So many months have passed without any news from us.
In March 2024, as our stay in the Marquesas came to an end, we left you with the promise of a new article that never came.
The reason for this long silence, apart from a natural talent for procrastination, can be summed up in one word : sedentarization. The last few months have marked a break in our journey, as we've settled in the Tuamotu...
And every time our life becomes more routine, I hesitate to write about it, I write a long parenthesis. And yet our new experience of life in Fakarava has not lacked salt.
But let's not rush into things and just pick up where we left off...
The cyclone season in Polynesia runs from December to April.
For this reason and many others, we chose to take shelter in the Marquesas archipelago during this period.
In mid-March 2024, although the threat of cyclones was not completely over, we decided to leave the Marquesas and head west to the Society archipelago. There, we were to meet up with Clément, Jean-Luc's youngest son, who had come to visit us for 3 weeks.
With insufficient wind to take us all the way to Moorea, we stopped after four days at Takaroa, one of King Georges' islands in the Tuamotu archipelago.
Like all the Tuamotu atolls, Takaroa is a coral island, slightly above sea level. Its pristine waters offer an incredible palette of blues, while the green of the vegetation struggles to assert itself.
Coming from the Marquesas, the contrast couldn't be more striking.
Like willing castaways on the edge of the world, we spent a few suspended days in Takaroa, enchanted by the special atmosphere of the Tuamotu.
With the wind still absent, it was with the spinnaker (= light mainsail) that we laboriously made our way to Fakarava, where we finally decided to start Clément's vacation, delighted to add yet another leg (Tahiti-Fakarava) to his never-ending journey between Toulouse and Polynesia.
For 15 days we showed him the best diving in the Tuamotu, from Fakarava via Rangiroa to Tikehau.
Then, from Tikehau, pushed by a wind that was still too light, it took us 48 hours to sail to Moorea.
In our opinion, this neighboring island of Tahiti is one of the most beautiful in the Society archipelago, and Clément didn't have too many 4 days to discover it and marvel at the contrasts of Polynesia.
After Clément's departure, we stayed barely a week longer in Moorea, just long enough to finish installing our new Hydrovanne windvane gear, repair the water tank, change the windlass battery, do a final water chore, ... just routine.
Then we set off again for Fakarava, where we arrived on April 22, 2024, after 4 days of “complicated and sporting navigation”, as Jean-Luc soberly reported in his logbook.
The very next day, we started working in a diving club as instructors, and we didn't stop doing so for the next 7 months, to our great delight.
Even before coming to French Polynesia, we had imagined that it would be a destination where we'd like to spend some time and work to replenish the coffers. Our intuition having been confirmed on the spot, we set out to find the place in the Tuamotu that would offer us the best compromise between work opportunities and anchorage protection.
Fakarava ticked the most boxes, so we decided to settle on this atoll for our first diving season.
To be allowed to work in Polynesia, once you've arrived by sailboat and are living aboard, you have to “papeetize” the boat, i.e. pay an import tax representing around 7% of the boat's value (more on papeetization at the end of this article).
In addition to papeetization, we had to obtain new Polynesian sports educator cards, declare a new status of “patenté” i.e. self-employed, recycle our diploma or transform the old BEES by the new DEJEPS,...
In short, it all took some thought and anticipation, but by the end of April 2024, we were ready to start our new activity as instructors on Fakarava.
Life on this confetti lost in the middle of the Pacific is a unique and surprising experience in more ways than one. Everything is radically different from what we've experienced in Europe.
Fakarava is one of Polynesia's largest atolls (56 km long and 18 km wide), but most of its activity is concentrated in the northeast quarter, around the single village of Rotoava. According to the latest census in 2022, Rotoava has a population of 949, whose houses, sometimes made of odds and ends, are scattered among the coconut plantations on a thin coral strip 300 m wide and some 20 km long. The island's only asphalted road - the “Chirac” road, built in 2003 for a presidential visit that never took place - links the airport to the north to PK 15 ("Point Kilométrique" 15) to the south of the village.
No rush-hour traffic jams, no radar, no traffic lights, just a series of 14 speed bumps in the village center, a special Tuamotu driver's license (ability to drive), no roadworthiness tests, and no roadside checks, as there is no gendarmerie in Fakarava. You only have to wear your seatbelt three days out of every six months, when a delegation of Rangiroa gendarmes travels to Fakarava to take care of the official paperwork.
The heart of life on Fakarava beats as early as 5:30 a.m. at the bakery, one of the island's few shops, part mini-market, part hardware store, part tobacconist's, part sex shop, and part bakery. You can buy anything and everything, at a price one and a half times higher than in Tahiti, and stocks are depleted by the more or less weekly deliveries of the "schooners" Cobia, Marie-Stella and Mareva Nui.
In times of shortage, when the schooners are in refit, cases of Hinano beer become precious commodities, fuel is rationed, flour is in short supply and there's no more bread, Saõ crackers are raided, and the only thing left is pears at 1,500 Pacific francs (€13) a kilo.
But everyone is used to it and remains fatalistic or pragmatic.
Then the schooners return, and life can return to normal.
If the schooners' supplies are so important, it's because the island is far from self-sufficient. The island's only natural resources are its coconut palms, which are exploited for copra, and its lagoon, which is used for subsistence fishing and pearl farming. The natural terrain is mostly coral, making it difficult to grow anything, and successful attempts at fa'a'apu (plantations) are rare.
Eating a varied, vegetarian diet in the Tuamotus remains a real challenge...
In addition to traditional activities such as copra and pearl farming, tourism is the real driving force behind the atoll's economic life. Guesthouses, diving clubs, restaurants, bicycle rental companies... take advantage of the financial windfall represented by tourists disembarking on daily inter-island flights or by sailboat. When a cruise liner drops anchor in the lagoon, hundreds of tourists flock to the island, multiplying the population of Fakarava by 2 or 3 for the duration of a brief stopover, much to the delight of the shell craft stalls that spring up along the main road.
The island has its own dispensary, but in the event of an emergency or specialized consultation, you'll have to be evacuated to Tahiti. Pregnant women should leave for Tahiti as early as the 8th month of their pregnancy, to complete their pregnancy and prevent premature delivery.
There is a school for children aged 3 to 11, after which the children are taken away from their families to continue their education either in Rangiroa (200 km) or Tahiti (400 km).
As is the case throughout French Polynesia, the Christian religion on Fakarava is very important and the population so fervent that no less than two churches (of different denominations) are needed to accommodate the faith of their flock at daily services.
The island offers little for hikers, who will reach its highest point at the top of a speed bump, but its beaches, lagoon and underwater landscapes are breathtakingly beautiful.
Fakarava's southern and northern passes offer the best diving spots, as the tidal currents that flow through them attract a wealth of fauna, including many sharks.
Fakarava south pass, photo by Mohea Moana
It's the most beautiful place we've ever dived, and there's not a single time on the hundreds of dives we've made that we haven't emerged from the water stunned by the beauty of the spectacle we'd just admired. And even if the conditions under which we supervise the divers are sometimes demanding, we feel infinitely lucky to be able to practice our profession and our passion in such a spectacular environment.
Finally, it's impossible to talk about Fakarava without mentioning its inhabitants, their kindness, their broad smiles, their modesty, their taste for celebration, their sense of mutual aid, their simplicity and their traditions.
If we feel so at home in Fakarava, it's also because we've met some very endearing people here. For us, Fakarava will always be associated with Héléna's perched laughter, Irène's warm voice, the kindness of Pasio, Christophe, Tino, Téva, Manatua's singing, Sidonie's dancing, and many other pretty things like the scent of drying coconuts, the scent of tiare flowers in the women's hair, the golden light that floods the atoll at the end of the day, the flamboyant sunsets, the sharks at the water's edge, the sound of the ocean breaking on the atoll, the wind in the palm trees.... ..
For all these reasons, life on Fakarava appealed to us enormously, and we decided to spend a second season there in 2025, after a few months' break in the Society Islands, which I'll tell you about in a future episode...
Practical information for sailors about Papeetisation :
When you arrive in French Polynesia with a French or European boat, the boat is considered a temporary import for 2 years, and no tax is applied.
After 2 years, the boat must leave French Polynesia and return at least 6 months later to qualify for another 2 years tax-free.
Otherwise, after 2 years, the boat loses its temporary import status, and you must pay a tax representing around 7% of its value (plus administrative and customs fees) to remain in French Polynesia.
You are also liable for this tax when you arrive with your boat and want to work in Polynesia, regardless of the length of your stay.
This tax is called Papeetisation. Once the tax has been paid, the boat is papeetized for life, and you can leave your boat in French Polynesia for as long as you like.
This tax is calculated on the value of the boat.
The value of production boats is calculated according to a sort of “argus” rating.
The value of amateur-built boats (like ours) must be calculated on the basis of an expert appraisal.
In our case, we used the services of the shipchandler in Nuku-Hiva in the Marquesas (Nuku Tai Nui Marine), who is authorized to appraise the boat (based solely on inventory and photos), and who sends the papeetisation file to a customs broker in Papeete (Cabinet Gondrand).
In the end, we paid €90 for the survey and €2,140 for the papeetisation (7.27% tax + customs broker fees + administrative costs) for a boat estimated at €20,000.
It took only 2 weeks to process our papeetization request based on the survey.
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