“Most of my journey, I imagined, would be uneventful and pretty monotonous. Ninety-nine percent boredom punctuated by one percent absolute terror. This guesswork was, of course, updated from time to time by equal parts optimism and frustration. The open ocean was often quite empty, literally devoid of life, except for microscopic organisms. Currents and changing visibility conditions, both above and below water, could play havoc with my sense of direction.”