By the Grace of the Sea : A Woman's Solo Odyssey Around the World - Hardcover

Henry, Pat

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0071355278 ISBN 13: 9780071355278

Publisher: McGraw-Hill, 2002

Synopsis

Chronicles the life at sea for one American woman who sailed solo around the world after dealing with two failed marriages and unhealthy relatioships with her father and daughters.

About this title

From the Author:

By the Grace of the Sea is more than a sailing story of my eight-year journey on board Southern Cross. To understand the drive and motives behind my voyage, I had to examine those moments from childhood, marriage, motherhood, career, and life that had propelled me to the center of a mid-life crisis and pushed me out of Acapulco, Mexico, on May 4, 1989.

In writing By the Grace of the Sea, I shaped the raw experience of my odyssey to create a message of encouragement. Beyond traveling vicariously by small boat to exotic places, I hope readers close the last page and say, "If she can do that, maybe I could......" and search for an old dream forgotten in a dark corner.

From the Back Cover:

A remarkable woman shares her life-changing voyage of reconciliation, renewal, and discovery Teen mother, architect, professor, businesswoman--buffeted by childhood dislocations and "the short, joyous beginnings and long, painful endings in a lifetime of marriages and relationships"--Pat Henry knows a thing or two about survival. But when her once-successful business goes bankrupt, she can't find the will to begin again. In this extraordinary memoir, Henry sets sail instead. Ahead lie storms, despair, romance, and thirty thousand miles--but also a deeper understanding of her daughters, her mother, the father who abandoned her, the loves and hurts of a crowded life, and her own hidden self.

"An extraordinary adventure of self-discovery. Aboard her magic carpet, Southern Cross, she sails the exotic dream of a lifetime, with her readers along as vicarious crew. Under a glittering harvest moon in the South China Sea, she thinks: 'I am the richest person in the world. I'm alive and here to see this sight.' And the farther we sail with Pat, bathed in the glow of our own beckoning dreams, the richer we feel, too."--Alan Steinberg, sailor, and coauthor, Black Profiles in Courage

"By the Grace of the Sea caps Pat Henry's remarkable achievements. First she taught herself to sail, becoming proficient enough to circumnavigate the globe on her own; then she taught herself to sketch and paint, becoming an accomplished artist in the process. Now she has taught herself to write, producing a book about her adventures at sea that ranks with those by Chichester and Jack London. By the Grace of the Sea is a powerful and compelling personal account of her battle with the elements--plus inner and outer demons--while struggling to complete her solo journey around the world. What a book and what a woman!"--Willard Manus, author, This Way to Paradise, Dancing on the Tables, and The Pigskin Rabbi

In a personal account as vibrant and adventurous as its author, By the Grace of the Sea chronicles one woman's voyage alone over vast oceans. In May 1989, Pat Henry left Acapulco aboard her little sailboat Southern Cross for a journey that would take her through eight years, forty countries, and thirty thousand miles.

Love for the sea and foreign lands and a thirst for meaning in life were only part of the story. This was an odyssey motivated both by a great yearning for adventure and a profound sense of failure. Henry's journey began with the collapse of her textile import company, a result of flawed personal and professional judgment that left her broke, betrayed, haunted by self-doubt, and spiritually spent. Forced to live frugally aboard her 21-year-old sailboat, she ventured down the California coast to Mexico for a brief trip that moved impetuously onward--around the world.

Her voyage becomes the vehicle through which Henry faces her fears and her dreams, her future and her past. Along the way, she finds new beauty, talents, friendships, and even romance, and is given a priceless gift--the distance from which to repair and deepen family relationships and to reach peace with the choices and abandonments of a tumultuous life.

Battling storms, near-collisions, equipment failure, fatigue, solitude, and a host of other challenges, Henry perseveres to become one of the first women ever to sail around the world alone--and, at age fifty-six, the oldest. First, though, she must confront long-buried demons, and in the final miles she will make the deepest and most liberating discovery of all. . . .

Pat Henry weaves together personal letters and logbook entries to tell her tale with rare honesty, style, and insight. Here is a story not just for sailors, but for daughters, mothers, lovers, and seekers.

About this edition

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0071355278
• ISBN 13: 9780071355278
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 388