Jessica Watson heading for Australia with home on her mind

by Natalie Gregg

TIME is racing by for lone sailor Jessica Watson, who admits life back in Australia may be "quite a shock" after months alone at sea.

The Sunshine Coast teen is now navigating from an Indian Ocean chart, which shows Australia on the far edge.

"It looks so far away, yet so close at the same time," she blogged this week.

"As much as I'm looking forward to it, getting back home is going to be quite a shock, as I've really worked myself into my own groove out here."

The 16-year-old has less than 7000 nautical miles until she reaches the finish line in Sydney and hopes to make it back before her 17th birthday in May.

Jessica has been heading north the past week to avoid a rough weather system to the south.

She described gliding along under sunny skies and with 20 knots of wind as "perfect sailing" and even captured some fresh pictures for her blog.


"The last few days have just flown by all of a sudden without my noticing," she says. "Time seems to be passing very strangely at the moment, flying by in great chunks at a time."

The teen took advantage of calm conditions to re-stow and tidy up her cabin as she presses on to achieve her goal to sail solo, unassisted and non-stop around the world.

Weather expert Roger Badham has been keeping a close watch on Jessica's progress for The Courier-Mail and said she did well to stay north to keep away from strong winds and the Roaring Forties.

But Mr Badham said Jessica still needed to watch out for rogue weather systems and a low pressure system forecast to drop south towards her in the coming week.