In France you can't refill propane bottles. You bring your empties and you get a full one. Refilling is done at the Propane temple in Papeete I guess. If you want to keep your US bottle, you got no choice but to buy a French bottle, hang it upside down in a warm sunny place and fill it in to your own bottle below, cooled with ice packs. You buy the fitting for the Frog bottle at the hardware store and fix that to an old garden hose or better to a real gas hose .Those are thicker. Then you open up the top and the bottom and you will see gas in liquid form going down the hose. As you get to the end of the French bottle transfer gets slower. We just fill 2 US 20 pound bottles 2/3 with the 13 kilo French bottle. When it slows down you must open the release screw on the US bottle right behind the valve. First close the valves on both bottles .Air comes and out and when it smells like gas, you close it. Then re open both valves and you see the gas going down the hose. We have fiberglass bottles. With them it's easy to see the level rising. With metal bottles you must use a scale. Here in Gambier it's dead easy. At JOJOs you carry that bottle for only 10 meters to your dinghy and when done they return your deposit. Daniela insists of doing it herself. I don't like propane too much. As a young man anchored in Singapore I saw a Chinese cook thrown out of his Junk as his boat exploded. He was looking for a match and left the gas open. When he found the matches.... KABOOOM. I never forget this image of a boat standing above water with only the frame left for 2 seconds and all wooden planks flying with the cook thru the air. We fished him out and he survived, the boat went down. The shock wave you feel on your chest is quiet impressive. When we do the transfer, we don't cook or do anything with sparks. Last time we refilled them in Aruba at the propane temple. They make you stop you're engine and turn off the mobile phone!! Talking about running engines..Here they leave the gas guzzlers running while going to the post office while having lunch and while talking to another car. In some European countries you get fined for this, here even the Gendarmes do it. It's sad to see they have no understanding of global warming or pollution. Their cars are way too big and often more luxurious than their house. And they use them to go to church instead of walking the 200 meters. We rented one of those 4x4 pick-up trucks to drive our Swiss friends around the island. It's weird to be in a car. We mostly walk or bicycle. In a car you meet NOBODY along the way. Without the steel box around you we stop often to talk with the locals and get to hear their live stories. The boxy car and driving with 4 people kills it all. I see boats with 4 people on it. You can hardly talk to them. They are a closed up unit. They meet NOBODY. Traveling with 4 people is stupid.