Three types of sailing travelers floats in these waters: voyagers, residents and vacationers. In the Society Islands vacationers dominate, easily identified by the company names on the sail cover, water toys and matching towels. The resident sailboats, often French nationals who can stay in French Polynesian forever, often have large privacy panels surrounding the cockpit, large screen televisions and often rarely any signs of life. These boats and their owners have fallen in love with the islands where the grocery stores are stocked with French cheese, wine even yogurt and fresh baguettes every morning. Voyagers have more safety and navigation gear decorating the lifelines, sustainable solar and wind power generating system and sometime fruit, bananas and pampemouse hanging from the solar arches.

As we exited the Bora Bora passage we slipped back into a preferred voyager route. The clouds to the south, the familiar mares tails that spin around low pressure systems, speak of the weather systems sliding by to the south. We are just barely in the reliable trade winds sought by voyagers. Windsong is behind us nursing her delaminating sails and her seasick crew. Tokelau, who we met in the police station is ahead of us. Easy breezy, an American cat who blew out their spinnaker last night stopped at the atoll to our south.

Along this route we have seen the elevation of the volcanos shrink as the islands get older. Tonight we will pass the last two that have a place to land. To the west the atolls are al submerged, eroded by time and dragged down by the aging sinking ocean crust.

We have now joined the company of voyagers who left before the pandemic. Many were trapped in the Caribbean. The extended time voyaging has made flags fray and fade and sails delaminate but there voyagers have tricks we can learn.