All the ingenuity, all the high-tech gear, all the jury-rigging sometimes the sea would rip it all away until there was only you, the Creator, and His mercy.

Going up the mast is one of the most dangerous things you can do as a solo sailor.

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.

All the ingenuity, all the high-tech gear, all the jury-rigging sometimes the sea would rip it all away until there was only you, the Creator, and His mercy.

Terror ripped through me as I was falling, falling, falling toward the sea.

In that moment it dawned on me that everything has to line up perfectly for something to turn out this awful.

Fewer people have successfully solo-circumnavigated the globe than have journeyed into space.