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

The unforgettable true story of the first American woman to sail around the world alone When Pat Henry anchored her 31-foot sailboat, Southern Cross, in Acapulco Harbor on May 5, 1997, she became both the first American woman to sail around the world alone and the oldest woman to do so. What had begun years earlier as an attempt to escape the heartbreaks of her past had grown by degrees into a healing journey that took her through 40 countries and across 27,000 miles of open sea. Henry braved storms, near collisions, equipment failures, uncharted reefs, and weeks of unremitting loneliness. The fascinating chronicle of Pat Henry's eight-year voyage around the globe, By the Grace of the Sea weaves a panoply of images, anecdotes, observations, and impressions along with logbook entries and letters to friends into a lively, finely wrought narrative, supplemented by color photographs and the author's vivid watercolors. By turns a tale of high adventure by a first-rate storyteller, an inspiring memoir of a woman's search for meaning, and first-rate travel-writing from someone who's seen it all, By the Grace of the Sea is as colorful and inspiring as the author herself. OF THE MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED CRUISING SAILBOATS arriving in Mexico in 1989, only a handful were turning southwest into the Pacific, sandwiching their departures between the South Pacific hurricane season ending in April and the one that had officially begun on May 1 in the North Pacific. In a personal account 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. On May 5 1997, when Pat Henry anchored her 31-foot Southern Cross sailboat in Acapulco Harbour, she became the first woman to sail around the world alone. At 56 she is also the oldest woman in the world to have done so. This is the story of her 27,000 mile voyage.