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Revving Up for the Pacific Puddle Jump to French Polynesia

Along the West Coast of the Americas from California to Panama, it’s that time of year again, when sailors of all stripes are getting revved up with excitement in anticipation of making the famous Pacific Puddle Jump passage to French Polynesia — a nonstop bluewater voyage of 3,000 to 4,000 miles, depending on your point of departure.

As longtime Latitude 38 readers know, the magazine has been reporting on this “annual westward migration” since 1997, when Latitude editors gave the event its lighthearted name — a play on the time-honored Atlantic reference “crossing the pond.”

Having spent most of the past five years in French Polynesia, this writer is happy to report that most of the islanders we meet these days are as warm and friendly as those we got to know on our first visit years ago. And still today, much of this French Overseas Territory’s vast collection of islands, atolls and lagoons remains essentially the same as when we took our first eye-popping look at them several decades ago.

Good Jibes guest James Frederick anchors in one of the islands’ peaceful lagoons.
© 2025 James Frederick

Among circumnavigators and other well-traveled sailors, Tahiti and her sister isles enjoy a stellar reputation as one of the most truly exotic, physically unspoiled and culturally rich cruising grounds on Earth. Yet, much like its Central South Pacific neighbors, French Polynesia faces a variety of serious threats to its delicate marine ecosystems. So Puddle Jump rally organizers implore all visiting sailors to proactively embrace a commitment to do no harm, and always “leave a clean wake,” wherever they sail.

As reported during the COVID-19 pandemic, foreign-flag vessels were given emergency refuge in Tahitian anchorages while their owners took free repatriation flights home. The so-called logjam of foreign boats that this policy created forced local government agencies to take a thorough look at all aspects of the territory’s marine sector — resulting in the likelihood of establishing new anchoring and mooring regulations in the most popular destinations within the next year or so, to be administered with the help of an online reservation system that is already being tested.

Continue reading.

When you find yourself lying peacefully at anchor in a Polynesian lagoon, such as on Andy Turpin’s Cross 42 trimaran, you don’t need a perfect rainbow to know that you’ve found yourself a piece of paradise.
© 2025 Andy Turpin

The Pacific Puddle Jump is set to launch this spring. At the time of this writing,17 boats from across the US, Canada and the UK have signed up to make the jump. Want to join them? You can find all info at PacificPuddleJump.com.

Continue reading in the January issue.

 

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