Pacific Crossing

Before we left the UK most of our planning was focused on the UK to Panama with the Pacific planning just being that we would island hop to Australia! As we are now in the Pacific we are starting to look more at our route and thought you might appreciate an update.

From the Galapagos we have a 3000 mile sail to the Marquesas (part of French Polynesia) - due to (hopefully) good currents and winds this should take about 20 days.

From the Marquesas we head to the Tuamotu Islands - still part of French Polynesia - very remote and meant to be stunning.

From the Tuamotus we head to the Society Islands - Tahiti, Bora Bora (still Frnech Polynesia).

From the Marquesas to Tahiti it is a 757 mile trip but obviously we are going via the Tuamotus which will break this up.

From the Society Islands it is a 534 mile trip to the Southern Cook Islands - Rarotonga, Aitutaki which should take about 5 days.

From the Cook Islands we have a 815 mile trip to Tonga which should take about 7/8 days.

From Tonga we have a 429 mile trip to Fiji where we are especially looking forward to revisiting the Yasawa Islands we went to on our honeymoon. This should take about 4 days.

From Fiji a 616 mile trip to Vanuatu (6 days), from Vanuatu a 371 mile trip (3 days) to New Caledonia and then from New Caledonia a 1000 mile trip (10 days) to Australia!

We are hoping to arrive in Australia in mid Oct to give Jonny a couple of weeks before he starts work on the 2nd Nov. We think we will head into Coffs Harbour (about 200 miles north of Sydney) because the customs there are meant to be abit more yacht friendly and then head down to Sydney. To make the boat accessible in the first couple of weeks we are hoping to find it a home in the harbour and then will move it up to Pittwater for the long term - hopefully on a mooring buoy.

The distances are very rough and the days is based on approx 100 mile days but hopefully we will be doing abit more than this as the weather is meant to be good and the seas relatively calm.