Blogs from Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia, Oceania - page 4

We were hoping our taxi would arrive a little early, but weren't quite expecting it to arrive 5 hours early at 4am. We politely asked if he would mind coming back a little later. Maybe about 9am, the time we had asked for. Clearly unimpressed at us putting him out, he came back at 9.30. Everything else went smoothly, apart from the woman at the airport who refused to check us in because we didn't have any documentation. We suggested that the whole point of having e-tickets meant we didn't have to have any documentation and she finally relented. After that, though, everything went smoothly. We quite enjoyed flying on Air Tahiti Nui; the staff were very friendly, the meals were good and the plane was only 2/3 full. We were greeted at the airport by ... read more

I was up early which is pretty much always the case when its time to move on, Veia drove us to the airport at 8.30am where we were able to grab a toasted sandwich for breakfast. Later Ruth went to throw her wrapper in the bin, a moment later she came back raving about big spiders in the bin, I went over to look and it turned out to be a land crab, after seeing that one we began to see others scuttling around the place. We arrived back in Rarotonga about 10am, while I went and got a car from the hire place across the road Ruth collected our luggage. I went back to the prison on my way back to Muri but there were still no Ukekeles there that appealed to me and Ruth ... read more

May 30 OK, here’s the text that did NOT get uploaded to the blog in the Marquesas. Well, we’ve been living on the boat for about four months now, we’ve sailed over 5,000 nautical miles together, and we’re all still friends! We left the Galapagos over two months ago, spending 22 days at sea on the crossing to the Marquesas Islands. At 3,210 nautical miles, that will be our longest ocean passage between home and New Zealand. (A nautical mile is 6,000 feet, a bit longer than a statute mile, so that works out to almost 3,700 of the more familiar land miles… a long way to be out of sight of land.) The Marquesas are the youngest of the French Polynesian island groups, steep volcanic islands that have not existed long enough to develop rings ... read more

Some say it is uncouth to discuss money, especially on a refined blog such as this one, and to be honest we normally wouldn't but flipping hell Tahiti is expensive. Breakfast for two, surprisingly not included in our rate, was $100 - yes folks, that is 50 pounds. For some muesli!! It rather tarnishes the stay when you realise that you are going to pay 200 pounds for breakfast for a 4 night stay. Especially as that is our normal daily budget for everything!! We declined breakfast after that. However literally everything is incredibly expensive. At least twice the price of the UK i reckon and about 5 times the price of Argentina.. ok that's enough of that... So what about the place.. well yes it's got palm trees, yes it has black pearls (boy do ... read more

Greetings to all from Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia. We have been here a week already and have enjoyed a couple of dfays at a mooring at the Tahiti Yacht Club which was very peaceful as with a Thursday Public holiday and the following Monday the locals all took a 5 day weekend and nothing got done. Moved into town and finally got checked in while tied up at new docks that have only been installed 2 months before, quite rooly with the ferry wakes and really noisy from the traffic from 6am til late. Subsequently anchored off Marina Taina which is free and has some delightful snorkelling under the boat. But I digress, I left you in Fatu Hiva and we spent 4 weeks in the Marquesas really enjoying the outrageous geographical features and beautiful bays,friendly ... read more