Official Jessica Watson Blog

Well we've been out here a full week now and into day 8 today! I've just been doing the maths and we covered 740nm in week 1 which is as much as I'd ever hoped for and pretty good considering some of the windless days we've had. If anything, the first week's run puts us very slightly ahead of schedule, but I hate to say that so early on!

We're near Norfolk Island which sounds like a pretty interesting place so I'll have to add it to the list of places to stop off at next time. Not long now till the Tasman is ticked off and then it's on to the equator.

Something I maybe should have done long ago is to introduce you all to my amazing shore team. If you ask me, they're the true heroes handling all the tricky stuff back home while I have fun out here! Here's just a few of the people I rely on and talk to every day, the complete support network is made up of even more amazing people with all sorts of different skills. And that's not to mention all the people who worked on Ella's Pink Lady and all our sponsors, it's more like a huge big extended family than anything. So along with all you guys thinking of me and Ella's Pink Lady I'm not really alone out here.

Firstly there's Bruce the Project Manager. Bruce and his wife Suzanne have worked on the voyage full time for most of the year, were hugely supportive before then and a big inspiration to me. I love Bruce's calm 'can do' approach and I talk through boat performance, conditions, any potential shipping etc with Bruce.

I talk to Dad (Roger) on the sat-phone twice a day for the official skeds (slang for a scheduled talk normally by radio). Dad's great for talking through any little problems with me and is kept busy chasing up all sorts of bits and pieces. It's nice to talk to Dad and hear all the ins and outs of what's going on at home.

Then there's Scott and Andrew who handle a lot more than just my management and media. Scott's always there to patiently help me work through the camera systems and the some of the sat communication gear. Andrew looks after the blog, sponsors and other news updates.

Bob McDavitt (the ambassador for New Zealand's met servos) is providing all the weather forecasting and routing us around the worst of the bad weather. It gives me a lot of confidence to have such a good idea of what's coming.

And lastly Mum (Julie) keeps me up to date with the outside world, forwarding on emails, sending me any news that I might find interesting. She's also the one who packed all the food so when I can't find something she's the one I ring!

More soon.

Jesse