Column-Logbook for the Algemeen Dagblad
May 12, 2011
Translation for Zeilmeisje Laura Dekker on Facebook
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Each week in her column-logbook for the Algemeen Dagblad Laura Dekker will relate her journey around the world aboard her sailboat Guppy on her attempt to become the world's youngest circumnavigator.
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A lizard and two cockroaches


Great! I am far enough on my way now to finally be able sleep very well again. It was great to be in Santa Cruz, Galapagos but staying at the anchorage was uncomfortable because of the steady and high swell that pushed me from one side to the other of my bed. The only way I could get some sleep was to lie across and wedge my body between the walls. So here at sea I will be able to catch up on my lack of sleep even though I have to get up every one and a half hour to check on the course and make sure nothing else is wrong. Well, I am used to it and I go to bed at 8 PM so I get enough sleep in the night. I already sailed 650 nautical miles and there are still about 2330 nautical miles to go. I think it will take some two weeks of sailing this crossing form the Galápagos Islands to the Marquesas Islands in French-Polynesia will have been the longest of my entire journey and everything is going great so far. For now I have pretty strong winds and the sun is brightly shining. The days go by looking pretty much the same starting in the morning with radio contacts with other ships on the same crossing as me, then I spend my time reading, correcting the course and adjusting the sails, or throwing squids and flying fishes off the deck as they they keep jumping aboard...and eating bananas. A tall stalk was given to me back in Santa Cruz, Galápagos, with hiding in it two stowaways - two huge cockroaches that found themselves swimming in the sea in no time flat. As for the other squatter I feel a little more broadminded – it is a cute lizard that just popped up from nowhere. I don't think that the solo sailing rules mention anything about reptiles, so I don't mind it hitchhiking its way with me for the next thousand miles.

Regards from the Pacific Ocean,
Laura