Official Jessica Watson Blog

Saturday's front went through with only 35 knots of wind and without a hitch, but this low pressure system passing down south is making life pretty interesting right now. Make that very interesting and very, very annoying!

With the forecast looking worse and worse last Monday and after a lot of umming and arring and discussion with Bruce and all the team, I decided to stall and stick up north for a few days till the worst of the weather has passed down under Tasmania.

With the Bass Strait right there in front of us, taking a short cut through it and out of the weather had to be considered too. But it was decided that the safest thing to do was to just hang about waiting for it to pass before heading for the bottom of Tasmania again. I don't think there was really any choice, it just took me a while to get over being annoyed and accept that I was going to have to hang about and wait a little while longer before getting to Sydney and having a hot shower!

And last night things sure got interesting. I put the drogue (a parachute like thing that you trail behind the boat to slow you down in really big seas) out to stop us losing too much ground and to stop us being knocked down. The wind gusted at 55 knots and the sea was (and still is!) a total, gigantic mess, with 8-12 meter swells. Although the wind is easing now, the sea's still rising.

Riding out the weather with the drogue out was a lot like my first gale in Ella's Pink Lady because of the new motion and all the new noises. It didn't make for the most relaxing night as I played around with the bridle to try and get us sitting at the right angle to the waves. Then when I did put my head down for a bit of sleep we were knocked down again when the lashing came off the tiller and a big wave caught us on the side.

This time we went more than 90 degrees over, port (left) side down for a change. No damage again but this time my big bottle of dishwashing liquid worked its way out of the locker and went flying, empting its contents absolutely everywhere! The whole cabin including the key board I'm typing on is covered in sticky, slippery, bubbly lemon fresh washing up liquid -lovely. Mum reckons that I have some sort of obsession with cleaning! And I'm starting to wonder why I bother drying and tidying the cabin anymore, as it
never lasts.

It's still going to be some time before the sea drops off and we're able to head south, which is going to delay my arrival date back. But on the up side, these waves are just amazing. I spent years dreaming about what waves like this looked like and they are 10 times more incredible than I'd ever imagined. I just can't believe I sailed the whole way around the world to see them when here they are right in my own backyard!

I was sorry to hear about Abby having to pull in to Cape Town for repairs. But like Abby said so well in her blog the other day, in one way it's great that we're now aiming for slightly different records, so that we don't have to be competing with each other. I'm also totally jealous that she's probably going to beat me to a hot shower!

Jesse