Slowly, my brain let me in on the fact that I had just come this close to dying.

There are a number of places on marine charts where even the most weathered sailors point and say, "Right there, nothing can go wrong. Everything has to go right." One place is the turbulent passage south of Cape Horn. Another is the dead center of the Indian Ocean.

The seriousness of my situation started to sink in, and again I fought panic. I pushed it down, but it was harder this time, like my insides were an open can of shaken soda and I was trying to keep it from bubbling up out of the top.

The winds were blowing from west to east, pushing Abby's boat toward the rocks as Abby struggled with the autopilots below. If Wild Eyes reached those islands, she wouldn't run aground, keel in the sand. She would be smashed into pieces.

I wanted to break the record, of course, and become the youngest person to sail around the world solo and unassisted.

One day that same year, I told my dad that someday, I would sail around the world alone.

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