Teen sailor Watson on track for early May finish

Sydney: Sixteen-year-old Jessica Watson is ahead of schedule in her bid to become the youngest person to

sail around the world solo, nonstop and without assistance. Watson was expected to re-enter Australian waters off the most southwesterly point of the country sometime on the weekend. She could arrive in Sydney Harbor as early as May 2 after a 38,000-kilometer journey -- seven weeks ahead of schedule. Watson, from Buderim, Queensland north of Brisbane, set sail from Sydney in her pink 10-meter yacht on October 18 and originally planned to make the journey in about eight months. "It`s all weather dependent, but the first week of May on current average speed is what we are aiming for," her manager Andrew Fraser said today. Her lengthy time away from family, friends and land hasn`t dulled her sense of humor, at least according to the latest entry in her blog on her Web site. "Some bad news today ... something that has been threatening to happen for quite some time has finally happened," she wrote Thursday. "The handle has fallen off my only kettle! But it won`t be too long now till I`ll be able to pop down to the shops for a new one.” "Am thinking about have chocolate muffins for dinner tonight, but that all depended on whether or not I manage to stop myself eating all the mixture." Watson`s parents were criticized by family groups and some government officials for allowing her to make the journey, concerned that any ocean rescue would cost thousands of dollars and place her life in jeopardy. But after a test run to New Zealand and several solo journeys in Australia, Watson, who has been sailing since she was 8, had silenced most of critics. The journey has taken her north from Sydney to the equator in the mid-Pacific Ocean, under South America, across the south Atlantic Ocean to the southern tip of South Africa and east across the Indian Ocean towards home. PTI