One dark morning while the 17-year-old author was training for a long-distance swim, she became aware that something was swimming with her--a baby gray whale that had become separated from its mother. This is the magical, mysterious tale of how Cox miraculously reunited mother and baby.

The true story of a miraculous encounter between a teenaged girl and a baby whale off the coast of California

It was the dark of early morning; seventeen-year-old Lynne Cox was swimming her last half mile back to the pier after a long workout when she became aware that something was swimming with her. The ocean was charged with energy as if a squall was moving in; whatever it was felt large enough to be a white shark coursing beneath her body. In fact, it was a baby gray whale. Lynne quickly realized that if she swam back to the pier, the young calf would follow her to shore and die from collapsed lungs. On the other hand, if Lynne didn't find the mother whale, the baby would suffer from dehydration and starve to death. Something so enormous--the mother whale would be at least fifty feet long--suddenly seemed very small in the vast Pacific Ocean. This is the story--part mystery, part magical tale--of what happened.