Solo sailor Laura Dekker after two ocean crossings

'Laura’s journey so far - two oceans down, but still a long way to go.'    . 15-year-old solo sailor Laura Dekker has arrived in Darwin, her first stop after crossing the Pacific. With a shredded sail and only half an hour sleep in the last 48, the young sailor who will become the youngest ever solo circumnavigator if she completes her journey within a year from now, arrived into Darwin on Friday, after one of her most difficult legs so far. After staying awake to endure the long-winded processes that are the lot of any boat arriving into Australia from the Pacific, Laura was torn between enjoying some human company and getting some sleep. 'But I also longed to sleep... a long sleep in one stretch.... A night without shredding sails, without islands, without reefs or sandbanks, without buoys or ships... How wonderful! But my brain was still running at full speed... then slowed down, slowed down until this most active part of myself fell asleep, fell asleep into a deep and long sleep…' Laura, who will turn 16 on 20th September, still has a little over a year to sail from Darwin back to the Mediterranean to become the youngest ever circumnavigator. The most vexed question is whether she has time to avoid the pirate zone around the Gulf of Aden and take the longer route around Africa. All authoritative bodies are advising cruising sailors to avoid a large portion of the western Indian Ocean, making it impossible to reach the Red Sea and the very much shorter route. Laura Dekker on her Jeanneau Ginfizz ketch Guppy small -  .. .   She departed Gibraltar on the 21st August, 2010, and has since crossed the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans with little apparent trouble. http://www.lauradekker.com