The Wilderness : Part 4 : Beyond the Horizon

Part four of The Wilderness.

Leaving Padstow behind, Rob, Faye and Hewy continue north through increasingly unfamiliar waters. As confidence slowly begins to grow, the journey becomes less about surviving each day and more about learning to live with uncertainty as a constant companion.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:37

We imagine now that you're in back in Padstone. Now, just can you remember the the month and the year? What just to date this a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 0:45

This would have been early June 2023.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

June 23. So this is nearly three years ago.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Almost to the day.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

I cannot believe that amount of time has gone by. Jeez, it doesn't feel a five minutes since you left. Um, but um, so I think you said you stayed in Padstow for a while, didn't you? You did you have about a week there?

SPEAKER_01 1:12

We got a week there because the harbor master told us he says, Oh, the the gates are broken, so you can't get out. You know, those gates that we kind of flew through with seconds to go. Well, that was it. They didn't open again for a week after that.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

So fate was saying to you, you're gonna have to stay here. I'm sorry, but this is your place now for the next seven days, which is a bit like you've been talking a lot about Mother Nature influencing you, but life you're not in control, right? The harbor master says, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

That's right. That's one of the things you do learn, Steve, because when I when we set off to go through the south coast, I I think I mentioned to you I had an itinerary of where we would go, how long we would stay, you know. And um, I'd be honest with you, when when the harbormaster told me that the gates were closed, I was like, Well, but what are we supposed to do? He just he just laughed. He says, Well, there's nothing you can do, but enjoy padstone.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

And he was absolutely right, you know. And I remember walking back to Faye, and uh that kind of it was only a small kind of part of me that was like, Oh, bugger, you know, we've got to make progress. Because we spent longer on the south coast than we'd intended because because we'd enjoyed it so much in terms of seeing all this new stuff. But I said, but I said to Faye, I said, You're not gonna believe this. She was like, Well, what what what's broken now? And I said, Well, it's the gates, so we're gonna be stuck here for another week. And she was like, Oh my god, oh well. And we were walking up this country lane surrounded by wildflowers on the way to a farm shop to get some local salt salt marsh lamb, and it was like, Okay, we could we could do this, really, can't we?

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Ha! You could slum, you could get it, you could slum this for a while.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Yeah, yeah, no problem.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

So, um so you had that lovely week there. I remember you talked about that in our last uh meeting. Um, and then you gear up for leaving. Um, do you recall what was going on for both of you as you were readying the boat and getting ready for the moment that you would leave?

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Nerves, real nerves. We always get nervous before sails. We're going to Sicily on Monday, um, 55 nautical miles up the way, and we're nervous for that too. And I I think I I've talked to other sailors about this. You know, do do you get nervous still? And um, most of them do, yeah. And I think it's just because, well, certainly from my perspective, you know what it's like when when when it doesn't go well, it's not a nice place to be to see. Um, and even though you know you look at these forecasts and you've got a decent confidence interval that it's going to be all right, quite frequently the forecasts are wrong. So, yeah, we were we were nervous and we we all we we always were before sales. I can't really remember many sales going off without some degree of nerves because every passage is different, you know, there are different headlands, there are different currents, there's different kind of prevailing winds, there's different um kind of um geographical features to watch out for, you know. Um so there's always there's always something to concentrate on, and there's always something to kind of keep you on your toes.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Yeah, it it it it really um I know it's an old phrase, right? I don't quite know when we'd have to look back in the annals of time for where this was first spoken, but this idea of it's about journey, not destination, really, that's what you're talking about. It's yes, we will have an idea of where we might next land, but actually what's really going on is paying attention to as soon as we leave those gates, we have an idea of what it might be like, but we'll only know when we're in that moment, moment by moment, of watching the wind, the weather, the boat, ourselves, uh, and how it might be the same as we expected or not. Um so what happened in that period from leaving Padstore? What's the next big arc of journey?

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Well, we're up we're up into the uh Irish Sea at that point. We wanted to go up to the up the Bristol Channel, very tidal area, but uh unfortunately the weather and the spring tides, which are kind of big tides, uh, weren't having it. So we just continued north. Uh we continued north um, you know, through through uh up to up to Milford Haven, through Wales, got to see some beautiful little towns. Um, one that stands out was a little place called Fishguard uh at stage.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Never never heard of the place. And there we were, and we were on anchor again, and we were just in this beautiful little bay. Um, and you know, there's it's like a stereotypical scene, is um you know, it's like uh turquoise waters, kids with a swing jumping off the cliff into the water, enjoying a beautiful summer's day, and yeah, you know, there we were, we rock up, we drop the anchor, and that's home for the next few days, you know, and and then you go off exploring and stuff, and it was it was just fab. It was really, really nice.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

So, so what's the um I'm gonna come back to being on anchor thing because you mentioned it earlier. What's going on in the nervous system of you both in that trip up to Fishguard then? Having experienced what you did in Eastbourne, um, straight out of the out of the port, and then the the south coast, then Lanzen, then Padstall, you've had these big events. How is the nervous system in the actual sailing in in the passage up to the point of Fishguard? What's going on for you and Fair in your inside yourselves, you know, in the vibrations of your nervous system?

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Yeah, I think you know you're right to to point those things out. And those things took a toll, right? I'm not gonna, you know, I I can I can paint the lovely scenes and stuff that we had, and that is true, but inside, you know, we've been battered a bit and uh and bruised. And you know, if if Faye had said to me, you know, after after Land's End, right, I've had enough, I wouldn't have blamed her. You know, it was it was it was tough going through the English Channel. Now that that needs to be kind of, I think, taken into consideration with the pencils getting sharp now, right? So we've been we've been battered. So if we'd if you could imagine, you know, you've been out and it gets up to 30 knots um and it's rough, and then the next time you go out and it's 25 knots, you you kind of think to yourself, well, it's not as bad as last time.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

I can do this, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

You can I've got this, we've been this, we've done this, we've we've been to a further limit than this. You know, we've been tested more than this, the boat's been tested more than this, so it's fine. So the kind of worst case experience that you have becomes a bit of a benchmark.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

You know, but but that doesn't take anything away from the fact that you know I still I st you know I still kept within me a very, very strong um kind of uh desire. Not a desire really, uh because I actually did it, you know, um to to try and keep everyone as safe as possible.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

An intention, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Yeah, it was a real intention, and I didn't I didn't want it to be any worse. I wanted to try and make it better. I still felt as though I could, you know.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Like I I I am in control.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Yeah, there's still a loot there's that illusion of some control. I mean, you do have some control, but if you can imagine some of the sounds that you go through. A sound is where you get like a little where you get a patch of water between two pieces of land, and the water kind of goes through very, very quickly at times, and they can catch you out, and you've got to go through them at the correct states of tide. And I was, you know, I never got one of these wrong, and people get them wrong all the time, especially when you're in, you know, you've never been in these parts of the world before. Um, so you know, whenever we went through these kind of um, which were sometimes really treacherous stretches of water, we would sail through them really quite, you know, in ideal conditions because we, you know, we we knew about it. Um but I'd always be looking at the horizon, always looking at the weather, always waiting for something to break. Um I wouldn't have said that, you know, here we are sailing up the coast of Wales and it's gorgeous, um, but I'm not relaxed. You know, I'm waiting to get to a destination, and once I'm at that destination and everything's safe, then I feel as though I can I can I can relax, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yeah, it sounds like the nervous system is settling a little bit, but you're still very much very present, very switched on. Um, the videos might look like with you stood there with your shades and the wind, and you know, but inside yourself you're still quite switched on. Um, yeah. And and your sailing competence is also going up, also, right? You're learning without a doubt. You know, that that very first thing you ever thought you would get from Mark Denton that you didn't get initially in the end. Um the sailing competence was really going up here. Um but as you say, the pencil is getting sharper now. Um so there's an interesting sort of paradox of um, is this the moment that I should um would we to be able to uh this is sort of some of the Zen master zen work I did with my Zen coach Claire, you know, about paying attention to thought patterns. Um there's a giant spider just walking up the wall by me here. So I'm let that spider get on with its day. Um it's probably wanting to get out because it's a bit warm in the in the office. Yeah, there's this um, and I remember this same thing when you know I started swimming back in the river in 2009, and then I got hanging out with a few marathon swimmers, and I thought, well, I'm not a marathon swimmer, that's not gonna happen. Then you do a three-mile event, and then they say come and do an English Channel relay, you'll swim three times, probably over an hour. Then they said, How about Coniston, five and a half, and then 2019? I thought, right, what about Windermere? You know, biggest lake in England. Can I swim 10 and a half miles? And I did slowly, but I did get there, right? 25,000 strokes, eight and eight, eight hours, ten minutes. When you've swam 10 and a half miles, swimming one mile feels quite small. Um after a while, you do you do lose that if you don't keep on with it, you do lose that. But what you're saying is we got a better sense of perspective now, me and Faye, of the of what how tough it could get. And you said earlier that you were finding out the real capability of the boat, also. Um so there's a real there's a real interesting dance here about comfort zone, edge of comfort zone. I think you know we one of the reasons I do this work with you is I'm interested in what happens when we meet the edge of ourselves, you know, when we meet our edge. And what's it like to be on that edge, and how do we cope with it and what happens? Um so you get to Fish Guard, and now you just casually said we were on anchor. Now, I think in my last episode you said we were avoiding using the anchor, we didn't trust it. How has that come about that you're now you now are using anchor?

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Well, I mean it's um it's another thing where actually the decision is taken for you, Steve, because there was nowhere else to go.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Ah, right. You had to park there.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

We had to put well, we either keep you either keep going and sail through the night and until you get to somewhere, or in that in that neck of the woods with our sized boat, um, there's no there was no mariners or anything to go into, and this looked like a nice place. The weather was suitable for for anchoring off. So it was a case of okay, let's go and do this. And we did, and we s we spent, I think, two or three days there actually. Um, and then and then we did something that we never did before. We sailed off from Fishgarden. I think we went up to Abadaran Bay and we anchored again, and we'd so we'd been to two s two places consecutively and anchored both of them.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

You know, which we were like, wow, look at us now, aren't we? You know, we're we're getting the hang of all of this, and uh, you know, and um, and I guess I guess it's important to take those little wins, Steve, you know, like some if a sailor, you know, who'd been sailing for 40 years heard me say, oh, we anchored on two consecutive locations, they just think, what the hell is this guy on about? But but if you could if you if that person could picture themselves back, you know, at the start of when they first started learning, you know, I'm I'm making a big deal out of our wins with with Faye. Uh because part partly because I feel I felt as though um, you know, it amplifying the good things was a was a was a good way of of of trying to what I felt as though I was trying to help Faye, you know, with the with the things that she found difficult, but it was also for myself as well. Yeah, it's like some sometimes when you know I mean we'll maybe we'll get on to some of the Atlantic sailing later on, but um, which is a totally different kettle of fish.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Um, but you know, when when things get really dicey, I'll put my hand on Faye and I'll say to her, It's all right, darling, don't worry, we've got this, we've we're fine. And then she'll say to me, Are you saying this to yourself as well? And I'll say, Yeah, I am, I actually am.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

But what she's really asking is, do you believe it or do you just think it's bullshit? Is it all just a bluff? You know. And you know, I as Patsy Rodenberg, uh the sort of um Shakespeare expert on the book Present, she says, Sometimes we need to bluff, right? Sometimes we need a big bluffing energy uh to get ourselves through. We just we bluff out it'll be alright, it'll be alright. Do I really believe it? It doesn't matter, I'm saying it anyway, it'll be alright. I think there's something in your story about uh I mean I've said this already on the podcast, it I think I have before. This was what Gendorning, the monk in Leeds, taught me really, and I sometimes write it on flip charts with clients sometimes now. Um I accept wholeheartedly whatever arises, having given up the idea that things should be other than they are. I am where I need to be. So that's I accept wholeheartedly whatever arises, so whatever comes, having given up the idea that things should be other than they are, because I am where I need to be. I mean, where else would I be? You have no choice. You are in you have to anchor or fish guard. You know what your your brain will want to try and fight that, but you I hear you doing a lot of acceptance of the situation, you know. Yeah, we have to now accept what is right in front of us and now respond. We don't have time to pontificate about should we be here, how did we get here, what went wrong, whose fault is it? None of that matters. I've got to step in, either step in quickly if it's a crisis, or just make a decision because there's no other way, and I I have to accept what is. And for us as a species, that's sometimes quite challenging. We spend a lot of time putting a lot of energy into why, why why why me, why now, why this, why that. And I understand why that happens, but ultimately it's just fuel that burns in us and disturbs our minds. Um, what I hear in your story is that uh making a big deal out of the winds and learning to accept what's right in front of you. That doesn't mean that you're not stirring inside, um, you know, as things come. Um so you're you're up this Welsh coast, you're visiting places you've never heard of, you're visiting places you've never seen before, you're starting to have to make choices about anchoring offshore. Um how was the Irish Sea as a as a navigation? What was that like in comparison to the English Channel?

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Um, just as fierce. Um, although it was kinder to us. Um, the Irish Sea, it just like the Channel, it's very, very tidal. So you get a huge amount of water going up and down it. And with the Irish Sea, you've got you've got the water coming into it from the southwest from from the from the Atlantic that way, but you've also got it coming from the north, you know, past the Mull of Kantyre and stuff in Scotland. Yeah, yeah. Coming from the north as well. So you can get some really confused seas, and if you if you whack a lot of wind on top of that as well, it's um it can be it can be quite a difficult place, yeah. Um but I think, like I say, I think it was quite kind to us. You know, we we made it to the right and bang in the middle of the Irish Sea to the Isle of Man, uh, which was a which was a lovely place to go. And you know, sailing our own boat to the Isle of Man. We we said, look, we've left the UK, because technically we had like you know, the the Isle of Man is like its own separate thing. Um and uh you know, we'd left the mainland UK and you know it was a it was again it was a win for our stage, you know what I mean? And we were quite happy to high-five and hug on any little any little strand of posity, doesn't matter how simple it was or how kind of um you know I'm not even gonna say cheesy because it wasn't cheesy, it was it meant a lot to us actually.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

This sounds vital as a as a as a practice when you're living a more unplanned life where you out don't really you have an idea of direction. But actually, you don't really know how things are gonna go, and you're still on a big learning curve and trying to pay attention. This practice of big wins and high fives and strong hugs feels vital. I mean, it's a it's a it's an important leadership message, right? We used to talk about it in business, so you know we often just we don't we don't when we meet our numbers, we don't actually we we just say well done for meeting your numbers, right? Next you know, we don't actually stop to say let's just see this moment, let's really give it its space uh and give it a some sort of mark in in whatever way you do. That sounds like that would that was quite important for you in your journey.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

It was vital, Steve, and it was very different for me because you know, like I like I kind of said in the first podcast, I'd I'd been you know, I'd been in lots of positions of responsibility. I climbed the ladder quite quickly because the opportunities kind of presented themselves. And you know, we we achieved a lot, you know, as a as as a as as as individuals, as teams, as organizations, as industries, right? Um, but I was I was very much the person, you know, when I'm when I'm kind of in charge of a large or leading a large team, you know, we've we've done something, we've really achieved it. And I'd be the kind of person that would say, okay, uh team, I'd like you to celebrate that. Um, but I'm I'm myself, I'm off and I'm looking at the next thing, and I'm not really spending any time there, like kind of feeling proud or you know, feeling wow, what a sense of achievement. I'm I'm thinking, look, I know what's next now, and that's what I'm focused on. So that was very, very different for me to be kind of you know, really going out of my way to to kind of have the wins, and I and I guess as well, you know, it goes back to what I was saying before, Steve. It wasn't just for fate, it was it was vital for me as well, you know. It really was. And it's some sorry, go sorry, Steve.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

No, go on, no carry on.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

I was I was gonna say one of the things with sailors is I think we've got a common currency of or common understanding of um of of when things do get difficult and how important it is to celebrate the wins because you'll quite often when you s when you talk with other sailors, um you know, you'll tell them what you've done, and they'll be more often than not, wow, well done, that's great. You did that in your first season. That's guys, that's you know, like I I feel as though it's like it's not everybody, of course, right? There's a lot of negativity in sailing as well, like there is with everything. But I I've certainly noticed, especially with some of the older sailors, they they know, you know, they've been there. Um, and I still I think they can still remember what it fitted like, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

They have the scars, right? Um I mean I think this is the this is the bit that I think I've been interested in for some for quite a long time now, but certainly since um the illness of that person close to me and me not being able to cope. And I know there's lots of other people in in and around that situation couldn't cope either, but um, including the person not well. But what I got interested in is how do you hold you know for me, this is what I learned on my Windermere swim, really, is how to hold together in a my coach Rowan, the resilience coach, he drew a an infinity loop the flow and disturbance of life, f L O W, the flow and the disturbance. Of life in one breath. You know, you hold the struggle and the difficulty and the challenges and the things you feel really knocked over by right alongside the moments of richness, flow, beauty, celebration, that you can work with both and just know that they will come and go, right? And to not be surprised if you know a moment of brilliance and beauty and celebration and happiness is suddenly interrupted by something quite difficult. And that's what Rowan, my coach Rowan Gray, was interested in sort of saying that's what he thinks resilience mindset's all about, really, which is that capacity to hold the tension between the two. That's what I hear you doing, is getting good at spotting the flow and the wobbling on the quyside at padstore with a pint or going to get some nice lamb or the meadows or off anchor and looking professional as other people go by. And they're looking at your boat, going, Oh, look at them, they're just anchored off, you know, making all sorts of assumptions. You know, while you're looking at the weather for the next passage, going, Jesus, this is going to be difficult. Um, I think this tension, being able to hold this tension, uh, is crucial, right? And and you're saying what I'm getting here is that in your identity, you know, as a man in the world, born where you were and raised and coded, David, David, my partner, you know, David Boogie would call it our source code. What's the source code we have of how we operate? Your source source code is evolving, it's transforming, it's adapting now. You're starting to see signs of uh you paying attention and being certain things and thinking in certain ways that wouldn't have been so primary, and being able to allow some of your primary responses to things to be uh to watch what you would normally do and then realize, oh, that's how I would normally respond. But actually, there's more awareness in you, I get a sense. There's growth and awareness in you already coming up this coastline. I mean, we're three years ago, right? Imagine how much you've developed and grown since then, right? But even back then, transformation is coming, it's here already.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

We're we're definitely you know, the source code is is definitely, I think, you know, the percentage meter's going up 20, 23, 24, 25. Yeah, definitely. It's a good, it's a good way of putting it because um certainly with the benefit of of hindsight, um that you know, I mean we said it had it had to be big, right? It had to be difficult. These are the reasons why Steve, because when you when you think of like a source code, right? That's not easy to change without balls and everything upright, isn't it? Like programmers and stuff talk about that.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

And it takes it takes something uh really cut quite out of the ordinary, I think. You know, I I I feel as though if I'd even if I'd stayed in a you know, if I'd done this in a in a I don't know, something different and it was kind of different, but not like you know, pushing you to the edge of comfort and stuff, yeah. I don't feel as though the source code would have had as good a chance of being of being updated, you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

And it's not that I keep I know I keep repeating this, it's not that that source code is bad, right? Um you know, our source codes are servers in for every human being on the planet, our ways we have been shaped serve us really well, and they have some shadow to them, you know. And um uh as I said to you, I think Mark part of my initial struggle was to not blame my source code for how I was now feeling, because for a long, long while that code served me brilliantly, and for those around me also. But you cut to a point where you say, either this code isn't useful now, or parts of that code aren't useful, or actually in my heart or in my spirit somewhere, I have a desire for something different now, you know, and and then I end up into onto a land or a valley or a sea that I just have never been in before. Um, and then you're then you're you're being shaped as you go. Um now that's profoundly challenging as well as liberating at the same time, um, because there's a this sort of urge to sort of lean back uh and rely on what you've always relied on. Um so the IRC was fierce. Where does that take you next? Where's the next arc of uh navigation? What's happening now? Where are we going to?

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Well, so so uh again, you know, I never intended to go to Northern Ireland. Um wow. So but but that's where the weather that the weather we had at this stage, so this is now kind of late June, early July. Um we had a series of depressions, um, weather-wise, not in well, maybe we had them internally as well, actually. What actually turned out to happen, but uh there was a series of depressions, like one a week was rolling in, and when you get more pressure systems coming in, you get terrible weather in that part of the world. Um, you know, the weather comes off the Atlantic with just it just wrecks everything in its in its in its uh in its way. So with all that weather coming from the southwest, the the northeast of the mainland of Ireland was was a great place to be. So we found ourselves in lovely banger uh in Northern Ireland, and we had to stay there for six weeks.