Imperfect Passage

Book excerpt: Turning sixty isn’t the end; it’s only the beginning. Michael Cosgrove had a beautiful family, a successful career, and a lovely Southern California home overlooking the Pacific Ocean. At age sixty, he decided to leave all that behind to sail around the world. With the vision of rugged individualism and salty tales to share with his grandchildren, Cosgrove quickly realized that sailing around the world wasn’t as easy as he had imagined. From a psychotic crewmate, to sleep deprivation and mental breakdowns, to constant storms and hallucinations, Cosgrove rode the waves, trying to keep his idea of “doing something grand” alive. Alone, and thousands of miles away from everyone he loved, he was forced to ask himself one question: What in God’s name am I doing here? In his attempt to avoid the inevitable (growing old, weak, frail), Cosgrove runs amok. He breaks his budget to outfit the boat and then refuses to read the manuals. He enters unfamiliar harbors in the dead of night, hires a violent first mate, and sails headlong into ferocious storms. At the same time, he longs for the simpler days when his four daughters were still children, when his first marriage was still intact, and when his dreams were still within reach. Though driven by scenes of sheer terror, absurd folly, and deep inner searching, the tone is always buoyant and laugh-out-loud funny. Imperfect Passage is the story of one man’s perseverance against Father Time and Mother Nature, proving that with enough will, one can indeed conquer the unconquerable.