Destinations • French Polynesia • May–June 2026
The Tuamotus: Raroia, Makemo, and Rangiroa
The Tuamotus are the Dangerous Archipelago for a reason: low coral atolls you can’t see until you’re nearly on them, and passes that run like rivers unless you time them to the minute.
We arrived at Raroia in 26 to 30 knots and driving rain. Slack water at the pass was estimated for 6:48; we went through the 500-meter pass at 7:05 and it was fine. Then came ten nautical miles across the lagoon, dodging bommies with someone on the bow. We anchored off the Twin Palms Yacht Club (there is no yacht club) in 20 feet, later moving to 12 feet of the clearest water we’ve ever seen. Snorkeling was right off the swim step.
Raroia is where Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki fetched up on the reef in 1947 after 101 days adrift from Peru. We took the dinghy through 18 inches of water to reach the memorial. We complained about our 28 days all the way there. Then we left, misjudged the pass on the way out, and learned a new term: pucker factor.
Somewhere in there the fishing line went off in the middle of lunch. “The fish can wait,” I said, and finished my burger. The fish did not wait. Forty-five minutes later I’d fought a five-foot tuna to the boat. A 43-inch yellowfin followed later. We ate well.
Makemo has a free concrete dock with rings, and a village where everything seems to belong to one family. Beware of the rats. Rangiroa, the second-largest atoll in the world, we entered through Tiputa Pass at 7:27 slack, over 50 feet deep, with dolphins riding the standing waves at the entrance. A southerly swell then kept us aboard for five days. There are worse places to be stuck.
What surprised us
How much of the Tuamotus is about the clock. Everything — arrivals, departures, even lunch plans — runs on slack-tide tables. We were also surprised how empty it felt after the Marquesas: a lagoon the size of a city with four boats in it. And that a burger can be worth losing a fish over. (It wasn’t. We didn’t.)
More landfalls: The Marquesas · Tonga