Official Jessica Watson Blog

That’s a lot of gumboots! From the port Neil, Bruce, Suzanne, Ed, Ricky, Richard and Pat standing in front of the ‘Ark’.

While I was snug and dry in the class room studying Marine Diesel Maintenance today, the team out at the shed were showing their true colours persistently battling on faced with ankle deep flooding right through the shed!

From what I could make out over the sound of the rain when I rang for an update during lunch, there’s been a slight change of plan, we’re no longer refitting a yacht for a solo RTW voyage but building the ark. We may need to rearrange the storage plan to somehow squeeze the two elephants in… need to put some thought into that one!

On a more serious note, the work list took a bad hit with lots achieved. Plenty of exciting things happening this week with so many helpers.

I really enjoyed brushing up my mechanical skills as part of the Marine Diesel Maintenance course with Offshore Marine Training Center, I had a lot of ‘ohhh! That’s what we were doing wrong’ moments, now I feel confident that I’ve got a good understanding of the whole system. I look forward to spending time on my own engine, a new Yanmar which will be arriving this week.

If the rain keeps up too much longer I’ll have to blow the budget and buy everyone a pair of gumboots! I’m told we’ll also need navigation marks up the drive way.