Maidentrip

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1

Hello, hello.

Test.

Okay, so here we go.

All supplies are stocked.

Water.

Boxes of food.

More boxes of food, food,

and more food.

I just have to cast off

the moorings and then

I'm ready to go.

We'll see.

My name is Laura Dekker.

I am fourteen years old.

I have a dream to be the

youngest person ever to sail

around the world alone.

I was born on a boat

in New Zealand.

I lived my first five years

at sea and ever since,

all I've wanted is

to return to that life.

Okay now, this is just

the table and where you live.

This will be my bed.

You can't imagine it now,

but there I will be sleeping.

If you see it now you think

"Oh no, that will takes weeks."

But it's not so worse

as you see it.

Every day since February

we've been working on it.

In Holland, they tried

to stop her trip,

but there isn't any law

to stop this.

It's really weird, yeah.

They try to break Laura down.

But Laura is actually too

strong, so it's not enough.

Okay.

My father at first was like,

"She is completely insane."

"If you want to do this,

go figure it out yourself."

So I just started out

by figuring out routes

looking at charts

and Google Earth to see

what it would look like

and what I'd need for the boat.

I started to look for sponsors.

I just started explaining

to people who I was,

what I wanted to do,

what my dream was.

And they all responded

very positively.

I got things for my boat, like

charts and navigation systems.

When I wanted to arrange

my school,

the attendance officer sent

Child Protection after me

and all that.

They brought a court case

against me and my parents.

And then the media got

all over it, and that was just

...not much fun.

And now here's

an interesting controversy.

A thirteen-year-old Dutch girl

wants to sail the world alone,

but is facing pressure not to

go from her own government.

Council for Child Protection's

so concerned about the dangers

of the marathon voyage,

it's asked a court

to grant it custody of Laura.

I just didn't know what

was going on at all.

The media came, and I was

famous in the whole of Holland.

But I never had wanted

to be famous

and it was also the worst

kind of being famous

that there can ever be.

The worst part was definitely

they wanted to pull me away

from my dad and put me in some

kind of home for crazy kids.

It was really nasty.

Of course there were people

who say you're crazy,

but it's a dream.

A great, great dream.

I want to sail,

I want to go around the world.

I want to see all the places

and not always

the stupid same thing.

After one year of fighting

we were able to win

which was really nice.

With this decision,

the responsibility for Laura

is back where it belongs.

Namely, with the parents.

Dutch teenager Laura Dekker

set out this morning

in a journey to become

the youngest person to sail

around the world alone.

Dekker had to fight a 10 month

court battle to be allowed

to make that trip by herself.

I don't know,

it's just a mix of feelings

because I'm happy for her...

but also sad to see her leave.

The last view of Gibraltar.

See you in two years!

Really beautiful.

Okay.

It's pretty hard to film

and walk.

I don't usually fall this often.

It's going really nicely.

If it stays like this,

I'll have no complaints.

Umm, yeah.

What you see here is a...

disaster.

This is ravioli.

And it came out of that.

I don't know exactly

what happened but...

all of the sudden it fell on me,

and now I am all ravioli-ed.

So I think it's going to

be something simple today

like soup or something.

I've spent three nights

at sea so far.

This will be the fourth night.

And there goes the sun.

Always extraordinary

how fast that goes.

The fourth day...

that's when I truly

realized that I was away,

that I was really doing

a world trip.

That was because I saw

the Canary Islands.

Because at home,

ever since I was very little

the Canary Islands were something for me

that was really far away,

something unreachable,

somewhere I would never get to.

So when I got there

I was really like,

"Whoa, sh*t.

I'm here."

I met some really cool

people, and we explored

the whole island together.

Jesus.

I really feel like

a mountain goat.

I've thought about five times

that we were almost there.

And now...

we can hardly get any higher...

from the sea.

And the sea is there.

Others who have done it,

the world trip for the record...

like Jessica, from Australia

and Abby, from America.

They sail non-stop

around the world.

I don't want to do that

because you'd see

so little of the world.

I think it's really great to

learn about other countries,

other cultures.

That's one of the reasons

why I'm taking two years

to do my journey.

Well, I've set off.

First, I'm just going

to let my dad know

that I have indeed set off.

So we're going to call him now.

Hi.

I'm sailing away now.

The waves?

They weren't so bad.

I'm right by the beach

that's kind of a bay,

so it's not an issue.

Everything is off

in the kitchen, yes.

Yeah, I'll do that.

I will, bye.

Okay, well that's taken

care of...

Parents, "Did you think of this?

Did you think of that?

Be careful!"

But I will be careful.

Saying goodbye was difficult.

The Atlantic Ocean...

The first of three big oceans

to cross.

All of my feelings were jumbled.

I enjoyed it immensely,

the sailing and everything

around me but...

on the other hand I missed

my father, I missed home.

I couldn't eat anything for two

days, just couldn't get it down.

I felt really very strange.

Dolphins.

Really so beautiful.

So beautiful, wow.

I hope they swim

along for a while.

A bit of company.

It's still about...

1780 miles or so to St. Maarten, I think.

And I've...

sailed something like 400

or 500 or so.

I'm hungry, but it's

nowhere near dinner time.

And to actually cook

a nice meal won't work.

I'm being tossed around...

as my food would be.

It's kind of difficult.

If you had way more arms,

then you could at least

hold onto the food.

I was pretty fed up

with it yesterday.

I could have just kicked

the waves to the moon.

If only that were possible.

I'm looking forward to being

on land again soon.

It's just like...

It would be nice to run

and to walk a bit.

So, here I am again,

I just had to do an update.

Now the wind is seriously

going away.

Damn.

And then there's

this f***ing swell...

Things are just really

hard for me right now.

Nobody said life was easy.

But that's a pretty

annoying fact.

I don't give up.

After everything I've done

for it,

all the years of dreaming

of this journey.

Okay, there's a f***ing lot

of rain coming at me now.

Holy sh*t, sh*t.

Woo-hoo.

A big wave just came over the

deck and that was so beautiful.

And now the wind

has picked up even more.

Really super awesome!

It's really cool to see

how the boat fights

its way through the waves.

Awesome, right?

I can really enjoy that.

Okay, so that was rain...

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