Off to the Marquesas (4’000 nm)

Hi friends 🤗

The time has come! Today we set sail for French Polynesia.

🧅🥕 Final preparations

We crossed the Panama Canal on March 6th and after visiting the "Las Perlas" with Nicolas, Anouk and Vigo, we anchored in the bay of Panama City and prepared for the long passage.

We had already started to stock up on provisions in Colombia. The boat is now packed with canned goods, pasta and rice, toast, beans, Swiss cheese, Rösti, chips, cookies, and some comfort food for the two of us.

Yesterday we went shopping for the last time and found a wonderful farmer's market with lots of fresh vegetables and fruit. We bought potatoes, onions, garlic, eggs, zucchini, eggplant, pineapple, mangoes, limes, and passion fruit...as much as we can eat before it goes bad. We hope some will last 2-3 weeks. Because of the high temperatures and humidity, the fresh food will probably spoil much faster than on our Atlantic crossing, where we arrived after 26 days (3'000 nautical miles) with three remaining grapefruits and two cabbages.

In addition to the provisions, we tested our safety equipment one last time, filled our diesel (380 liters) and water tanks (300 liters), adjusted the boat for the long passage (for big waves), tidied everything up to avoid annoying knocks and squeaks while trying to sleep. The sails work, the engine too. We are ready!

🗺 The plan

We plan to sail past the Galapagos Islands (about 900 miles from Panama) and then decide if we can make it to Gambier (further south) or if we have to take the more common route to the Marquesas. Either way, we have 4'000 nautical miles (7'408 km) ahead of us. If we average 100 miles a day, it will take us 40 days / 6 weeks.

🧐 What we expect

Until we reach the Galapagos Islands, we are in the doldrums (near the equator) where the challenge is to find the wind. We have 380 liters of diesel on board, enough for about 5 to 6 days. We would prefer not to use it at all, and definitely not in the first week! We should find the more stable trade winds that will take us to our destination south of the equator.

📍 Follow us

The challenge of this voyage is its length. We will keep you updated on our progress via satellite phone with a daily message on our website, www.amae.ch. There you can also see our position and the current wind conditions.

Many smiles,

Philipp & Kristel