It's Wednesday night in the airport anchorage, and it feels like the last night of the school holidays. We've had our last Papeete ice cream, said many goodbyes and made our last trip to the market. It's been a busy few days as we stagger our way through the complexities of leaving French Polynesia for Fiji aided and abetted by 'Cruising Crap'.

It's complicated by Covid, of course. To be admitted to Fiji under their 'Blue Lanes' yacht approval protocols, we must have a Covid PCR test no more than 72 hours before we depart. Mornings, it can be done in town; afternoons when a plane is expected, it is at the airport. The results are available 48 hours later - 24 hours before we have to leave - and must then be emailed to our Fiji agent, to send to the Fiji authorities, so they can issue us with our formal permission to leave FP for Fiji. We had our noses spiked on Monday; results arrived this afternoon. Negative. Tick.

At the same time, we must get clearance to leave the country from Customs, Immigration and (maybe) from DPAM, the marine authorities. Customs was pretty straightforward. It's a 45 minute walk or a 7 minute dinghy ride, so on Monday morning we took the dinghy to a useful, if high, dock at the back of the Customs building, tucked in between the pilot's berth and the home of wrecked and rotting yachts. Then it was just a matter of filling in a form and we were done. Tick.

Then there's DPAM, the marine authorities. If you ask them, they will send you a form to fill in, asking for approval to leave the country. But opinions vary as to whether you do in fact need to do this. Maybe the Harbourmaster notifies them, maybe not. We got clearance, just to be on the safe side. Tick.

Immigration is slightly more roundabout. If you are 'in the islands' it's just a matter of visiting the local gendarmerie. Here in Papeete, though, we like red tape. 72 hours before departure, one must email the Harbourmaster in French requesting clearance to depart on a specified date, copying in various other parties. The Harbourmaster then notifies Immigration and Customs (but not us) that they have approved the request. We must both visit the Immigration department - at the airport, on the specified date - to sign out, have our passports stamped and collect our zarpe (clearance papers). Once signed out, we have to leave the country the same day.

That's our task for tomorrow. We have to be out of here by 3.30pm (72 hours after our Covid tests) so we'll try to get to the airport very early in the morning, to allow for any last-minute hitches: it's a holiday, the office is closed but we are assured that someone will be available to check us out. Fingers crossed.