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

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

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

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

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

The things that happen on the sea take you beyond yourself, beyond human capability.

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.