A charming memoir of midlife by the bestselling author of Mayflower and In the Hurricane's Eye, recounting his attempt to recapture a national sailing championship he'd won at twenty-two.
“There had been something elemental and all consuming about a Sunfish. Nothing could compare to the exhilaration of a close race in a real blow—the wind howling and spray flying as my Sunfish and I punched through the waves...

On a windy morning in April 2005, two friends set out to go fishing near Charleston, South Carolina. The teenagers paddled their small 15-foot (5.6 m) boat into the choppy Atlantic Ocean. They planned to stay close to shore and fish. Suddenly, their boat became caught in a powerful rip current. It began to sweep the small vessel away from shore. The frightened teenagers tried paddling back to land with all their might, but the current was too strong....

In the midst of the bloody U.S. Civil War, an enslaved man named Robert Smalls carried out a dangerous plan. Smalls secretly took control of a Confederate steamboat, the Planter, and sailed the ship toward a Union fleet. A little known story of courage, hope, and peril during the Civil War, this true account celebrates an unsung American hero.

Biographical sketch recounting his early days growing up in Dennis Port, school life at the one room schoolhouse, mackerel fishing with his father, memories of the great gale of 1841, and an extensive voyage on the square rigged ship "Rival" with Captain David Kelley. Many Dennis mariners and local families and traditions are discussed, along with the cruelties of shipboard life encountered during his 27 years at sea.