West of the Equator is a satirical account of one man's spiritual journey in search of Paradise. The story is narrated by his spirit guide, Ian, a well seasoned West Indian merchant sailor who relates the tale of a Chicago stock trader who goes to the West Indies and buys a 75' catamaran to set out in search of Paradise. Instead, he finds a female captain who turns out to be the love of his life, chaos mayhem, and eventually true happiness. But only after he has contracted a tropical illness,, been imprisoned for an illegal substance for ten days which turns out to be sage tea, shot in the foot in a shoot out between the Gendarmes and two drug dealers, caught at sea in the hurricane of the century, stripped of absolutely everything he owns, and he doesn't know how to sail. In this humbled state he discovers that he is in fact the island, his life the vessel, and that everything he had ever truly needed had been aboard all along. West of the Equator is a very funny satirical look at life in Paradise and the Zen of sailing.