Well here we are in the Tuamotus and it’s darn near the end of May. While there’s talk of a Pacific Bubble opening up to cruisers, right now there are no countries to the West that we can set out for. Our original plan had been to depart Bora Bora in early July and head towards the Cook Islands, then Tonga before heading down to Minerva Reef around late October then waiting for a good weather window to sail the 800 or so miles to New Zealand. That plan gave us about 3 months to enjoy the Cooks and Tonga, perhaps also calling on Suwarrow as well. A little compressed, but still the opportunity to go a little slower and enjoy each stop for a bit of time. The big attraction to Tonga is the whale calving season which would be in full swing. We’re pretty wild about whales and wildlife in general, so we’d want to devote several weeks to that amazing experience.
Now we’re wondering how soon countries to the West will open up, and something a bit funny has happened to us. The self-isolation period here left us anchored in various spots within a single atoll (Raroia) for about 2 months. We slowed down, enjoyed the natural beauty of the place, met and spent time with some local inhabitants, and socialized with our fellow cruisers a bit. It was relaxing, and we began to appreciate the concept of “stopping and smelling the roses” as opposed to “go go go”. Now we’re at Tahanea with 4 other vessels and we’re really enjoying the socializing as well as all the fun we can make. Wandering around looking for seashells, snorkeling and discovering reef fish we’ve never seen before is fun. Last night we had dinner on SV Agape and Rachel’s shell collection left Isabel with a case of “shell envy” which must be remedied. It got worse this morning when we breakfasted on Le Pukeko and the girls pulled out their shell collections. Isabel is determined to be competitive, and I bet I’ll get to help.
I do projects as the spirit moves, today turning a couple of old pearl farm floats into planters just like the one on Le Pukeko. For years Isabel swore she wouldn’t tolerate any sort of planter, but just recently we’ve been on several boats that are growing micro greens and mint, basil, tyme, rosemary, you name it. Isabel has finally become determined to have her own “kitchen garden” on the stern, as there’s just nothing like fresh mint to turn the local Tahitian rum into something quite interesting. Given that a hunk of lamb is roasting in the oven right now, it would be supremely wonderful to have some rosemary to enhance the meal.
We’re now thinking about the unique opportunity that coronavirus has presented us. Likely there will be no international tourists in the islands anytime soon, which means that even Bora Bora could be relatively quiet without jet skis roaring around, and the charter fleets will likely be unused. The world may be our oyster! Perhaps we’ll spend a couple of months wandering around the leeward Society islands then come back to Tahiti and Moorea before moving East back into the Tuamotus around October. This sort of plan might provide the opportunity to store JollyDogs and fly to New Zealand if the Pacific Bubble opens up. Maybe we’ll just be land based tourists in New Zealand for a couple of months. Maybe we’ll fly back to the US to meet the kids – and perhaps on to the UK to visit Isabel’s family. It’ll all depend upon how this crazy pandemic is evolving. We’re good to stay in French Polynesia until May 2021, so as Isabel’s dad is fond of saying, “why not”?
This plan might even provide an opportunity to sail to the Gambier, the one archipelago we had hoped to visit but were thwarted by a lack of a good weather window back in January. In any case, it’s fun to game out the various options and the upside of slowing down a bit and then departing French Polynesia next May, allowing a couple extra months to enjoy the islands down range. There would even be time to go to Samoa. . .
Well, why not?
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