The Bad Idea

Some ideas are too bad to leave alone.When a group of friends agrees to help restore Grandpa Doyle's long-neglected sailboat, Bonnie Blue, they think they're taking on an impossible repair job.Then Ray gets involved.Ray has theories about Antarctica. Lots of theories. Most of them sound insane. But when one of his predictions survives a carefully controlled test, the impossible starts looking just possible enough to be dangerous.Soon an aging sailboat, a mismatched crew, and one tiny dog with a serious attitude are headed south in search of something that may not exist.What begins as a reckless expedition becomes the adventure of a lifetime.There are storms to survive, secrets to uncover, friendships pushed to their limits, rival explorers with ideas of their own, and an ocean that seems determined to send them home. Along for the ride are an orange survival pod nicknamed Pumpkin, a spectacularly embarrassing unicorn sail called Sparkle Horse, Grandpa Doyle's questionable Navy songs, and enough bad decisions to justify the name of the voyage.But the farther south they sail, the harder it becomes to explain what they find.Because Ray may have been wrong about a lot of things.He only needed to be right about one.Funny, mysterious, heartfelt, and packed with adventure, The Bad Idea is a story about friendship, curiosity, obsession, and the wonderfully stupid things people will risk when somebody finally asks: What if we actually went and looked?THE BAD IDEA A Novel by Alden Vire