>Yesterday Jessica Watson rounded Cape horn earlier this week on her quest to be the youngest unassisted circumnavigator.   Actually, in the last week, two sailors have made the rounding including Dilip Donde with the Indian Navy.  Dilip beat Jessica by a few days, coming up from behind in a larger and faster boat.  Also, Jessica was trying to make her rounding in daylight in order to allow for a flyover by her parents in a small plane.   They had flown out from their home in Australia in time to fly over Jessica and speak to her over a VHF radio.  I recommend that you read her post on this event as it is quite touching.  Imagine that she has been alone at sea and passing The Horn was her first land sight in months.  She left home aboard Ella’s Pink Lady in mid October.  Combine that with being in the “vicinity” of her parents who circled overhead for 45 minutes before heading back to land and you can certainly imagine how emotional it was for everyone involved.   There was a video from her parents on her site earlier today but it seems that they have pulled it down, perhaps to do more editing.  Who knows. 

Here’s a video Jessica posted as she rounded the fabled rocky point at the very most southern tip of South America.   It’s obvious that she was very excited when she made this video.   Still a long way to go but passing The Horn is such a major milestone.

This video shot by Jessica’s parents while they circled overhead is very touching. Imagine how they felt being so close and yet not able to actually be together.  The dialogue between Jessica and her mother is quite touching.   The boat looks so small on the big, bad southern ocean.

Dilip is now in the Falklands, a stop over for so many ships over the years that had sustained damage in the Southern Ocean.  Dilip had planned to make 4 stops on his way around and this port was on his list.  Good thing as he had a number of gear problems including a broken electronic autopilot.  Fortunately, he also has a vane steering unit so he was still able to manage fine.  Oddly, he hasn’t posted since earlier in the week.  However, I did find this article about his arrival in
Stanley, Falkland Islands.  It’s short but worth a look.   It seems he will be there for a while and will then head out to continue on his journey.  What a great trip.

>Yet again, YouTube comes to the rescue with a bit of background on the sailor from Mumbai that is sailing around the world.  The video gives a good feel for the yacht, which looks like a good one to make such a voyage.   This is certainly a more powerful boat than the older design that Jessica Watson is aboard.

Dilip has been thrashing into unusual easterlies for the last few days, making for a very uncomfortable ride. It seems that the weather forecast will have a shift to more normal westerly winds soon. 

>Today, when doing what I do most mornings, checking out a few blogs including Jessica Watson’s, she mentioned that she had been corresponding with a member of the Indian Navy who is sailing around the world on the first fiberglass boat built entirely in India.  What’s interesting, is that they have been communicating and are currently closer to each other than they are to any other person on the planet, or at least to anyone that they are aware of.  They are both so far from land that it’s each others boats that they are closest to.  I checked out the other blog and it turns out that the skipper is Dilip Donde who is sailing around the world, with a number of stops, on a custom made 47′ sailboat.   His blog is interesting and I have been reading some of his past posts.  He left last August from Maumbai India sailing south and then to the east making his first stop in Fremantle Australia.  After a week he headed back out and is now closing in on Cape Horn as is Jessica.

It must be wierd to be so far from everything and yet so close to someone that you have so much in common with.  Dilip’s blog includes a daily posting of position so check his out and see how it compares to Jessica’s

>For those who enjoy following blogs of sailing exploits, like me, today is somewhat notable as it was today that Jessica Watson, the young girl trying to circumnavigate the world in a small sailboat, reached the point in the ocean called “Point Nemo”.  That point was named for Captain Nemo the fictional hero of Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”, 1869″.  It is the point in the ocean that is the farthest from land of any place on the planet.    This position was computed by drawing lines between three points, in this case islands.  These points are…

s48:52:31.748 w123:23:33.069
This point is exactly 2 688 220.580 meters (slightly more than 1 450 nautical miles) away from the following three coastline points:
s24:40:39.360, w124:47:25.872 Ducie Island (Pitcairn Island Group, South Pacific)
s27:12:29.304, w109:27:33.120 Motu Nui / Rapa Nui (“Easter Island”, South Pacific)
s72:57:57.024, w126:22:30.793 Maher Island / Siple Island (Antarctica)

Jessica is probably less than two weeks from passing Cape Horn, what is likely to be the toughest part of her voyage.   Interestingly, she has been sailing in fog for some days now and I have to wonder what it’s like being in reduced visibility of only a few hundred feet and yet being 1,450km from the nearest land.  Sounds a bit surrealistic to me.

When she was leaving port for a test sail months ago, she had an accident that made headlines when she collided with a huge ship. This video also has an interesting interview with a fellow long distance sailor who attempted such a voyage with disastrous results.

When Brenda and I were in Key West last week we saw an IMOCA 60,  a really terrific ocean racing boat.  This video is in French but does have some footage of Bel, the big red French boat that we saw sailing near the docks.  What an amazing boat, and so fast.   What a contrast from Jessica Watson’s Ella’s Pink Lady. 

>While we were in the Keys last week with our friends, we took a day trip down to Key West.  Grassy Key, where we were staying, is about half way between the bottom of Florida to Key West so the drive down to the end of the island chain and Key West was about two hours and a world away.  Unfortunately, much of the Keys Highway is just one long strip of small motels, dive shops and a mess of generally unattractive roadside real estate.  However, once you enter Key West the world changes and you enter an amazing world of blue water, eclectic lifestyles and wonderful 1800s architecture.

There’s loads of boat traffic all around the tip of Key West with dive boats, private sailboats and this amzaing IMOCA 60, a state of the art ocean race boat out for a day sail.  I think that they must have been taking out sponsors or paying clients as a chase boat went out to it and changed passengers.  I took this photo from the deck where we had lunch.

Just off of the city marina dock there were tremendous tuna and tarpon.  No kidding, the tarpon were five feet long and the tuna three to four.  It seems that these fish are fed at the docks as if they were ducks in a city park.  These fish were just amazing and the biggest that I have ever seen in the “wild”.  That’s if they can still be classified as wild given the fact that they get fish kibble tossed to them daily. 

The area is jammed with all sorts of amazing old homes.  Given the hurricanes that come through this area nearly every season, it’s hard to imagine that they still are intact after 100 plus years. 

Another wonderful tree lined street scene with Brenda and Port walking and taking in the sights.

Quite a few wonderful historic hotels.  In fact Key West served as the Winter White House for Harry Truman.   At that time, the Navy had a massive presence and took very good care of the visiting president.  Today there is a section of the town called the Truman Annex, and it’s very, very exclusive.