From having read through most all of Jessica's blog posts, I think she's doing it for more than just the record. I would venture to say that if you have the requisite skills, then being 16 doesn't increase or decrease the inherent dangers one way or the other. Even if you're our age, if pirates want to get you, they probably will. Ditto for knockdowns. From reading her many posts, I sense a maturity and healthy self-confidence well beyond her 16 years.

If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracle of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.
- Lyndon Johnson, on signing the Wilderness Act into law (1964)