US family among hundreds of sailors stuck in Tahiti

Hundreds of sailors are currently stranded in remote French Polynesia as South Pacific countries have not yet reopened their borders due to the coronavirus pandemic.

28-year-old Kristen Pankratz is one of them.

For as long as she can remember, Kristen Pankratz has shared her father's dream to sail around the world.

After giving up her advertising job in Dallas, she finally set sail with her parents in January.

Now, along with hundreds of other sailors, they find themselves stranded in paradise.

After sailing through the Panama Canal into the Pacific, they got sporadic updates from their satellite phone and from other sailors about the deteriorating virus situation.

They ended up spending a week longer at sea than planned to get to Tahiti, catching fresh tuna along the way to stretch out their supplies.

Tahiti was one of the last places in the region to offer refuge as borders slammed shut.

With South Pacific countries not yet ready to reopen, the Pankratz family is finding no way forward, no way back, and doesn't to abandon the boat.

So they remain where they are, in a strange limbo, hoping they can sail west again before the cyclone season hits in November.

There are some 550 sailboats currently sheltering in French Polynesia, according to a manifest kept by maritime authorities.

Typically the boats have a crew of about two or three, although a few have ten or more aboard.

The Pankratz family say they've been treated extraordinarily well and have been able to see beautiful grottoes and black sand beaches without many other tourists around.

Others say they've encountered suspicion and sometimes animosity from local residents fearful they might be bringing in the virus from abroad.

Kristen Pankratz said at first she felt sad their dream trip wasn't going according to plan, but soon realized their situation could have been so much worse.

She began feeling guilty about not being home with loved ones.

Then came four and a half weeks of lockdown at a marina, where they were allowed off the boat only for exercise and groceries.

Pankratz settled into a routine with some of the other sailors: high-intensity exercise classes at 7:30am on the dock, cocktails at 5:30pm on the boats.

After the lockdown ended, they got to see more of Tahiti.

And this week, they set sail for some new islands after authorities loosened restrictions to allow more travel between French Polynesia's scattered archipelagos.