Official Jessica Watson Blog

Heeled over, under full sail and throwing water everywhere Ella's Pink Lady has been flying along today. It can't just be me that's busting to get south! The wind has come round to the east a little more, meaning that we've been able to ease off the wind a little, making life a little more comfortable and reach along directly south.

While giving the galley a reorganize today I was pretty thrilled to come across a stash of tinned mangoes! I've been hearing all about how lovely the mangoes are back home at the moment, so finding I had my own supply on board was a lot like Christmas! Sure they are not quite the same as fresh but they're not bad either. I have a feeling that this just isn't something that I'm going to be able to ration! Oh and I think I can safely say that tinned mangoes are every bit as messy to eat, as the fresh ones or maybe that's just me?

Nothing too much else to report out here today so I thought I'd explain a little more about the plan for the next leg to the cape. The distance (5450nm) that I gave yesterday as the distance to Cape Horn is the distance in a straight line but weirdly we're actually going to be sailing a slightly shorter route, I know it sounds really strange but it's all to do with something called the great circle route and the curvature of the earth. I'm probably not the best person to explain it but as an example, if I were to plot out our course directly to South America taking in to account the earth's curvature the fastest way to get there would actually be to sail in an arc to the south. Our great circle route or the fastest way to get to the cape is to sail south and then gently arc over to the east (5130nm). So if we can keep up an average speed of 5 knots, eta (estimated time of arrival) at Cape Horn should be around the first week of January, but who knows there's every chance that we might pick up a little speed down south and get there bit earlier?

That would all be easy enough but then there's all these annoying islands and reefs in the way! And to add to the fun, it's not like the wind ever just lets us go where we want to.

I'm going to finish up by apologizing to all the people my explanation maybe just completely confused!

That's me for the night, Parker's wondering off course a little as the wind is dropping off slightly so I better go set us back on course, then I'm faced with a bit of a tough decision, do I or do I not open another can of mango?

Jesse

P.S Thanks for all the Happy Thanksgiving's from America!