Background: I wrote about our initial application here and about the recent changes in the customs laws here.

Just over a month after our application we received notification that we had been approved. With an expected time of up to 3 months, this was unexpected but great. We changed our flights back to French Polynesia from late April to early March and made plans to head to the French Consulate in Vancouver with passports in hand for the visa to be entered. Our visit went smoothly without any surprises.

Upon arrival in French Polynesia we contacted the office in Papeete  that deals with long stay visas downtown and arranged to meet with the official a few days after our arrival. We brought our passports with visas and also a stamp from the post office worth 9000 CFP (about $100) which we initially thought we had to have per person but it turns out we could purchase “per family”. The official created two Carte de Sejour with the photos and the stamp and we were officially long stay visa holders!

On the back of the visa there is room for multiple stamps. We were told at the office that the visa is good for one year and can be extended for multiple years with additional 9000 CFP stamps and a visit to the office. She told us that there was also an office in the Marquesas that could perform our renewal.

We still love Bora after a second visit. Overwhelmed by tourists? Yes. But it is also incredibly beautiful and we keep meeting such nice and generous people each time we visit. If you stop in Bora, use the Bora Laverie for your wash and take some time to chat with the owner. We didn’t have much time to play while we were here this visit.

Our plan is to apply for a long stay visa for French Polynesia which must be done in our home country. We leave the boat on the hard in French Polynesia and fly back to Seattle in early December where we will apply for the visa in Vancouver. The visa should allow us to stay in French Polynesia as long as we want, which we currently are guessing is about 1.5 years after our return flight in April. More on that application process after it is completed.

We spent over a week in Bora Bora getting our legs back under us after our passage from the Cook Islands back to French Polynesia. We needed to refill the boat with propane, gas, diesel, water, and fresh food. We also scurried around making reservations, booking tickets and arranging all of the things we needed arranged to leave our boat on the hard and fly out. We had avoided making any of those plans because, as mentioned previously, we weren’t 100% sure we would make it back.

We’re also looking forward to seeing our families and friends and all of the things we’ve missed about N American cities like sitting at coffee shops and going to the movies. Lastly, we’ll buy all of the crap we think we need for the boat and haul it back in our luggage.

I still can’t believe we’ll be visiting in winter.

If you know of any fun events or opportunities, suitable for two cruisers who just bought plane tickets from French Polynesia to SeaTac (that means poor), send us an email (s.v.estrellita@gmail.com). We’ll be in and out of the Seattle-Vancouver area with possible side trips to Quebec and, if we can find miles tickets or similar, Colorado.

If you want to feel like a celebrity, go to Penrhyn.

I wanted to start with my overall impression because I find that if I list pros and cons in a blog post, later when I talk to people about the post they only remember the cons. And the full picture is that by the time we left, Penrhyn had a special place in our hearts and was very difficult to leave.

Pros: It is a beautiful atoll. Very few boats visit (we were the 8th that year and it was nearly the end of the non-hurricane season) and so the people are excited to see each yacht arrive. Yachts are an important part of their trading and supply line and your extras on board are a boon to the community. The singing in church is intense. You will be a guest of honor at every event that happens and you can count on at least a few feasts in a several week stay. The culture is very different than French Polynesia. Their religiosity is much more apparent and it is impolite to do anything but go to church and eat on Sunday (including moving your boat or kayaking). I had to wear a lot more clothing here than French Polynesia and I want to say that I blame the Christian missionaries for the fact that I had to wear sleeves in the tropics.

English speakers can chat freely with the locals who learn both Cook Islander Maori and English in school. You will be greeted on shore with an offer of coffee (don’t plan on hurrying anywhere) and likely leave with an invitation for another even or a gift of shell necklaces, a pumpkin or a watermelon. Children swam to our boat, and after seeing the sharks, got a ride back in our double kayak courtesy of Carol. The speeches directed at us at the last feast, for two other peoples’ birthdays, the day before we left had us both teary eyed.

The cons have to do only with the check in and check out procedure, more specifically the anchorage for doing so. The anchorage on the East side of Penrhyn, by the village of Te Tautua is fantastic. White sand, very few scattered coral heads, and under 20 feet. No fetch in the prevailing winds and the atoll breaks the wind. It is a much better anchorage than Suwarrow.

In contrast, the anchorage on the West side, by the village of Omaka is foul with coral (even in the spot marked as sand in the Compendium), and the water by Omaka is too cloudy to see what you are dropping in. We had our anchor caught when we tried to leave and had a bit of panic until we drove around and freed it. PLUS, you have more than 8 miles of fetch building and you are close by a lee shore. This is where you have to check in.

Partial solution: After checking in, it is possible to then check out by asking someone in Te Tautua (on the East side) to take you across to town in their aluminum skiff. We gave them a full tank of gas and went with them when they were already running an errand – win for everyone.

People complain about the fees for the Cook Islands which are high although nowadays the regular fees are well known so they shouldn’t catch anyone by surprise…but sometimes other fees are tacked on or at least proposed. We paid $50USD at Suwarrow for clearance into the Cook Islands (including health certificates) and for a 2 week stay. We paid nothing additional upon entering Penrhyn. On clearing out of Penrhyn we paid around $130 ($55 per person exit fee and $2.50 per day for a port fee based on size of vessel). However, the immigration/customs officer was out of town and the town secretary said there was an additional $50 fee for the officer’s time. Because this additional fee was not on the list of fees from Rarotonga (the capital), we politely declined to pay and with only minimal back and forth that fee was dropped .

Penrhyn is off the beaten path of cruisers. Most boats go the Southern route (Rarotonga and Aitutaki) or stop only at Suwarrow. Penrhyn is thus farther North than most people travel. We went there and left against the wind, but cruisers coming from Bora Bora should have a downwind sled ride and a similarly nice sail from there to Suwarrow or beyond as long as no convergence zones appear (a problem in the entire region).