Challenging the Pacific

Just two years after rowing solo across the North Atlantic at the age of twenty-five, Maud Fontenoy was ready for a new challenge-crossing the Pacific Ocean. Leaving from Lima, Peru, and traveling 4,400 miles in seventy-three days, Fontenoy landed in Hiva Oa in French Polynesia, becoming the first woman to complete what is known as the "Kon-Tiki” route. Alone at sea for days and nights on end, Fontenoy's story relates the ups and downs of her time at sea, from circling sharks to the celebrity welcome upon her journey's end.
Named one of Time Magazine International's thirty most important people of 2005, Fontenoy presents the reader with a terrific, entertaining adventure story on the high seas as she faces the Pacific Ocean. Fontenoy overcame the odds as well as her personal doubts and fears, demonstrating not only her indomitable courage and strength, but proving once again that women can conquer the most difficult and treacherous obstacles.

Maud Fontenoy was born to the sea, having lived on her parents' fifty-five-foot schooner for the first fifteen years of her life. When she accomplished her miraculous crossing, she was twenty-five years old. On March 26, 2005, she became the first woman to row solo across the South Pacific. She lives in France.