French polynesia immigration etc

[madamedusa]

Hi there,
Looking at going to french polynesia soon-ish, and hoping to clear in without an agent. I will have crew both departing from french polynesia and arriving to join the boat in french polynesia, I can't tell from googling whether the crew arriving will need to arrive with a letter from me stating they are leaving on our boat? Has anyone done this before?
Thanks

[Marathon1150]

The group at the link below includes many very experienced French Polynesia cruisers. One of them should be able to answer your question.

https://groups.io/login?r=https%3A%2...eJump%2Ftopics

There is also a WhatsApp group called "Share Cruising info FP" which consists mostly of cruisers who are there.

We use Tahiti Crew based in Papeete and found them very helpful. Kevin at Nuku Hiva Yacht Services is also very capable.

Good luck.

[madamedusa]

chur thank you very much for the information!
How much was it to go through the agent?

[PippaB]

Quite frankly, the difficult part of this isn't in FP, it is for your arriving crew at their departure airport. There they have to convince the counter agent that they can go to FP without a return ticket, and getting that convincing done can be difficult regardless of letters, visas, or anything else. All most of them (including the managers) understand is a passport with an appropriate expiration date and a ticket out of FP. Since they are on the hook if they let you into FP in contravention of the rules they err on the side of caution.

The last time we were able to fly in on a letter about leaving with the boat the FP immigration official turned as away at the Papeete airport. He held the rest of the group while allowing me to go out to the ticket counter to purchase return flights, which I did. I told the counter agent in Papeete why I was doing it, she told me to just come back as soon as everyone was through immigration to get a refund. I did. We had the tickets for all of about 30 minutes.

It's been a few years (that pandemic and all), but we have given up on that dance. Since our departure is usually from the US we avail ourselves of the 14CFR259 24-hour refund rule. We go to the airport for departure, buy a return ticket at least seven days in the future, check-in, fly to FP, pass through immigration, phone the airline and cancel the return flight for a full refund. It's BS and deceptive, you'd have to evaluate for yourself if you're willing to accept that.

https://www.transportation.gov/sites...20130530_0.pdf

[Marathon1150]

Regarding the cost of an agent for incoming and outgoing crew which will include bond letters that theoretically deal with the issues identified in the preceding post, I suggest contacting Tahiti Crew directly. We used their services in 2018 and it is likely that their fees have changed. They can also provide advice regarding what the incoming/outgoing crew will face. A big part of their business is finding/placing crew for super yachts so they are very familiar with the requirements for clearing inbound and outbound crew.

The company was founded by Tehani Valenta and her email address is:

tehani@tahiticrew.com

We have also more recently used a variety of their other services and have found them to be very reliable, fast and accurate with their work.

Good luck all around.

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, 'Dusa.