BPT

I have sailed French Polynesia ( the leeward islands of Tahiti, 4 different times 12 days to 2 weeks. I have a U.S.C.G. Merchant Marine Officer License ( 5th issue) for vessels up to 500 tons. 35 years sailing professionally, Australia , Tahiti, Tonga, Mexico, Calif coast, and channel islands, the BVI, the Abacos , Bahamas; The French West Indies; the Windwards and Grenadines; , Ireland and Greece. It is great to see that you all are doing it right to get a cruising guide, and charts, and of course pay attention to the chart briefier. Good plan to study the charts and cruising guide well before the planned trip, and bring them with you .

The leeward islands of Tahiti...

Riatea, Taha'a, Bora Bora. and Huahine.

For a very easy cruising guide.......on the computer......> Tahiti Cruising Guide - The Moorings < You can view or download. Also, we strongly suggest some good charts of those islands. It has been some time, but I think we had another cruising, but I
do not want to guess at it. You might find it on the web. It was hard to read, with many, many long paragraphs. The Moorings guide was fairly simple . Both would be ideal.

Our plans varied a bit over the years, but there is zero night sailing, and no night entries thru the passes or around the reefs. Have a bow watch for reef passages, and in many cases , use RANGE MARKS to navigate thru the reef passes.

The passage from Taha'a to Bora Bora is fairly long, and we would leave Taha'a early morning. Always had good winds. We stayed alert, and were very aware of how far the reef around Bora Bora came out to sea on our course. We stood well off to
avoid that reef, and positively had a visual on the navaids, and actual passes before attempting to enter a pass. . It can be a fake out if you are not aware.

Our last trip, we found the Lagoon at Bora Bora had three large cruise ships in the lagoon...Thousands of pax, and buses, vans, and carloads of cruise ship passengers were flooding the island. We did meet some friends who were on one of the cruise ships, in port for only 5 hrs.

Be advised there are lots of moorings at the various anchorages and bays . Anyway, we picked up a mooring in front of bloody mary's, dinked over, and they were on the very nice pier waiting for us. All four of us, walked into Bloody Mary's for lunch, and it was crammed full of cruise shippers, one table left. They were only able to spend a short but fun lunch time wtih us, then the ships van, picked them up and off they went. Next morning, we dropped off at bloody marys and spent the night at the Bora Bora Yacht Club ( very nice and friendly and fun ) on a mooring, Good times . But we needed to get away from all that. Just as you enter the pass to the Bora Bora Lagoon, there is a large moto ( small island )to your starboard side.

Leaving the Bora Bora Yacht Club mooring fields, We motored over and behind the motu. Paying close attention to the nav aid stakes, and with a bow watch , found a great anchorage ( we were the only ones there ), good holding ground on the reef side of the motu. Dinked out to the reef to snorkel and watched a shark feeding , very calmly, arms and hands next to the body, and Then, snorkeled the barrier reef. Wow ! I think the tourists were paying several hundred fancs .

Taha'a actually became a fave island, and there is some great snorkeling at the CORAL RIVER, also some Pearl Farms, and the Vanilla Plantation , and actually we rented bikes at one of the anchorages and peddled on our own island tour. Taha'a is very peaceful and beautiful .

We also sailed over to Huahini, at Fare, and rented cars , or scooter to tour both of the islands.

Most of the places that we visited , we were able to use moorings, and we would not think of anchoring in any of the passes. We pretty much followed the navigation procedures set forth by the moorings / sunsail. The last two trips were just Erica and I. The
first two, was thru the sailing club that I worked for, and was a flotilla leader. of several boats. Life was somewhat easier, with just the two of us as to the responsibility factor.

We did not have GPS, and used Coastal Piloting and Navigation, studied the charts, and cruising guides, noted our positions on the charts, posted bow watches, and were at our destinations around 3 pm , or sooner.

Tahiti is fantastic, and you can chose busy anchorages, or mix and match with more easy going bays with less action.

Almost forgot, on the first two trips to Tahiti, we added in some time on Tahiti Island and a couple or three days on Moorea, ( land based ) at the end of our sailing vacations . Moorea was very nice .

Just FYI,

Denny and Erica