“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.”

I am twelve thousand miles wiser, twelve thousand miles more resilient, and I have twelve thousand miles more faith in God.

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

I knew that even if I was able to call for help, I was in a place so remote that it wasn’t likely there would be anyone who could help me. And even if there were, it could take weeks.

I will definitely attempt to sail around the world again. In fact, I can’t wait for the chance to try again.

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

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

If Wild Eyes reached those islands, she wouldn’t run aground, keel in the sand. She would be smashed into pieces.

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

Wild Eyes was built for speed and I was flying down walls of water twenty and thirty feet high.

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

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

It was amazing to see all the support that he got from around the world and to see how everyone worked together to help make his dream reality. Watching him do this really made me believe that I could too.

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

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

The terrifying physics of going up-mast in heavy seas are inescapable.

One place is the turbulent passage south of Cape Horn. Another is the dead center of the Indian Ocean.

The whole world loves American movies, blue jeans, jazz and rock and roll. It is probably a better way to get to know our country than by what politicians or airline commercials represent.

FLYING DOWN SUNSET SMOKING CRACK TRANSVESTITE IN THE FRONT EDDI MURPHY IN THE BACK MOP HAD ME GRINDY AND GRIDDY MARILYN MANSON.

Unless you’re willing to fight and refight the same battles until you go blue in the face, drive the people you work with nuts going over every detail to make certain you’ve got it right, and then take hit after unfair hit accusing you of bias, there’s no use even trying.

Not since Cassandra Wilson’s Blue Light Til Dawn has a vocalist cast such an entrancing spell as Valerie Joyce does on New York Blue.

There are only four things in all cleaners – whether it’s shampoo, laundry detergent, whatever.You buy them in bulk and you mix them up properly, and they all work. It doesn’t matter if they call the stuff ecologically friendly or have dolphins diving around on the label.

Motown was about music for all people – white and black, blue and green, cops and the robbers. I was reluctant to have our music alienate anyone.

When I was born, my father was a copper miner in Butte, Montana. It was a hard-core, blue-collar situation.

Some people would say they never see me because I don’t go anywhere. I stay in the blue state of Nashville, in my bubble.