In 2007, Gemma Sheridan and two friends went out on a voyage that was to take them from their hometown of Liverpool, across the Atlantic to the Panama Canal and then onward to the Island of Hawaii. The first stage of the voyage went without incident. However, after passing through the Panama Canal into the Pacific, things took a turn for the worse.
There was a huge storm that took out the boats electronics and washed her two friends over board and seriously damaged her boat. Without any electronics and with a damaged boat, Gemma drifted for 17 days until she came across another storm. During the storm, Gemma was knocked unconscious. Gemma woke up on a beach, surrounded by the wreckage of her boat.