I am not a family member. I cannot say that I was a friend. In 1998, I came within a few heartbeats of losing my life on the North Atlantic in a rowboat. You write, "I am particularly interested in recollections that would help me understand why Nenad had to row across Atlantic? His "It is a question to which there is no answer" was no answer." I cannot say that I have a better answer, but I may know something about what drives a person to want to row across an ocean. This brings to mind Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning. Frankl wrote, "We who have come back, by the aid of many lucky chances or miracles - whatever one may call them - we know: the best of us did not return." Not knowing Nenad, I cannot judge with certainty the veracity of the statement, but I suspect it might be true. After my failed attempt in 1998, I returned to the Atlantic. On September 29, 1999 my logbook reads as follows. My Sector watch tells me it is nearly midnight. I cannot sleep for the wonder of it all. The stars, I wish I could show you the stars. I put up my oars for the day many hours ago. I took them out again to row and watch the phosphorescent swirls created by the puddles my strokes leave behind. The cyclones of sparkling light make me feel like some sorcerer's apprentice who's toying with two very large magic wands. Awe keeps me awake this evening, not insomnia. It is more than sitting in the midst of one of nature's grand spectacles that keeps me on deck. There are moments of great tenderness in life. Fleeting periods that must be cherished. Life is a blessing. It is my own particular flaw that I am best able to find this gentle notion of what it means to be a human being when I'm off alone in some potentially hostile place. It is the memory of this feeling that draws me to the mountains and to the ocean. I've had the same sense of awe and wonder in civilization too, but here I find less noise and more clarity. As William Blake would phrase it, it is as if I can hold eternity in the palm of my hand. If I choose not to live an "every slice wrapped" kind of life, it is because so much of life lies outside the packaging. Out here, I may cut my tender feet. I may sweat. The sun may burn and the wind may sting, but there is richness here, beyond the wealth of nations. Open to all of us, it is free for the taking, but one must not blink. Best to savor the moment. Best to drink in the grace and the mystery, before falling back to a life less sublime. Tomorrow, this will be just a memory. I would not have it any other way. But, I do wish you could see the stars as I see them. As ever, Tori Murden