ON PASSAGE FROM BORA BORA - Thanks for the photo Trinjie & Hennie.

14th June: Having submitted our documents to check-out of French Polynesia on the Tuesday, by the time we went to collect them on the Thursday afternoon the weather forecast had changed - for the worse! - once again; we could have left comfortably enough, but would've sailed into strong winds and more huge head seas about four days later. Instead we paid another week's mooring fee, left Moon Rebel tucked-up securely off the Yacht Club - undoubtedly the best protected spot on the island - and did some more exploring. The weather remained blustery, squally and damp, which must be awful for those people who've spent thousands on that 'trip of a lifetime' holiday to the South Pacific, whereas for us it's becoming par-for-the-course and more importantly, for us there's 'always next week'.

Besides an internet signal out to the boat, we had the benefit of further 'entertainment' from the Charter Yachts too as we're back in the heart of Charter-boat country; the charter fleets are all based in Raiatea, but Bora Bora is 'the' island which they all want to visit. Although the waters are a maze of shallow, though admittedly well-charted reefs and getting the 20-30 miles between Raiatea and here (especially the trip back!) can quickly become a serious open-ocean passage - all a far cry from floating about in the sheltered waters of the Greek Islands - the skill, experience and qualification requirements necessary to charter a yacht here seem to be just about the same as they are in the Ionian; a large proportion of them are simply incompetent.

Most days we've jumped into the dinghy to help two or three get moored-up, not to anchor, tie stern-to on a quay, or even get onto a pontoon, simply picking up a mooring ball - hardly rocket science! Their biggest issue seems to be high top-sided catamarans provided with short boat hooks and the looks of awe and amazement when you suggest that if they instead reversed up to the buoy and hooked it from the transom it'd be nearer/easier are a picture. One morning however, we achieved a new high (or perhaps low) when a charter catamaran whom we'd helped moor-up the evening before came to leave: Their engine started fine and the gears engaged, but the boat just wouldn't go anywhere, it just turned in circles and occasionally bounced to a stop; waving and shouting from the foredeck couldn't get the message across, so it was back into the dinghy and motored over to suggest that if they perhaps untied their mooring lines, from the buoy then that might cure the problem.

The tiny harbour at the Raiatea boatyards was home to a small tug-boat which we saw heading in/out regularly though we'd no idea where to or why, it seemed too small to tug much of anything. On our way across to Bora B we'd met it towing a catamaran in the opposite direction presumably back to the charter boats' marina/repair yard near Utaroa Airport? During the three weeks that we were in Bora Bora, we saw it towing three more yachts out of the Bora Bora reef pass, one of which at least with a water-pump on deck, working hard to keep it afloat; their attrition rate must be horrendous!

23rd June: Another week and yet more vile weather to the west of us, whilst two or three yachts took a chance on skirting around the worst of it to get themselves west, we decided we weren't that desperate as yet; we were relieved to hear that they all got themselves through safely, but all also reported having had horrendous passages and that having got to Suwarrow the anchorage wasn't a lot better than being at sea; in the prevailing 30 knot SE winds it offered poor holding, a long carry for the seas and was very crowded with other 'gale bound' yachts. We continued to enjoy the delights of Bora Bora, but by now they were getting a bit stale and repetitive; the island's geared-up for upmarket/five star holidaymakers, with pretty well everyone employed in the tourism-industry and the passing cruising yachts I think are seen as a scruffy intrusion on their paradise. I suspect that the recent introduction of an anchoring ban so that you now have to use the $30/night mooring balls is in part at least a way of ensuring that we all move on fairly quickly.

28th June: By Monday it was clear that we wouldn't be getting anywhere west this week nor next week either, with 30-40 knot winds and 4-5m head seas not just in the middle, but stretching all the way from here to Samoa and Tonga - it's going to be even rougher in Fiji! We'd seen enough of and got bored with Bora Bora - are you allowed to say that? - and the local population whilst tolerant, were certainly not as friendly toward the yachties as we've found in the other islands; we've hardly got much 'novelty value' here I guess? With a decent, well, an 'as good as it'll get' weather forecast for sailing the 30 miles upwind against seas and current on Tuesday, we decided to drop our mooring and sail back to Raiatea; it's a friendlier spot and we won't have to pay to be there; then again we perhaps ought to be letting the Authorities know that we've not left French Polynesia and check back in again?

The passage was slow and uncomfortable - we conceded defeat late morning and just motored straight into everything for three hours to make progress until we found some easing of the head seas and foul-current in the lee of Raiatea & Tahaa, so pleased to drop anchor off the boatyards once again. We did wonder if we'd perhaps got the wrong attitude/were too whimpy when as we were preparing Moon Rebel for the 30 mile beat back to Raiatea and hopefully good shelter from the forecast wind and seas out in the big-blue, the yacht moored next to us was checking that all was well with his storm sails in anticipation of sailing west straight into it! A good friend and much more experienced sailor than us provided the reassurance that was needed by reminding us that: "Another two or three weeks in French Polynesia's is likely to be more fun than getting beaten-up at sea, possibly followed by spending two weeks drifting west in a liferaft". Thanks Simon!

We arrived to some good news, but also a stark reminder of just how long we've been in French Polynesia: Raiatea's 2019 Heiva Festival (lots of traditional singing and dancing) has just begun and when we arrived at Fatu Hiva in the Marquesa Islands last year, we saw the final night of their 2018 Heiva Festival. Even more exciting is that whilst each island has its own Heiva Festival, one island is chosen annually to host a 'whole of Polynesia Heiva' and this year it is going to be in Raiatea. Apparently the very best from throughout the French Polynesian Islands, along with Hawaii, Easter Island, New Zealand, etc. will be performing just down the road in a couple of weeks' time. The question might then arise if a suitable weather window appears, do we go whilst we have the chance, or stay to see the festival and risk waiting for even longer? Probably a moot point as I looking at forecasts from areas as far west as Australia and beyond, there seems to be no end in sight from the troubled mess that's been the recent weather; I guess it makes a change from all those months that we've been held-up due to a lack of wind?