When I saw the plane, I was absolutely astonished! Two emotions crashed over me: surging joy and crazy fear.

On October 19, 2009, my sixteenth birthday, Wild Eyes officially became mine! Now it was really happening.

If a big wave came at the wrong moment, it would sweep me off into forty-eight-degree water, where I might last twenty minutes. Drowning quickly might be better.

When a sailor overcomes crushing adversity, there's a massive sense of accomplishment.

The swells were amazing! As big as three-story apartment buildings!

But none of that kept me from picturing what a tsunami might look like if it did rise up and roar toward my little boat like some watery blue version of the Great Wall of China.

I will never forget the feeling of walking into my home, a place that while drifting helpless in the middle of the Indian Ocean I wondered if I would ever see again.