Evicted (probably) !
L'ORIENTals everywhere.........hang on to your hats. The authorities in French Polynesia are reverting to 1930s fascist tactics and close to EVICTING foreigners. Despite our 28 day sail here and the fact that we legally checked into the island, we're expecting an official announcement soon that we have two options:
1) Get the F_ck out of French Polynesia
2) Sail your boat to Tahiti, anchor it, and be "repatriated" to your home country via chartered airliners
The only exceptions are people with residency here, or people who have been in French Polynesia more than a month. So, we are out of luck. While our residency permit is complete and was accepted as sufficient, it wasn't received in time.
The other problem we have is that even if they didn't finalize our eviction (probably a 10% chance at best), the whole Pacific is locked down. No inter-island travel within Polynesia is allowed, and every island is locked down between here and Australia (with the odd temporary exception of Fiji).
So even if we could stay in Nuku Hiva, it's "choose your prison". And we choose................Hawaii.
As American citizens on an American boat, we can head there. Wind angle........excellent. Food stores are good on L'ORIENT........we have probably two months with seared tuna on the menu tonight. We are fully fueled. All repairs from the Panama voyage are complete. The boat is clear for sea.
Hawaii is 1900 miles to our Northeast, about two weeks away. We've talked with both the Honolulu Coast Guard base and Customs and Border Patrol folks (what helpful people, incidentally). They were surprised we are being evicted as French Polynesia now has the distinction of going somewhere that China, Italy, USA, and even Stalinist Russia didn't go........contemplating evicting legal visitors.
But evicted or not, the Pacific is totally closed. Game over. Hawaii here we come. So you may notice us moving on the tracker soon.
1) Get the F_ck out of French Polynesia
2) Sail your boat to Tahiti, anchor it, and be "repatriated" to your home country via chartered airliners
The only exceptions are people with residency here, or people who have been in French Polynesia more than a month. So, we are out of luck. While our residency permit is complete and was accepted as sufficient, it wasn't received in time.
The other problem we have is that even if they didn't finalize our eviction (probably a 10% chance at best), the whole Pacific is locked down. No inter-island travel within Polynesia is allowed, and every island is locked down between here and Australia (with the odd temporary exception of Fiji).
So even if we could stay in Nuku Hiva, it's "choose your prison". And we choose................Hawaii.
As American citizens on an American boat, we can head there. Wind angle........excellent. Food stores are good on L'ORIENT........we have probably two months with seared tuna on the menu tonight. We are fully fueled. All repairs from the Panama voyage are complete. The boat is clear for sea.
Hawaii is 1900 miles to our Northeast, about two weeks away. We've talked with both the Honolulu Coast Guard base and Customs and Border Patrol folks (what helpful people, incidentally). They were surprised we are being evicted as French Polynesia now has the distinction of going somewhere that China, Italy, USA, and even Stalinist Russia didn't go........contemplating evicting legal visitors.
But evicted or not, the Pacific is totally closed. Game over. Hawaii here we come. So you may notice us moving on the tracker soon.