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"I told God that if he would let us survive this night, I would make it mean something worthwhile. And then, somehow, I felt calmer than I have ever felt. Unreasonably so. Irrationally so. I looked over the scene of our wrecked life and I smiled--a crazy smile for sure--and I looked through the dark at the mad beauty of it."
--Jean Silverwood

An exhilarating true-life adventure of one family's extraordinary sea voyage of self-discovery and survival, tragedy and triumph

Successful businessman John Silverwood and his wife, Jean, both experienced sailors, decided the time was right to give their four children a taste of thrilling life on the high seas. And indeed their journey aboard the fifty-five-foot catamaran Emerald Jane would have many extraordinary and profound moments, whether it was the peaceful late-night watches John enjoyed under the stunning celestial sky or the elation shared by the whole family at the sight of blissful pods of dolphin and migrating tortoises. John and Jean had hoped to use the trip as a teaching opportunity, with the Emerald Jane as a floating classroom in which to instruct their children in important lessons--not only about the natural world but about the beauty of human life when stripped down to its essence, far from the trappings of civilization.

Yet rather than flourishing amid the new freedoms and responsibilities thrust upon them, the children were sometimes confused, frightened, resentful. The two oldest, fourteen-year-old Ben and twelve-year-old Amelia, missed their friends and the comfortable life left behind in San Diego, while the two youngest, Jack, seven, and Camille, three, picked up on the stressful currents running above and below the surface--for throughout the journey, the Silverwood family found its bonds tested as never before.

John and Jean, whose marriage had weathered its share of storms, would wonder again if they had taken on too much as the physical, emotional, and financial strains of caring for the expensive catamaran and their children brought old resentments to the surface.

John's dream trip that began on Long Island Sound ended almost two years later as a nightmare in treacherous waters off a remote atoll in French Polynesia, where, in an explosion of awesome violence, the terrifying brunt of the ocean's anger fell upon the Emerald Jane.

Gradually, in the crucible of the sea, a stronger, more closely knit unit was forged. The Silverwoods became a crew. Then they became a family again. But just as it seemed to them that they had mastered every challenge, their world was shattered in a split-second of unimaginable horror. Now their real challenge began, forcing them to fight for their very lives.

From the Hardcover edition.

a heart-shaped reef

In the same hour that the Emerald Jane was approaching Scilly Island in the South Pacific, my sister-in-law was alone in her New York home. A sharp crash made her jump: A watercolor of a racing sailboat had fallen from her wall to the hardwood floor. A wedding present from John and me, it had hung in the same spot for twenty-one years. Joanne, a little shaken, started calling around the family to find where we might be--she knew we were somewhere far at sea.

--

Below deck in our catamaran sailboat, my husband, John, stood in the doorway of our tiny stateroom. I can picture him there in that instant before everything changed. Our four children--we had pried them away from their suburban world for a thousand reasons--were busy elsewhere on the boat, settling in for the night. John had just told me how long it would probably take us to get to Fiji, our next destination by way of Tonga; some problems with the boom of the mainsail were slowing us down, but we could fix it in the morning. After Fiji, we would head for Australia. From there, the kids and I were planning to head home to the States, and John would stay long enough to clean up Emerald Jane and sell her--which can take months, and I worried about that. I guess I was worried about what might become of our marriage after this long adventure. I was also worried about the whole idea of selling a ship that had become like one of the family; I thought it would be particularly hard on John, who loved her the most.

We had done what we set out to do two years earlier when we first set sail. Along the way, our children's eyes had opened to the beauty of the world. The kids were very strong characters now, very different from when we began. We loved them in new ways--maybe deeper ways, because we had taken the time to finally get to know them.

John said he had just finished a sweet conversation under the stars with Amelia, our fourteen-year-old daughter, during her turn at the wheel. She had followed him back inside and, by tossing the life vest to her sixteen-year-old brother, Ben, turned the "watch" over to him. He had been watching the movie Drop Dead Gorgeous on a laptop. Movies on DVD were a vestige of our once and future life, and Ben needed a dose of that now and then, as did we all. The boat was on automatic pilot as Ben prepared to go aft for his two-hour watch.

Everybody was finally happy to be together--it had taken a few thousand miles, but the family now seemed in synch and content. I don't mean that it was perfect, but we had learned to live together in a tight space without too much drama.

We had about a minute left.

With our autopilot engaged, the boat was sailing itself in this moment. We thought.

I was propped up in bed with a laptop as John chatted from the doorway. He looked good. He is a handsome, green-eyed guy full of fun and energy. People sometimes say he looks like Dennis Quaid. Maybe so. He does have strong features and he's certainly handsome. He has serious eyes that always give away what he's thinking. He has, or rather had, a dark mustache. Amelia and I talked him into throwing it overboard during the long sail across the Pacific. He's even better-looking with-out it.

He hadn't had a drink since his big meltdown in the Caribbean, and I was pretty much in love with him again.

So you can picture the crew: Amelia looks a little older than her fourteen years. She has long, dark strawberry blond hair, and big, empathetic brown eyes. She is very fit, with a great, honest smile and the hint of dimples. She is very pretty and has a natural charisma that has always filled the space around her. She is eminently...

 

John and Jean Silverwoodlive with their family in California.

From the Hardcover...