S: Is for never to young to sail

A 13-year-old girl is to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone and could be dashed by civil servants who have refused to give her permission to be absent from school. Laura Dekker intends to continue her education during the two-year trip through self-study and via emails. However the authorities in her home town of Wijk bij Duurstede say this is not an acceptable alternative to attending school. Dekker's parents, who have themselves made a seven-year journey around the world, support Laura's plans. Dekker, who was born on a boat in New Zeeland, is an experienced sailor. She is planning to start her journey on the first of September. It's estimated that it's going to take her 2 years to go around the world. Laura doesn't get why so many people are saying that she has to abort her mission, but it doesn't get her. She is planning to go and she will go, she says. These people do not know what they are talking about.

According to her parents she will get a better education in the two years on the boat than she would get in school. Her homework she will recieve by e-mail so, she can still cope up with the class. This is the route she normally will folow: First she will go from The Netherlands to the Canary Islands. From the Canary Islands she will cross the Atlantic Ocean to Panama. Through the Panama Canal she will be sailing on the Pacific Ocean. She hopes to be in Australia in November 2010. Then she will sail through the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal to reach the Mediterranean Sea. She want go through Somalia if there are to many pirates. Two years after her departure she hopes to be back in The Netherlands.

If she does this, she will be the youngest to sail around the world. The first was the Portuguese sailor Ferdinand Magellan.

Let's hope for her everything goes by plan. For more information you can go to her website: http://www.lauradekker.nl/, but keep in mind, it's in dutch...

Now this is a girl with a dream and a that is a F.A.C.T.