarding. It’ll be months before we know if we can sail through Tonga or Fiji on our way to New Zealand but we’re optimistic that NZ will open up to cruisers by October. American Samoa is the other option for stopping along the way but they’ve got a measles problem so we’ll need jabs for that.
Get to work Kal!
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