The Transformation of a Ship & a Soul
Memoir
Date Published: February 27th, 2025
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Deborah Rudell’s world unravels when the leaders of her spiritual
commune are exposed, arrested, and imprisoned for bioterrorism and attempted
murder. Crushed and adrift, she moves her family off the commune to create a
sense of normalcy. But when her husband seeks an opportunity to dismantle
and rebuild a derelict fifty-foot schooner, Deborah uproots their children
once again and joins him in Kauai. For the next five years, she dedicates
her life to restoring a boat.
Pouring herself into the work at hand can only distract her so much as
disillusionment about the cult’s lies and manipulation slowly rises to
the surface. While she grapples with emotional turmoil and contemplates a
new life path, Deborah sets out to accomplish something she never thought
possible: sailing across the Pacific to the Olympic Peninsula. Will the
dangers that come with navigating the ocean be too much to bear, or will she
find resolution and fortitude in the turbulent adventure?
Grit & Grace: The Transformation of a Ship & a Soul is one
woman’s account of conquering overwhelming challenges with tenacity
and ingenuity and ultimately discovering her inner strength.
EXCERPT
Pacific Ocean – June 1992
Even if I screamed no one would hear me over the sound of the waves and the fierce wind; a wind so strong my slender body couldn’t stay upright unless I held onto the boat. It was pitch black, and I was alone on the helm for the predawn watch aboard a fifty-foot wooden schooner. My husband slept in the cockpit, and three more crew members were tied into their bunks below.
The compass glowed dim red in the blackness, preserving my night vision. It was the only thing my eyes discerned except the occasional foamy wave tops that glowed briefly with limey phosphorescence before being swept under the dark water of the next wave. My fingers, slick with rain and spray, encircled the spokes of the wheel as I adjusted our heading according to the pale numbers of the compass. I struggled to keep the needle on 000, our northerly heading, but the violent pitching of the vessel made it almost impossible.
The end of June was supposed to be the ideal time to cross the Pacific from Hawaii to Washington, a time when conditions were the most stable. Yet here I was in forty-five knot winds. Technically, a gale.
Harnessed to the boat, I clung to the wheel with my hands, to the decks with my bare toes, and to the compass heading with my eyes, my mind rapidly spinning out of control. Fear. Panic. Terror. We’ll be swamped, capsize, and drown.
The sea was immensely powerful. Elixir was puny, fragile like a single piece of straw in a whitewater river. The masts will break off like toothpicks; we’ll tip over and sink. I imagined myself sliding off the boat, the cold water seeping into my foul weather gear, the waves holding my head beneath the foaming sea, breathing in the salty water, gasping.
My teeth clamped tight around a paper tongue. No saliva left. I tried licking saltwater from my lips, but I couldn’t swallow. What had I been thinking over the last five years of building this boat and deciding to sail it across the Pacific? How could I have ever thought it would be fun or exciting? How did I ever dare to presume I could learn to be at sea when conditions were less than ideal? Let alone in a gale?
Unable to find any relief from the deafening noise and violent motion of the storm, I tried to search inside myself for ways to navigate extreme distress and control my panic. All I found were images of me floating face down in the dark waves, alongside the corpses of my husband and son as we drifted among bits of a broken ship. And it was only our third night at sea; we’d only just begun our long ocean journey north.
What’s that? My mind alerted me. There’s something on the rail. I strained to see through the black night. No, nothing. Yet I sensed something there on the rail, despite the thrashing seas and the wail-scream in the rigging. Whatever it was, the beings I intuited on the rail caught my attention, gradually pulling my focus away from my terror and thoughts of drowning. I had read books about people in life threatening situations, during which they experienced visions or heard voices that assisted them to survive untenable ordeals.
Angels? Could that be possible? Is this what is happening to me? Has my mind snapped from the intensity of my circumstances?
There seemed to be several of them, round and smushing together. A perception rather than an actual vision, they appeared to be joking with each other, laughing so hard they nearly fell off the rail. I am definitely going off my rails.
It was as if they were enjoying the ride, and at the same time assuring me that, despite the enormity of the sea and the ferocity of the wind, the elements were merely frolicking. This communication was through a mixture of pictures, words, and feelings conveyed in a flash. Frolicking? Really? Wind at this speed rips branches off trees and causes cars to veer off the road. The extremes of the Pacific Ocean proved larger, stronger, and louder than any thunder and lightning I had ever experienced on the lake where I grew up in British Columbia.
As a pink blush started to permeate the gray of early day, I could make out the rail, emerging from the dark in a rosy glow, materializing into something solid and real, absent angels or anything else. The boat parts were like apparitions emerging from a fog, once again becoming part of a whole wooden ship.
About the Author
A college professor in San Diego, California, Deborah Rudell participates
in her city’s vibrant writing community. She is a graduate of Hay
House Writer’s Workshop and the Certificate in Memoir Writing program
at San Diego Writers, Ink. Her work has been published in the International
Memoir Writers Association’s anthology, Shaking the Tree: I Didn’t See
That One Coming.
Deborah lives with her black cat in a tiny house built in 1906 by a retired
sea captain, who carved a sailing ship into the front door. This is her
first book.
Contact Links
Purchase Links
