Well, everywhere is dangerous. They don't sail and they don't know what boats are, and they are scared of them." While in Australia, Dekker gave an interview in which she admitted that she was not doing much schoolwork since she was busy with sailing, maintenance, customs procedures and other tasks related to her journey. This led to press and other commentators suggesting that she had quit school and thrown the school books overboard. She tried to correct this by saying that she had not stopped studying totally and would continue her academic studies after returning to the Netherlands. On 14 October 2011, Dekker was nominated for the Conny van Rietschoten Trophy, a very prestigious Dutch sailing award, in the ocean sailing category. Preceding Dekker's journey, the sailing press appeared rather sceptical, but became more positive during the journey, and acclaimed her after the Indian Ocean crossing and the Cape of Good Hope passage. General media in countries she visited have often also been impressed, at least on later stages. General media in the Netherlands mostly avoided writing about her during the journey, since the journey went mostly as planned. An exception was the newspaper "Algemeen Dagblad" which had a weekly column about her and displayed a standing link on the front web page to a collection of articles about the teenage sailor. However, on 4 January 2012, Dutch and German press started to write much more about her, both about the fact that she soon was expected to finish the circumnavigation, and about the fact that she did not want to return to the Netherlands, but to settle in New Zealand. After the arrival on 21 January 2012, there were articles in newspapers all over the world. Dekker used a French-built two-masted Jeanneau Gin Fizz ketch, which Laura named "Guppy", same as her earlier boats. Dekker sailed from Den Osse, Netherlands, on 4 August 2010, headed for Portugal. This segment did not constitute part of the solo circumnavigation, as her father was on board to coach her and test the new boat. The published plan was that the solo voyage would commence from Lisbon. Instead, Dekker and her father sailed to Portimão, arriving on 15 August. She sailed with others from Portimão to Gibraltar on 18–20 August, because according to Portuguese law, she was too young to be formally qualified to captain her ship (Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory subject to British law, though Dekker made her departure from Gibraltar in secret in order to avoid both the press and any maritime police).  2010–2012 Solo circumnavigation progress:  "Maidentrip" (2013), mostly shot by Dekker and directed by Jillian Schlesinger, is an 82-minute documentary video about this trip.