Six athletes begin an 8,000 kilometre journey from Peru's capital Lima to French Polynesia using paddleboards, in an adventure to raise funds for children with cancer. All six of the women -- five of whom are French and one Spanish -- are coastal rescue experts and each will take turns paddling for an average of four hours a day. During the tour they will be accompanied by a catamaran, where they will rest, and they have a first aid team. The voyage is inspired by the Kon-Tiki, an iconic 20th century expedition undertaken in 1947 on a log raft and crew under the command of Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl, to test the hypothesis that South Americans reached Polynesia in pre-Columbian times. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES