If Laura Dekker has accomplished anything during her leisurely attempt to circle the planet alone in a sailboat, it's conquering a longstanding fear of sharks.
The 15-year-old Dutch adventurer is at anchor at the Galapagos Islands west of Ecuador, where she has been exploring and tidying up her 38-foot boat before continuing across the Pacific.
On Monday she and "three sailor friends" went diving in the company of hammerhead sharks, white-tip sharks and Galapagos sharks, which teemed in the clear, cool depths.
Dekker emerged with a much greater appreciation for the top-level predators."Those were exactly the sharks of my nightmares, and they did not do any harm to me," she wrote, in her most recent blog post. "About ten of them swam below me and they were not interested in us at all!"
Dekker, who aspires to become the youngest person to solo-circumnavigate the planet in a sailboat, departed from Gibraltar late last August and has crossed the Atlantic and passed through the Panama Canal.
(Australia's Jessica Watson is the youngest, having completed a nonstop, unassisted journey last May, just days before turning 17.)
Dekker, though she has about 17 months to become the youngest, is on a pace that implies she's more interested simply in enjoying the adventure. She spent weeks island hopping in the Caribbean, and has spent several days at the Galapagos.
It's hard to find fault with this outlook. The Caribbean is a vacationor's paradise and the Galapagos are one of the natural wonders of the world; and Dekker's next leg will be her longest yet: 3,000 nautical miles to the Marquesas in French Polynesia.
That crossing will represent her truest test as a sailor, and promises bouts of both doldrums and nasty weather. But at least images of bloodthirsty sharks will no longer haunt her dreams.
-- Image of Laura Dekker at the Galapagos Islands is among those posted on her website
I like Laura's philosophy of taking things leisurely. I was introduced to solo round the world sailing attempts through Abby Sunderland's recently released book Unsinkable. Here's a link to her book: http://dld.bz/YRZE. It sounds like Laura is more safety-minded overall. Hopefully she makes it through the Indian ocean safely, where Abby Sunderland was shipwrecked by a rogue wave and had to be rescued.
Posted by: markn12 | May 05, 2011 at 08:50 AM