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In the Belly of Hell

Surfer and solo sailor Liz Clark has been seeking out warm tradewinds, beautiful anchorages and perfect waves around the Pacific on her Cal 40, Swell, since 2006. It hasn’t all been tropical sunsets and clean wave breaks, though, as is evident in this excerpt from her new memoir, Swell: A Sailing Surfer’s Voyage of Awakening

I download the weather files, and to my horror I see a massive low-pressure system building to the south of me. It looks like it will blow hard from the direction I’m trying to go over the next few days.

The skies remain eerily clear until dusk. The winds then falter, and a

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