Planning French Polynesia Charter July 2025. HELP!!

[mdjwales]

Hello All,

Hoping to get some feed back on this trip. So far looking at July 2025. Chartering a large Cat. I have 30+ years of stink pot mostly around Pacific North West (gulf islands, San Juan's, puget sound, princess Louisa etc). 3 of group have done bare boat cats in Troger Croatia and BVIs.
Snorkeling, nature, self catering and finding best not crazy touristy experiences are our goals.
Any suggestions?
Likely to do Boarding in Huahine Disembarking in Bora Bora to do down wind sail.
Thanks!!
Martin

[Adelie]

Welcome to CruisersForum!

I would suggest updating your profile with your boat make & model or “Looking” in the "Boat" category. This info shows up under your UserName in every post in the web view. Many questions are boat and/or location dependent and having these tidbits under your UserName saves answering those questions repeatedly. If you need help setting up your profile then click on this link: https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ml#post3308797

I would happily help more if the link above is not enough.

[fxykty]

AFAIK, the charter companies all have their bases in Raiatea at either Apo’oiti or Uturoa. That seems to be the first thing you should confirm before planning a detailed itinerary. How many days charter?

If you want best non-touristy experiences then skip Bora Bora. Raiatea, Taha’a and Huahine are all spectacular islands with great lagoons and reefs, without the cruise ships, anchoring restrictions and jam-packed resorts. Start with a sporty passage to Huahine (direct from the pass out of Uturoa, or go south as far as Marae Taputapuatea for a better wind angle) then go downwind back to the south end of Raiatea, then work your way up the east coast and around the top of Taha’a before finishing back in Apo’oite or Uturoa.

Buy the charter company provisioning package, but just half or two-thirds of full meals (e.g., if 14 days, buy 8 days provisioning). Then you only need to buy from local villages as you go around baguettes and wine and the occasional fish, plus meals ashore. You don’t really want to spend your first day in paradise buying pasta and toilet paper do you?

[patja]

We sail around the same areas in the PNW as you have cruised in the past and we did a monohull charter with Sunsail out of Raiatea last July.

Not sure how you would do a charter starting in Huahine and ending in Bora Bora without paying someone to get the boat to Huahine and then taking it off your hands in Bora Bora to return it to base, which sounds like an expensive exception to how things are structured there with most charters starting and ending on Raiatea.

We had a great time and were pleasantly surprised by the lack of crowds around Raiatea and Taha'a. Often we spent the night in bays that only had a couple other boats in them.

Exception being Apu Bay which was very full. My advice on Apu bay is to skip the dinner and show at Ficus. The show is charming. The food is traditional which is interesting, but wasn't really to our liking. And when you take a buoy there they are mostly (all?) owned by the local pearl farm, who will want you to take a tour. We bought some pearls there which we later realized came at quite a high price even compared to the jewelry sold at the airport in Tahiti. The tour was fascinating and I don't begrudge buying from them as they provide the buoys, but maybe think twice before making a big purchase there.

You should have no trouble finding cats to charter. We were really constrained in choices by our preference for a monohull.

We spent the night before our charter at the Sunset Beach Motel which was really great. With the flight schedules you end up having to eat a couple travel days.