After my manuscript’s first publication and the promotion of 500 copies in the year 2014 entitled ‘Revelation of three Secrets’, based on real events during a sailing trip around the world, I decided, encouraged by my readers’ unexpected and excellent commentaries, to publish a second and definite edition with a new title and a new cover more in line with the story: ‘Beyond the Ocean’. In that second edition, apart from including maps of the voyage, I rewrote the last four chapters about my return to the cathedral of Chartres. In conclusion, I also added one last chapter reflecting how the main character changed during the voyage.

A Beyond the Ocean is a novel based on real events, which occurred on a sailing cruise around the world between the years 2007 and 2010. Etienne, an executive of a multinational company, suffers an unsuspected change of his life and decides to cast off, letting himself be carried away by the wind. Without any experience or recourses he departs with an 11 metre sailing yacht made in 1984, looking for new experiences and a more genuine life. The novel represents the labyrinth of life through a transoceanic voyage under sails, where his character is transformed, and he becomes a different person.
The story begins in the labyrinth in the cathedral in Chartres shortly before some unexpected events happen in Etienne’s life, offering the opportunity of a new start.
He decides to embark on a long sailing cruise over the oceans full of adversities (Collision with a whale, rescue on the high seas, cannibalism on the Marquesas Islands, a tsunami south of Samoa, a pirate’s attack in Yemen, a black hole in the Arabian Sea, running aground on the coral reefs in the Red Sea, etc.). When he is just about to cross the Panama Canal, a woman appears unexpectedly changing the course of his voyage.
Before he can reach his destination, Barcelona, after crossing the Suez Canal, he must go to hospital on the Island of Crete and has to put an end to his voyage. During his convalescence he visits the palace of Knossos and, observing the labyrinth of the Minotaur, becomes aware of the fact that the world of causalities does not exist. The end of his voyage around the world coincides with the search of the mystery that unites the Cretan labyrinth with the one of the cathedral of Chartres.

When on a cold winter night I was in the cathedral of Chartres labyrinth watching and wondering about the meaning of it, I didn´t know that after a rough world sailing round, (attempted murder in the Caribbean, collision with an Orca in the Galapagos, rescue at high sea in the South Pacific, song of the sirens, boarding with attempted kidnapping by pirates in the Arabian Sea, aground on the reefs of the Red Sea, etc.), I would find the answer to the symbolism of the labyrinth shortly before concluding my risky journey. On the way back to Barcelona, after crossing the Suez Canal, I had to be hospitalized in a Greek island and then I recovered from my memory the encounter with a stranger that took place during that cold night in the cathedral. This is the reason why my story begins and ends in the labyrinth of Chartres Cathedral.
In October 2007, days after the disappearance at high sea of Manel Arcos, I dropped ropes in search of a detachment from an emotional state influenced by the way of my professional and social life, sailing to reach the Polynesia to stay a long period.
A childhood dream related to the sea dragging me with the stream and the wind to the South Pacific. But shortly before crossing the Panama Canal and undertake the long crossing of the South Pacific, a woman appeared unexpectedly in my way and changed my destiny.
Throughout the novel based on real events allows the reader to travel to distant and unfamiliar places, such as the islands of the South Pacific where still ancient traditions and a different way of life persist.
The contact with them, accompanied by a stellar universe during the sailing across the oceans, transformed the character of the personage into a different person.
To provide an overview of the novel I have chosen 20% of the text of it that you can read as well as audio, which follows the synopsis of the book.