Chapter One

Introduction

It’s Time for a Breakthrough

Just ten minutes into our 240-mile sea adventure, I found myself in the grip of fear. The turbulence and swells of the Atlantic Ocean were more intimidating than I had expected. In fact, I had not anticipated any turbulence. I simply had pictured us having a fun adventure as we navigated our newly purchased thirty-four-foot powerboat from northern New Jersey, where we bought it, to the Washington DC area, where we live.

Now my husband had, in fact, warned me the trip would be rough. But as so often happens in life, words failed to communicate the full impact of reality. Sitting anxiously next to Charles in the cockpit, I did my best not to look distraught, but I had to repeatedly bite my tongue to avoid blurting out, “Stop! Let’s go back and let a truck haul the boat down I-95. It’ll be in DC in no time!” Instead, my thumbs quietly typed cell-phone text messages to my parents and one of my girlfriends every hour or so, updating them on our location. If we perish out here, at least they’ll know where to look for us, I thought as the boat rose and fell with the swells of the ocean, giving my stomach the feeling that I was on a continuous roller-coaster ride. I was not having fun, and I wondered if my stomach could take it much longer.

I knew that if I could simply endure my uneasiness, we would make it back to DC as planned and have a fabulous adventure to reminisce about. As unsettling as it was for me–a woman whose swimming abilities are pretty much limited to the backstroke–to bounce around in the eighty-foot depths two miles off the East Coast, two important facts ga