SV Bethania coming through the Panama Canal flying their Chilean Flag
We are Wolfgang Schulze & Paulina Troncoso.
Wolfgang began sailing when he was 12-13 years old.ย 5 years later we met and I soon started to sail with him.ย We had our first sailboat after we married: an old wooden 32 ft.ย Our second boat was a Morgan 38ft sloop.ย We sailed from Florida to Chilean Patagonia. We sailed 15 years along the Chilean coast.ย Then we decided to sail out of Chile and started from Valparaiso to Galapagos, through de Canal, Cartagena de Indias, San Andres, Providencia, Roatan, Rio dulce, Riviera Maya Mexico, Guatemala, USA, Bahamas Turcs and Caicos, Dominican Republic and BVI.ย We loved this boat and all the places we went.ย Unfortunately our lovely boat sank in hurricane Irma in St Maarten on 2017.ย We began our new adventure rebuilding a Irwin 54 ft monohull sloop for 18 months in St Peterburg, Florida.
We named this vessel Bethania.
Aboard Bethania, we recently crossed the Panama Canal with our friend, Marco.ย We went out the the Perlas Archipelago to prepare for our ocean Crossing.ย The journey from Isla Contadora to Hiva Oa, in the Marquesan islands of French Polynesia took us 32 days without any problems. We really enjoyed every day; every day was different. The wind , the sea, the sky were different. Not one of us wanted to get to the islands; we were so happy and relaxed.ย We had sailed long before, but never such a long distance.
left to right: Marco, Pauline, & Wolfgang: Their Chilean flag signed and their Pacific Crossing Complete.