7:38 PM Tue 13 Apr 2010 GMT
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'Jessica - still some challenges to come on the ’home run’'
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Jessica Watson has passed under the last great Cape of her circumnavigation, Cape Leeuwin on the south west tip of Australia, and is on the home run. As excitement mounts, those with even a little sailing experience must have their mounting excitement tempered with a little trepidation, for a few reasons.
The waters of the Great Australian Bight are notorious for their big bumpy seas, and Jessica still must round Tasmania's South East Cape, which she will do rather than negotiate Bass Strait. Bass Strait, while it would offer a somewhat shorter and warmer route, is shallow, which means it turns bad in a gale, it has many navigation hazards, and there is a lot of ship traffic. This combination offers not much sleep for the solo sailor.
It's well known that the best time to sail Tasmania is from January to March, and April is fast flowing away. The quicker Jessica can now make it, the happier sailor she is likely to be. This, of course, it no mistake on her part. It was always a calculated decision, and Jessica, with her competent advisory team, decided to choose the most favourable time to round Cape Horn. This was always going to make her late in the season for her final leg. She now has around 1700 miles to Tasmania and then around 700 miles up the coastline to Sydney.
While these are sobering thoughts, it's not to take away from the victory of the moment.
Jessica celebrated arriving in Australian waters with a 'hot chocolate in hand, a light sprinkling of rain and with an albatross circling above'.
'It was one of those really special moments,' she wrote of her celebration. But celebrations at sea when you are a solo sailor are bound to be frugal...
'I opened a can of prawns, sliced up the squid, all half a mouth full of it and made ... garlic prawns....Then I finished up with Vegemite on crackers to celebrate.'
Well done so far, Jessica. Ella's Pink Lady is a good yacht, and you are now a seasoned sailor. The champagne will be waiting for your arrival into Sydney in May. (if you were legally old enough to drink it!!)
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Abby - nicer weather in the Atlantic - .. .
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Sailing around 8000 miles behind Jessica, Abby Sunderland, Jessica's Californian counterpart, who started later but is younger and in a faster boat, is enjoying the warmer weather and sunshine as she crosses the Atlantic travelling a little north east in the great lee of South America. After 80 days of sailing, she is well settled into her solo routine.
If Jessica has some uncertain autumn weather to come before she's home, Abby, sailing much later in the season, will face potentially worse weather - but at the moment, all's well, with her problems revolving around minor maintenance and how many fish she has been able - or not able - to catch.
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Jordan Romero - about to climb Everest at 13 - .. .
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In the meantime, the controversy continues around how young a child should be before being allowed to undertake life threatening adventures.
Jordan Romero is a 13-year-old Californian teenager who is about to climb Mt Everest - and if he does it, he will be the youngest in the world ever to do so. No, he's not doing solo, but as part of 'Team Jordan', led by his father, Paul, and stepmother, Karen Lundgren.
So far, Romero has climbed five of the 'seven summits' (each continent's highest peak): Kilimanjaro when he was 10, Elbrus in Russia, Aconcagua in Argentina, McKinley in Alaska and, last year, Carstensz Pyramid in Indonesia. Then there is the fact that his father is a paramedic with a speciality in high-altitude physiology.
'So he'll know that his child shouldn't be there,' says David Hillebrandt, medical adviser to the British Mountaineering Council, who believes that 13 is too young to be exposed to such punishing altitudes.
Jordan, like the solo sailing teens, has attracted plenty of criticism...
by Nancy Knudsen
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