Beachside Banter w/Bee

Sailing the Edge of the World: Bert terHart on Adventure, Advocacy, and the Oceans

• Bee Davis • Season 2 • Episode 4

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Episode Summary:
In this episode of Beachside Banter with Bee, we set sail (metaphorically, but with major wanderlust energy) with Bert terHart—a modern-day explorer, scientist, entrepreneur, and all-around adventurer. Bert has done the kind of things most people only dream about: he solo-sailed around the world non-stop, paddled 7,800 km across Canada from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and has spent over 50,000 miles on blue water adventures. Oh, and he also created software used by healthcare professionals across the globe. Casual.

We talk about what drives him to take on such extreme challenges, how his deep passion for oceanography and science has shaped his life, and how he bridges the gap between academic research and public understanding. Whether you're a traveler, dreamer, science nerd, or just someone in need of a little push to go after the "impossible," this episode is packed with inspiration.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

  • Why solo adventure can teach you more about yourself than a thousand textbooks.
  • How Bert transitioned from oceanography to entrepreneurship.
  • What citizen science is and why you should care.
  • The emotional and mental toolkit needed for extreme expeditions.
  • How to stay curious, creative, and committed to living a meaningful life.

About Our Guest:
Bert terHart is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Explorer in Residence for the BC Historical Society, CEO of LeadBrain.ai, and founder of the Canadian Interactive Waterways Initiative. He’s also the author of Sir Salty Goes to Sea and a passionate advocate for environmental responsibility and ocean conservation. With advanced degrees in math, physics, and oceanography, Bert lives at the intersection of science, storytelling, and soul-expanding adventure.

His solo sailing and paddling adventures have earned national and international recognition, and his public speaking engagements inspire audiences of all ages to push past limits and explore boldly.

Timestamps:

00:20: Introducing Bert TerHart

06:03: Which Was Bert’s Favorite Place to Sail Through

06:10: How Amazing Alaska Is

09:30: Northern Lights and How Extraordinary They Are While Sailing

12:13: Does It Get Lonely In Deep Waters?

18:25: How Bert’s Experience in Science and Tech Helped Achieve His Sailing Dreams

26:20: What Makes a Journey Transformative?

29:40: What Has Been the Most Surprising Thing You Learned About Yourself During this Journey?

38:50: Does Being Alone Help with Building Connections?

44:12: Scorpios and Other Signs

45:30: Advice for Solo Travelers

49:10: Where Can Everyone Find Bert

51:23: What Does “Paradise” Mean to You?

Connect with Bert:

·         Website: htt

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Speaker 1:

Hey, hey, hey everyone. It's another podcast of Beachside Banter with Bea. I am your host, Bea Davis, I'm super excited today I've got Bert Terhart. Did I say that right, Bert?

Speaker 2:

Yes, you did.

Speaker 1:

Yes, he is an adventurer, an entrepreneur. He does advocating for ocean conservation, all kinds of really cool things. He's also a solo traveler, so I was real excited to bring him on board so we can kind of dig deep into that. So, yeah, bert, go ahead, take it away. Tell everybody who you are and what you stand for.

Speaker 2:

Well, like you said, my name is Bert Terhard. I've been called much worse, so just fine. There. I've had a very sort of convoluted path that has led me to sort of basically all four corners of the world, and I've managed simply to fall into every one of those things by refusing to say no to what I consider is a good opportunity that aligns with my passions in some way, shape or form. So it's amazing where life will lead you if you're willing to be led. It's a little bit like swimming upstream if you're a salmon. That just sounds like a lot of work to me. In my background, I was with the Canadian Special Service Force. I was a platoon commander, you know, dressed up like a bush jumping out of an airplane.

Speaker 2:

That's wholesome, Scaring wild animals in the deepest, darkest forests of Canada and creeping the and stemming the creeping tentacles of godless communism as a communist horde swarmed over the top of the Arctic. I'm formally trained as a scientist, so I have a couple of advanced degrees in physics and math, and my specialty was actually physical oceanography, which for me was the study of large period waves in the ocean. I've always wanted to go to sea, so I'm actually a sailor. I've been sailing and I think at one time I tried to put a sail on my brother.

Speaker 1:

Whatever?

Speaker 2:

you can do, right, yeah, whatever you can do. So I've been sailing for a very long time and I've always had, I guess, an adventuresome spirit. So I've been fortunate enough to land myself in some pretty extreme situations and see them through to the end. And I'm a tech guy, believe it or not. I've been a programmer for longer than I care to admit, and it's something that I still love to do, because there's something incredibly creative about programming in the sense that you're given a very difficult problem, or potentially a very difficult problem, with thousands of ways to solve it, and really good programmers tend to be very creative.

Speaker 2:

I'm not suggesting in any way, shape or form, that I'm a very difficult problem with, with thousands of ways to solve it, and, and you know, really good programmers tend to be very creative. I'm not suggesting in any way, shape or form, that I'm a very good programmer. I'm persistent, but there's that, that creative part of it I really like. So, yeah, yeah, so so I guess we can. We can crawl down any one of those rabbit holes if you have the courage.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so what haven't you done? I guess that's my question. It seems like you've accomplished so many things. It's amazing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, I can't sing.

Speaker 1:

Oh, all right, Totally yeah, please, I'm going to see you singing a little ditty later.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's right, although I did write a song when I was away. So, anyway, awesome, that's amazing, yeah, the lows, so anyway. So, anyway, sim, that's amazing, yeah, the lows, that. So, anyway, I think that's that that's a really good point. I mean that the point is that, uh, um, you know, the old adage is physician, heal myself the. The point is that you have to have some idea of what your strengths and weaknesses are. And, um, you know, I like to say that you can, you know, you, you, you can't serve two masters, so so you may as well serve your strengths as opposed to your weaknesses, and I think that will carry you a very long way in life.

Speaker 1:

So, wow, I'm just amazed at the fact that you're basically sailing around the world, right? You're doing this all nonstop, so that's amazing in itself. So are you taking breaks in between to like stop and meet people, or you're just hanging out in the ocean for however long it takes you?

Speaker 2:

Well, I've done a lot of sailing, but the trip you might be thinking of is the solo, nonstop circumnavigation of the world. So solo means by yourself, nonstop means I didn't stop, oh, and around the world means 28,860 nautical miles, which is the equivalent of it's close to 58,000 kilometers, or close to 32,000, you know, statute miles. And there's only one way to do that, and that's to sail below all five of the Great Capes, so below all four, below North America, below Africa, below Australia, below Tasmania, below New Zealand, and then back to the West Coast of Canada. I did it without electronic navigation, so it was just a sextant, and I'm the first North or South American ever to have done that and only the ninth person in the world to do it. So it's pretty tough.

Speaker 2:

You have to be very lucky to begin with, because that part of the world is, it's, the most extreme environment on the planet, bar none, including the top of Everest or the bottom of the world in Antarctica. So to give you some idea of what that's like in terms of difficulty, I mean I'm very lucky, right? Yeah, I already know so. Yeah, 6,000 people have been to the terms of difficulty. I mean I'm very lucky, right? Yeah, so I already know. So yeah, 6,000 people have been to the top of Everest, 600 people have been in space, 300 people have sailed nonstop around the world like I did, and I was the ninth person to do it with a sextant and the first North of South America to do it. So you have to be very lucky, but you know, but it is tough, you have to just be persistent, yeah, anyway, so yeah, but I have sailed lots of other places. I've sailed extensively basically in almost every ocean, certainly along the west coast of North America and up into Alaska, the Bering Sea and all those crazy places there.

Speaker 1:

Which one would be your favorite, to kind of sail through.

Speaker 2:

Well, I have a real affinity for the Aleutian Islands. I just love that part of Alaska. I would describe it as primal primeval. It's like that land was made yesterday. It is so unbelievably rugged, so unbelievably untamed, unbelievably isolated, very hard to get to, and the very few people that are there they're just the most amazing, most interesting people that you can find, Because those kinds of places tend to draw interesting folks. But it's extraordinarily beautiful, Like it is unbelievably beautiful.

Speaker 2:

I tried to get to a place this summer. This was my third attempt to get there and it's so hard to get there I couldn't do it, I had to turn around. So that tells you a little bit about how hard it is to get to some of these places.

Speaker 1:

So you're talking like mostly cold weather is what you're sailing through, then yeah, yeah, this is all cold.

Speaker 2:

I don't necessarily. As much as I love the tropics, I don't. I don't feel any real draw to go you know to, to go there I, I, for some reason, I just don't.

Speaker 1:

Why don't you say something easy?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, well, that it is true. I mean in, in, in, sailing in, in sailing sense, in a comparative sense it's actually. It's actually pretty simple to sail to those places.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome. So my son is up in Alaska right now. He is in the US Army, so he's up there in infantry doing all kinds of crazy stuff. He's not jumping out of helicopters or anything, thank God. That was the one thing that they didn't allow him to do, which was his biggest fear. But anyways, in Fairbanks right now, so it's super cold.

Speaker 1:

He had ages old weather, but he's like the people there are just like they're. They're just totally one of a kind Like you can't find them anywhere else in the world. Um, they're welcoming, but they're all kind of like a little rugged and stern at the same time. So he's like sometimes they're a little hard to read, but he loves it up there. So, yeah, so it's always been a place that I've wanted to go. But I'm not going to lie to you, I am a tropics girl, like all the way through, like I like anything that is hot weather, sunshine, that kind of thing. So I haven't made it up there yet, but I'm hoping that maybe one day I will, and if I do I'll have to see the Northern Lights, because I hear that's just amazing in itself. I'm sure you've had that experience.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I grew up in a place where you could see the Northern Lights, but the farther north you go, of course, the more spectacular they are. But go in the summertime it's warm. It's like LA. La has a very moderate sort of temperature. It's not too hot during the day because the ocean moderates the temperature and, you know, not too cold at night because, again, the ocean is moderating temperature.

Speaker 2:

But you know, summertime in Alaska can be, you know, can be plenty warm. So you know, having said that, you don't have to go very far on the coast for it to start to get cold again. But yeah, I can well understand how your son is loving it, because it is an amazing place. And what's interesting, what you said about the people is that just because it is a very, very hard place to live, like it is hard to live up there. Oh, I bet yeah, and of course, nature doesn't suffer fools at all. So if you want to go to a place where you know the fools aren't generally suffered, alaska is a pretty good place to go.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. Fools aren't generally suffered. Alaska is a pretty good place to go, absolutely. So what's it like? I'm guessing that you've seen. Sorry, I gotta go back to the Northern Lights, because it is one of my bucket list things. I'm sure you've seen these while you've been on the boat sailing right. So you're in the middle of the ocean pitch black, dark. How are they? Are they even more extraordinary then?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I mean it's because in a small boat at sea, especially a long ways away from land, quite often there's a lot of well, there's obviously a lot of humidity in the air, so that tends to make things a little bit hazy, but those days when it is clear, it is crystal clear. It's not the same as being at the top of Pikes Peak, say, in Colorado. That's different, but the SAI then it's still every bit as spectacular. And I would say that you know, of all the sailing I've done, the nights are to die for because it's just extraordinarily beautiful In every way that you would want to contextualize it. It's beautiful. It's the skies, it's, you know, it's obviously the clouds, it's the sunsets, the sunrises, it's the stars, moons, planets, the Milky Way, the wildlife, the birds, it's just a list, goes on and on and on.

Speaker 2:

And there are nights when you can look out behind the boat and see a trail of light, because these little creatures that live in the water, they become bioluminescent like a firefly if they're bothered.

Speaker 2:

So, as the ship or as your boat travels through these places, you look behind the boat and as far as you can see, there's just glowing, brightly glowing track of light that says you know I'm here, which is interesting because I know it around to tell it that you're there.

Speaker 2:

But it's just an example of the things that are just to die for and the same. If you want to get freaked out, you can also be traveling along at night. Look over the side of the boat and you'll see these giant swaths of light as fish go, slashing through the water, you know big or small bothering these little organisms again and they all turn their lights on and you see this wake of this, whatever it was. Usually they're peeling away from the boat. So it's like, as you go forward, behind you is this great, huge, giant highway of light and then in front of you, of course, is the wake of the boat, which is lit up like headlights, and then beside you you see these shafts of light shooting out to the side. So it is extraordinary in every way that you can imagine.

Speaker 1:

It sounds like it, it. So here's another quick tidbit. I am scared death of the ocean. Um, I love the beach, but I don't normally get into the ocean much further than maybe my ankles, just because I know there are so many giant creatures out there that could easily swallow me whole. So I'm scared to death of it. So I honestly I couldn't imagine. Everything that you just described sounds amazing but super scary at the same time. I just I couldn't imagine, especially because you're by yourself, so you ever get lonely while you're out there.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's, that's it. You know, I get asked that question quite a lot, and and there's, there's a, there's a. There's a world of difference between being alone and being lonely. Yeah, a world of difference between being alone and being lonely. The two are not the same at all. So, even though I'm alone, I'm never lonely.

Speaker 2:

First and foremost, it's shocking the number of people that suddenly want to see you succeed, and I don't know any of these people from. They could fall out of the sky and land on the boat and I wouldn't know them. And they've heard about the trip or they've somehow, um, become engaged with the trip in ways that I can't imagine and could never foresee. And yet they're, you know, they're emailing me sometimes or I hear, uh, just because I, every now and then, I'll get a report of how things are back home. And there's people that just wildly engaged and enthusiastic and genuinely and sincerely concerned firstly with my well-being but secondly with me seeing some measure of success. However, I choose to define that, and I'm not sure how you cannot be inspired by that or how you cannot feel uplifted, or how you can feel lonely when there's literally 10,000 people cheering you on and you don't know any of them, and it's not like they're pink bait to do it, obviously it's not like they have any skin in the game whatsoever. They just want to see you make it.

Speaker 2:

And you can embark on any adventure in your life, and I'll guarantee you this you can embark on any adventure in your life, it doesn't matter how big or small it is, and there'll be people who will be wildly enthusiastic about what it is you're doing and they want to see you succeed.

Speaker 2:

Yes and um, and you can do this in a, in a. You know, I'm sure you can experience, you've experienced this. Uh, you know there's there's people in within your own community who decide to get together to raise money or whatever. And you know there's people within your own community who decide to get together to raise money or whatever, and suddenly this thing just takes off and has a life of its own. I mean, there's, you know GoFundMe is a perfect example of that People suddenly just decide this is something that resonates with them and next thing, you know, there's just this vast outpouring of love and resources and support so you can be engaged in these things that don't make a lot of communal sense in the sense that, oh, you know what's this guy doing in the middle of nowhere and never feel at all alone?

Speaker 1:

or lonely, I should say, and abandoned. Yeah, wow, no, you make an absolutely great point. So life, love and travel is one of those things too. Like I started one of these, I was just like I'm just going to show some pictures of my travel. It was no big deal. And then the next thing, I know it's blossoming and people are following me. And then I've got these podcasts and now I've got listeners and it's just amazing to be able to put yourself out there. First off, it is hard, it's hard to put your because you of you, outsides of you and all the things but at the same time, it's also rewarding because at the very least, if I can inspire one person, I feel like I've done something in my life. So I love that that everybody is kind of rallying behind you watching you go through this amazing adventure. I think that's really cool.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think you said something that I think is really important, and that is that when you're talking about about your story, it has to be honest and and I think so it takes some courage to do that. If you're gonna, if you're gonna, hang your neck out a hundred miles and potentially I mean in, in. In my case, it's very easy to say, oh, you know, I was never scared, this is, this was. I knew, I was always going to succeed and I sure it was nothing and you know. But but that that's not. That's not true at all. If, if you're, if you're not afraid you're, you're either a psychopath or a sociopath or or worse, both. Yeah, because because it it doesn't matter what you do, you will be, you will be afraid, whether it's public speaking or whether it's like you say, you're going to start this thing up and and you just could be wildly rejected, you don't know. You have to take that chance.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and if you're honest about that endeavor, people will well, actually, I will say they'll rally to your side because one, they recognize that this is hard to do, just like you said, they recognize it takes courage and you know people that tend to do these things. They're worth, they're interesting people and they're worth and're interesting people and they're worth, and and they're inspirational and motivational. And, of course, people want to be in people. I don't know anybody who doesn't want to be motivated and inspired. Right, and that's that. That's. That's incredibly rare. You actually have to go out of your way to be to be that grumpy. I don't think.

Speaker 1:

I've ever met anybody. Well, I don't know, maybe a couple of family members.

Speaker 2:

And when you say that you know, you just started this thing for because it well, firstly, well, let me take one step back. I'm sort of mumbling here. But your story, your story, my story, anybody's story is unbelievably interesting and inspiring and motivating. And because it's your story, you go oh well, you know, oh well, I just did that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so make a deal, whatever. Who doesn't walk to school, who doesn't, you know, row a boat? Who doesn't paddle across you know who? Whatever it turns out, it isn't that way at all. And if you have the courage to tell your story honestly, like I said and that can be really hard, when, certainly when things are never going, when things aren't going your way and, of course, things aren't going to go your way Right Then, um, that story is going to resonate with people in ways for in primarily in ways that you can't imagine, which, which is the, which is the real beauty of it.

Speaker 2:

Because if, if I tell you something about what I did I mean, I have no idea what it is that I've done that's going to resonate with something in your life and when, and if I'm lucky enough to have that conversation with you and you share that with me, that shares a completely and utterly new light on what I've done. So I get a perspective I never would have had or I could never possibly have imagined, which enriches not just the experience for me, because it sheds a new light on it, but enriches my life as a whole. So it's win, win, win, and then another hundred wins after that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, wow, no, everything you just said perfect. You rounded it up into this perfect ball of what exactly it is that we're all kind of striving for. So I love that. So how has your background in math and physics and all the other things kind of helped you like lead you towards these adventures? I know you said that you do programming too, which I kind of want to dig into because my husband's a programmer, so I know that's like a completely different mindset in itself. So how did you wrap it all into like one big ball?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think that my father, I, grew up in the prairies just a little bit north of the North Dakota border, maybe 120 miles away from Fargo North Dakota. Everyone seems to know where Fargo North Dakota is.

Speaker 2:

They have some reference to it, at least the movie reference Absolutely Exactly. And my father was a land surveyor and I'm a very sort of mathy, technical kind of guy, and all the great mariners that you can name Cook, bly, la Prouse, bodega de Cuadra, you know, champlain the list goes on and on and on. They were all savants. They were all math savants because that's how you had to navigate around the world. It was mathematically very hard and you had to be technically oriented to sit there with a sextant and then go down below and do all the calculations. And North America was mapped in exactly the same way. In fact all the world was mapped exactly the same way, using a sextant. So it's exactly the same math, it's exactly the same. You need the same technical skills. You need the same, obviously, math skills Plus. Then you have to have all the survival skills of sailing and walking across the continent, all those kinds of things.

Speaker 2:

So that's what drew me into it, because land surveying is the evolution of cartography, as David Thompson did it or as Lewis and Clark did it no-transcript surveys across the country, across Canada.

Speaker 2:

So we spent a lot of time looking for these old, you know, these old monuments, these old survey monuments that have been placed there by people who were unbelievably good at their jobs, lived really, really hard, hard lives to make this happen, because it's a very, very difficult thing to do, and they did it with technology that you and I wouldn't recognize in a garbage heap, and I found that fascinating. And that's how the world, that's how the people sailed around the world and that's how all the oceans were mapped, and in most cases, the maps that were created by those people were the best maps of land and sea for close to 150 years. It took World War II technology, world War II aerial technology, in order to improve upon most of those maps. So when I say they were good at what they did, it's an understatement. So, yeah, that's how the technical bent rolls up into the exploring and sailing sort of ventures and then how it rolls into my professional life as well as a tech guy.

Speaker 1:

That's crazy. So I'm assuming I mean I could be wrong but if you didn't have these other skill sets you wouldn't have been able to make it as far as you could have around the world. I don't think, like, math is hard, so I think you're I don't know, I'm in awe by you. Seriously, I'm just like. This man is probably the smartest man that I have ever spoke to and I'm a class. I'm just saying Bert, I'm impressed.

Speaker 2:

Well, I, I'm, I'm persistent, let's, let's put it that way, I'm very persistent. I mean I've I've met some very, very smart people and I'm I can. I can assure you that that I'm feeling pretty dim-witted compared to most guys and, uh, and and someone and I've been very fortunate in my professional life to deal with, to be around highly functioning individuals, like highly functioning individuals. So when I say highly functioning, you can think of Elon Musk. I've not been around Elon Musk, but I've been around people who have been, who have been, who have gotten as far in their fields as Elon Musk has gotten in his, and I say highly for it.

Speaker 2:

I mean it and it's been a privilege, certainly in every way, shape and form, but I'm just persistent at what I do, and persistence beats everything hands down. You don't have to be smart or good or anything other than just determined, and you can see that in every cut, every cut in life. So, whether it's in business or whether it's, you know like, for example, to paddle across the country, uh, to paddle across canada. 7 800 kilometers, that that's how long the trip is, and I did it in a single season with, again, without maps, I'm sorry, without it, without any electronic navigation. I just had maps I made myself. You have to take about 30 000 canoe strokes a day, which sounds impossibly hard. Right, it sounds really difficult, but if you take one stroke at a time, it turns out it ain't that hard at all, and in fact I did it when I was 64 years old, so just a couple of years ago.

Speaker 1:

Wow, Kind of a funny you know with a day over 50, can I just say that real quick I would have never guessed that.

Speaker 2:

No, so I was telling I was speaking to, you know, to this group of people about, about the trip across Canada and I just finished. I finished it in September and I was talking to this group in October, and so it was October, october 2022. And the guy so one of the soon kid came up to me afterwards kid, kid, what can I say? And he said, oh, you, you know. Uh, well, have you done anything since? I kind of looked at him, said you know, since I, what do you mean? Since? Well, you know anything since you've come back? I said, well, I only got back in September and it's like August 6th I'm sorry, october 6th and he goes this year. I said, yeah, this year he goes. I I thought I did it in 2022.

Speaker 2:

Wow, you can be young, you can be old, you can be tall, short, you can be poor, it doesn't matter. You simply have to. You only have to find, you have to give yourself permission to say yes, and that sounds very trite, but that's all it is. I have to find a yes somewhere between the four and a half inches that exists between my two ears, and if I can find a yes there, then you're good to go. And sadly in that space there's way more no's than there are yeses.

Speaker 1:

I agree, I have a lot of people like I'll be honest with you, I haven't even really announced that I've been doing all this for the past couple of years to a lot of like you know personal, like family members, like my personal Facebook, you know that stuff Just because I know that there's going to be people who are going to hate and I just don't really want to deal with that. I'm like because they're always like oh, you mean, you quit your full time job so that you could do it? Yeah, yeah, I did. I know, I know it's crazy, but it's been an amazing ride the last two years. So why wouldn't I do something like that?

Speaker 1:

So I feel like a lot of it is taking chances that you wouldn't normally take. It's also opening yourself up to being vulnerable, and I feel like a lot of people don't really want to do that either. That's a huge like. No, I'm not doing it. Like people create like faceless Facebook pages or Instagram, and I'm like why. You know that's what I originally was going to, but then I'm like you know what? I don't care, it's me. If you want to know who I am and watch me on this journey, then you'll come hang out with me, and if not, then all right, no big deal.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, you've made a very, very important point and I'm going to recast it in a way that I you know, that I would sort of frame it. Maybe this will help. So this idea of extraordinary is conflated or confused all the time with grandiose and is exactly the opposite of that. Adventure of any shape and form is scale and variant. It doesn't matter how big or small it is. If you're willing to step outside your front door with an open heart and open mind, then your journey, by definition, is going to be transformative. In the same way that you decided to step outside the front door with an open heart and open mind, then your journey, by definition, is going to be transformative in the same way that you decided to step outside the front door, close it behind you. All the naysayers are on one side of the door and everyone else everyone else is saying yes is on the other. You simply have a choice. I can go back that way and go back into the room where I can step outside, and your journey, by definition, is going to be transformational in ways that you can't imagine. And think of it this way, the word extraordinary is just extraordinary and it doesn't say extra has to be big, I mean extra can be anything. So if you choose an extra, if you want to sail around the world, you got to do it in small bits. You want to climb Everest? It's a single step. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. All these crazy things that are true If you're willing to be a little bit, just a tiny extra, a tiny tiny bit extra, which is a perfectly valuable definition, outside of ordinary.

Speaker 2:

You are by definition now, extraordinary. By definition, and it doesn't matter how big or small. You are, by definition, extraordinary. And the adventure that you're now on is going to be transformational in ways that you can't imagine. And the people that you're now on is going to be transformational in ways that you can't imagine. And the people that you'll reach and the people that you'll touch and the people that you'll connect with and the stories that you'll share, all are, I will say, I guess, maybe brutally, that's going to fly in the face of all the naysayers and it's like, oh well, you can't do it Because there will always be.

Speaker 2:

You'll always hear no way more than you'll hear. Yes, you'll always hear cannot way more than can, and you'll always hear impossible, way more than possible, and it's just part of the human condition, and we've evolved that way to stay safe from wild animals and things like that and volcanoes. You know that you hear over the edge of the volcano and you wonder if you should step inside. We've evolved that way to stay safe from wild animals and things like that and volcanoes. You know that you hear over the edge of the volcano and you wonder if you should step inside. Well, the answer is no, but we don't live in those sorts of worlds anymore. We simply don't. We have other concerns.

Speaker 2:

So there's no reason not to like I say step outside with an open heart. And if you imagine when you were a child and you step outside the front door of your house, as soon as you close the door behind you, you're walking on the moon, you're scoring the winning goal, you're singing in front of the opera, you're dancing for the Moscow Ballet, it doesn't matter Right, as soon as you close that door. And as soon as you go back in the door and it gets in, hey, what were you doing, bert? Were you doing Bert? Oh, I don't know. I was just, you know, making mud pies. You know, outside.

Speaker 1:

Hey, I used to make mud pies.

Speaker 2:

But they were never mud pies, right, they were always something else. Oh, they were the best pies, yeah, so we've just managed to scrub a little bit of that sort of sense of adventure from our life. And as we get older and one of the things I'm, my message is always you know, you don't, you don don't ever, no matter how old you are, you never have to actually step away from your dreams in such a way that absolutely they become impossible. You know, air quest.

Speaker 1:

I. So I have a lot of friends who are my age. You know I'm in my 40s now and a lot of people are like you know. They're set in their ways and they've had these careers and they've built them all up. And I'm like they're looking at me like you're. You're starting completely over. You're doing this thing. What are you thinking? And in the back of my head I'm like I'm only 40. I feel like I still have a lot of time left to do all these crazy things and chase all these dreams that I have. So I feel like if more people could just kind of open their eyes up and just build up a little bit of courage to take that leap, they might discover that they're a whole lot more successful at other things than what they are in their little nine to five job. So I don't know, I'm sure you've found what has been like one of the most surprising things that you've learned about yourself while you've been doing this.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'll let me take a step back again to what you just said and let me quote my brother, who is very smart, smarter than me, love it. And he said, lying on your deathbed, you won't be wishing you'd spent another day in the office.

Speaker 1:

Exactly.

Speaker 2:

So you can be. You know, and I can well appreciate you know, how valuable a career is, how valuable it is to be connected to your community in that way. But that doesn't need to define you. It shouldn't define you. And if it is defining you, then you might want to stop and think who you actually are. Because if my work as a programmer were to define me, I would have to make sure that I'm contributing in a very big way as a programmer in order for me to think that I've actually contributed. I mean, at the very base of our society lies this idea of service. You're in service to your family, you're in service to your spouse, you're in service to your children, you're in service to your community. You're in service to your country if you're a soldier or if you're a first responder, and we have a duty to do that. So imagine if all those people abandoned that idea of service.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 2:

We can't let that happen. We can't let that happen. I mean, you can think of it in your home. Imagine if you came home one day and found out your husband had abandoned his idea of service to you as a spouse or a partner. None of that sounds good, right? Or you came in and told your kids all right, guys, there's the door, goodbye. But I'm seven years old. It's like oh hey, you're on your own, here you go. So it doesn't work that way. Our society doesn't work that way. We've become unbelievably successful as a society because of this idea of service and duty sort of imbues everything, and you have a duty to yourself to be literally the best version of yourself, in whatever ways that you can construct that self in order to be of service. So what have I learned about myself? I guess I've learned. The most important thing I've learned is to be in the moment Okay.

Speaker 2:

And that sounds. I mean, eckhart Tolle has written books about all that and the first person I think I can remember who wrote stuff about that but well, the first person was actually Marcus Aurelius, 2,000 years ago. So we're close to 20,. Yeah, maybe 2,300 years or so ago. But the point is, the future is outside my pay grade. I have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Right, and whenever I start on something, I have a goal, of course, but the outcome, well, the process of achieving that goal, requires that I remain divorced from that goal itself. So think of it in the paddling context I described. To paddle across the United States would be about, you know, maybe a little bit shorter, maybe 7,000 kilometers. That sounds impossible, right? So if I wake up every morning, I got to go 7,000, I got to go 7,000, you'll never make it. I guarantee you'll never make it, because you just can't get your head around walking or paddling 7,000, you'll never make it. I guarantee you'll never make it, because you just can't get your head around walking or paddling 7,000 kilometers. You'll always be overwhelmed. You'll be completely and utterly overwhelmed. So that's what I mean by being divorced from that goal.

Speaker 2:

What I am is I'm completely embedded in the moment, which is I can take one paddle stroke or I can take this next step, and I can take that next step in a way that's going to lead me to what I think is the best possible outcome in that moment.

Speaker 2:

And in that moment, the best possible outcome might be to turn around and go back where I came from, so I can wake up again tomorrow and try and try. So that this you have to be completely and utterly embedded in the moment, because the moment is the only true thing that you can ever experience. And if you choose to live outside that moment, you're literally flying in the face of Mother Nature and just saying I'm going to do it anyway in spite of you, and I guarantee you that you're going to lose that battle with Mother Nature every time. So you have to be embedded in reality. And it's the same in business I can't start. I'm going to start a business and I'm going to sell. I'm going to sell beaver hats, because they used to sell it like hotcakes all around the world.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to sell beaver hats because it used to be good. Well, that sounds like a really bad idea. Because it is a really bad idea, no matter. And so if I'm truly embedded in the moment, I'll realize that's a really bad idea in about a moment. But if I'm completely divorced from that reality, then good luck to you. Which is literally flying in the face of the reality of that particular business, and the same with sailing around. If I'm in a small boat at sea thousands of miles from land and I'm being hammered by a storm and I just choose to ignore that reality, then I'm only asking for trouble. I'm just literally asking for trouble.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you just cannot live your life divorced from reality, and the closer you can come to that moment then the richer the experience is. So you have this very odd thing happening. You have this contracting into a moment, but then you have this expansion into the world around you. You have this literal expansion into the universe, and maybe that sounds a little bit. You know, I love it. Okay, so if you're like, okay, so you're going to give me, you're going to give me some latitude, then. So here you are at sea. The nearest person to you is 200 miles that way in the International Space Station, okay, thousands of miles from land. I've been alone now for six months, over 180 days, and there's no one coming for help, because if something goes wrong, you're completely and utterly on your own.

Speaker 2:

And yet if I step out in one particular instance I'm talking about one particular instance now I step outside from the safety of the interior of the boat and go outside safety of the interior of the boat and go outside and I'm immediately just gobsmacked, just completely floored by how unbelievably beautiful it is. It is beyond, it is literally beyond words. I couldn't even begin to put into words how stunning it is. And you realize that everything that you see, everything around you, the entire universe, like if you look up into the stars, you're looking, you're looking, you know 10 billion. Well, maybe you can't quite see that far, but you're looking, you're looking back hundreds of millions of years into the life of the universe. I'm looking across this literally infinite expanse of ocean. It is. It is shockingly beautiful, like it's so beautiful, it just like someone's just punched you in the heart and heart and it's all there for you, everything is on display, just for you, because there's not another set of human eyes that's taking this in so immediately.

Speaker 2:

Immediately you feel like a tiny, less than a speck of dust, because this is the whole universe is laid out at your feet just for you, and you're literally bathed in splendor, just for you. But at the same time you realize how is it that I can actually, how is it that I can actually take all this in and appreciate it in some way, shape or form? What is so special about me? That the whole universe is laid out here and I can literally have it enter my heart and just blow it into a million pieces and go. That is the most beautiful thing and the most amazing experience I've ever had in that moment.

Speaker 2:

So you have this I'm a speck of dust, but somehow I'm important enough for all this to be on display just for me. So this is my idea of you have this incredible contraction into the moment and this unbelievable expansion out into everything that you see around you, and you can experience that. Looking at a blade of grass, you can experience that. Looking at an amazing piece of art, you can experience that. You can experience that. You know, I remember, you know when. You know when my kids were born. You can experience that the first time you look at this other human being that you have no right to be in charge.

Speaker 1:

I remember I was 19 at the time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so how is it? But what? What conspired in the universe to put me in charge of this? It's like oh my God, yeah, exactly, and my my, my point is that these moments and this beauty is around you all the time and it's very hard to get to those places. Because you know our, our, because our lives are so full of all these distractions. We're constantly being pulled in a hundred different directions all the time. We have all these things that are literally weighing on us like hundred-pound stones.

Speaker 2:

And if you find yourself—I mean, there's a reason why in every major religious tradition, prophets if I can use those words even though I'm a Christian people would—Boh Muhammad went into a cave, jesus went into the, into the wilderness for 40 days. You know Buddha, he disappears and and, and you know, meditates for years. There's a reason. All this happens in the wilderness, away from all the distractions. It's simply a way. I think it's a way for you know, for for creation and God and the universe, to tell us that these are important places. It's it's important to embed yourself in the moment as deeply as you possibly can, and those experiences, wherever you find them, are going to be something that will help guide you for the rest of your life, because they are moments worth seeking.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely so. Do you feel like you're able to connect a little bit more because you're by yourself, or do you think that you would still be able to have this connection if you were surrounded by other?

Speaker 2:

people? That's a really good question. No one's ever asked me that question before. That's a really good question. And for me I have to be alone. Yeah, I'm, I'm for.

Speaker 2:

For some people it's easy, like I feel very energized by a crowd, but afterwards I also feel very drained. I never feel those moments as draining. They're always as if all this energy is just literally just pouring into me and enthusing every pore of my body. But I think it's very hard to find those moments around other people, because other people are always vying for your attention in some way, shape or form, unless you're a sociopath and you're just sitting in the corner, which I've been used to doing. So not that I've been cute, but I'm sitting in the corner, let's put it that way.

Speaker 2:

So I think it's hard to find those moments in a group. It is because, well, the first thing you do if you were meditating in a group is you just, you can't talk to anybody, you close your eyes and immediately try to somehow isolate yourself from all the other. You know machinations of the group. So I think there's a lot to be said. I mean it's interesting. I see on social media sometimes people say I'm going to put my phone down. I'm not going to answer it for the next five minutes.

Speaker 3:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And then, of course, there's this after five minutes, this poor person is almost epileptic because you know, oh my God, what's going on. What's going on. So there's a lot to be said for going into someplace and being quiet, because there's a voice inside your head that's running all the time. Well, there's two, at least two, and it's a bit of an art form to ensure that you're listening to the correct one, because the other one that's always playing, the other one that's always full of noise inside your head, is the one that's saying no. And to give you some idea, I mean, we call that the imposter. It's come to be well, for highly functioning people there's this concept of the imposter syndrome.

Speaker 2:

But Leonardo da Vinci, on his deathbed, is exclaimed to have said and I'll paraphrase that he felt he had fallen short of the mark. He felt that he had not lived up to the gifts that God had given to him and that he had let everyone down, including not just God, but all of mankind. That's Leonardo da Vinci, who was a sectionist. He never finished the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa was painted over and over and over, and over and over again, because he always felt this you know, I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough. And if you think it's only tortured artists, think again. Because Paul Dirac, one of the most probably, if not the probably, I mean people would say Einstein might be the smartest guy ever. But if it wasn't him, it would be Paul Dirac who was able to synthesize, and some to begin the synthesis of quantum mechanics, and and and relativistic um mechanics or motion. He said exactly the same thing on his deathbed. He felt that he had fallen, fall short of the gifts that god had given him, um to be able to shed light on onto some of the deepest mysteries, uh, surrounding the physical world.

Speaker 2:

So you will never escape that voice inside your head it'll, it'll, it, it is, it is. It is happily as stupid as a bag of hammers, but it's always there. Just, it only knows. No, it just knows no. Right, that's it. You know the sky's blue? No, it's not, it's, it's, it's, it's Azure. Okay, well, it's Azure. Well, not today, way, shape or form. Or at least turn the volume down so that you can listen to the other voices or other messages Not that I'm walking around with a tinfoil helmet listening to. Well, could, if the truth be told, the aliens will be here soon.

Speaker 1:

Yes, can we make zombies, though, for real.

Speaker 2:

No no.

Speaker 1:

I think zombies would be fun. I don't know why I think so. I was one of those kids who was, like I don't know, seven, eight, nine years old. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, okay. So we did stupid stuff, like I was watching zombie movies at five, six years old, and it was no big deal, they weren't scary or whatever. So literally any time I knew a zombie movie, because then I'm like, oh my God, can we have this in real life just for a couple minutes, because it would be fun.

Speaker 3:

But whatever.

Speaker 1:

Anyways, totally off topic, okay, okay.

Speaker 2:

What's your favorite zombie movie?

Speaker 1:

Oh no, I really, really, really love the original Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead series. I know they're so crazy, cheesy, but for whatever reason I love them.

Speaker 2:

I love the zombie movie with Brad Pitt, and I forget the name of it now.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I know which one you're talking about.

Speaker 1:

Is it Dead, Zombie Zed or something like that Like uh, zombie SeaWorld I don't know Canadian like World of Z, but yeah, anyways, that's a great movie too. Yeah, that's, I really love that movie. I do love them, uh, so yeah. So now it's like we always have this inside joke. We're like, okay, well, we need to buy land so that we can get, like you know, here and then have a safe room, and all this that my husband's like, oh, my god, stop. I'm like I have to be prepared for the zombie economy. You got the lips dang it, thank you, um, okay. So another quick question for you are you a scorp Scorpio by chance?

Speaker 2:

No, Sagittarius.

Speaker 1:

Ah, okay, so close enough. I was thinking because so I'm a Scorpio and I've realized that a lot of Scorpios that I meet, and also Sagittarius, they're very stubborn and pre-existent. So you kept saying that word and I was like I wonder if he's because? So I'm the exact same way. I'm like once I get something in my head that I want to accomplish, there's no stopping me, and my grandma used to tell me all the time where there's a will, there's a way, and I live my life entirely by that. So if I get something in my mind, I'm like no, I'm not going to stop until I figure out how I'm going to get this to work.

Speaker 2:

So I didn't know if that was a fellow Scorpio thing.

Speaker 1:

Well, yeah, I'm, I'm my, my parents are Dutch, so I'm, they're both, so I'm probably the worst combination of Sagittarian a Dutch, stubborn Sagittarian, Gotcha yeah, stubborn to the T, that's awesome. So, bert, this has been a really fun conversation. I am so in totally awe by your accomplishments, all the things that you've done, the fact that you're solo, traveling, all by yourself, and and and disconnecting from the world I feel like that's amazing. Uh, what would be, uh, one of your best advice or best tips that you would give somebody who has never been on a solo trip? I mean, we all, first of all, everybody needs to go on some tiny solo trip at some point in time in their life. But what, but what kind of advice would you give somebody who is looking to start?

Speaker 2:

Okay, so I'm going to give you a real-life example, so I'm just going to hand-wave at something Before I went on the canoe trip, which was in 2022, and I have a bigger one planned this spring the last time I was in a canoe was 40 years prior to that I was 40 years, so it had been 40 years between when I was in a canoe was 40 years prior to that I was 40 years, so it'd been 40 years between I between when I was in a canoe, and when I went across the continent. I had never been in a on a. I'd never paddled a canoe by myself, cause, you know, canoes are typically two people at least, you know, if you're a prospector type canoe. I'd never been on any kind of solo overland expedition at all. Ever in my life. I had never, ever, um, spent more than a week on on any kind of camping trip, and I just decided I was going to do it full stop, love it.

Speaker 2:

And and my, my advice was, you know, just like the nike commercial is just do it, just do it. There's all kinds of reasons not to. If you stop and look for reasons not to, you'll spend the rest of your life writing them down in your journal, because there'll be an infinite number of them, but you only need to find one that says yes. So when I say give yourself permission to do it, that's exactly what I'm saying. Find the one, yes, give yourself permission to say yes and just blow everything else out of the water and do it. Your lack of experience doesn't matter. How much money you have doesn't matter. The first Canadian to sail across the Pacific by himself or not by himself, you know, for fun did it in a dugout canoe that he found in his neighbor's backyard. Wow, so this idea that you have to do it in some fancy great big boat is just not true whatsoever. So idea that you have to do it in some fancy great big boat is is just not true whatsoever. So my point is my point is just do it and it. It doesn't matter if you succeed, because the future is not any of your business, it's just way outside your pay grade. All that matters is that you start Right and I love that. And the fact that you started is firstly, makes you wildly different than everybody else, because everyone else has tried to get on all the reasons not to do it inside their book and you just decided to do it, and the fact that you may like if you decide to paddle across the country and you only get around the next point. Man, my hat's off to you. You've done it, you've you've done.

Speaker 2:

The hardest thing in the world is step outside your front door. That's the hardest thing, and if you can, if you can do that, then you can just about accomplish anything else in the world, and it's completely and utterly scale invariant. It doesn't matter how big. You don't have to have these giant, great, big ideas for your particular adventure to be transformative or whatever you want it to be. You just have to step outside your front door to do it.

Speaker 2:

How many people are telling? I mean, we tend to like again, if you'll forgive me here we tend to conflate the extraordinary with grandiose. And the perfect example is Elon Musk, because he's saying we're going to go to Mars and everyone in their right brain, including NASA, is saying no, we're not, it's not possible. And he goes well, maybe for you, but I'm just going to do it anyway.

Speaker 2:

And how many rockets do you think Elon is prepared to blow up? As many as he has to, as many as he has to, and he's laughing all the way, and who doesn't want him to succeed? What SpaceX is, I mean? It's going to go public pretty soon. It's going to be one of the most valuable companies in the world, even though he's managed to do some incredible things with it, of course. But he's happily blowing up rockets left, right and center with a smile on his face and inviting all his friends to come over and watch it and posting about it. And posting about it because he's just saying he's just going to step outside his front door and give it a whirl. See what happens.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, there's a lot of inspiration in that for sure. So where can everybody find you to follow your journey?

Speaker 2:

Well, sure. So where can everybody find you to follow your journey? Well, I think the simplest thing is to go to BertTerhartcom Okay, t-e-r-t-t-e-r-h-a-r-tcom, but if you Google my name, sadly, you'll see all kinds of stuff.

Speaker 1:

No, that's not sad, that's amazing.

Speaker 2:

I love it and you'll, you'll. There's all kinds of rabbit holes to go down. There's, you know, there's the business things. There's all kinds of rabbit holes to go down. There's, you know, there's the business things, there's the adventure things, there's the talks and all the other stuff like that. So, yeah, so here's a little Okay. So here let me, if there's a magazine article coming out, okay, in the spring, in Pacific Yachting and I'm only saying this up because I want to, you know, pump the magazine. I never actually made it to where I was going.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

I had big plans and I tried to get to this place I alluded to it earlier and everything along the way was just a complete bust. It started from day one. Everything just went completely sideways. You know to the point, of course, that I turned around and even when I got home, the prop fell off the boat in the middle of the part. Oh my gosh, everything went wrong. But the trip was a wild success as far as I was concerned. Yeah, cause I, I, you know, I I at least tried. I came back in one piece. It was all good and you know, every, every, every misadventure is still an adventure. So, as much as I wanted to get to point a never happened, but that doesn't mean the trip wasn't a success.

Speaker 2:

It doesn't matter what you, what you set out to do. I mean, I shouldn't say that because you could, you know, you want to set out to do something worthwhile. So let's say that you're going to do something that's you know, that's that has some value in it. All that matters is is that you is, that you tried, and you will come back. A different person You'll come back with with, with stories and experiences that you, you would personally, never had, never had otherwise. And and again it's going to. It's not just going to transform your life, which is also important, but it's going to transform the lives of other people whose paths that you're going to, that you're going to cross, and I think that's always, that's always a good thing. You can always go to bed with a smile on your face, knowing that you've done some good, and it's exactly how you've I said that earlier, so I'm going to steal one of your lines and pump it at the end.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, this has been such a great conversation. So right before in every show, I always ask one question, and that is what does paradise mean to you?

Speaker 2:

A process. Okay, gotcha, yep. Paradise is being embedded in a process that brings you nothing but joy. Is being embedded in a process that brings you nothing but joy. I can't think of anything that could be more paradise-like than being embedded in something that just thrills you to the core, every waking moment of the day.

Speaker 1:

Better. You cannot say that any better. That was perfectly said. I love that Awesome. Thanks so much, bert. This has been a great conversation. I really enjoy having you on the show and learning about all the things and picking your brain. You're so smart, so smart, yeah. So we will keep in touch, though, because I definitely want to keep this connection. I think it's a great one. You know, maybe we can do some future collaboration or whatever.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that would. That would warm my heart. That sounds fantastic. I love that and thank you for the opportunity.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely Perfect. So we will talk soon. Have a great one, bye-bye, bye.

Speaker 3:

Hey there, beach lovers. That's it for today's episode of Beachside Banter with Bea. I sure hope you had as much fun as I did. Hey, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review if you enjoyed the show. You can catch me on all social media platforms, at Life, love and Travel, and if you've got a question or you just want to stop by and say hi, feel free to slide into my DMs and I'll make sure to get those answered for you. Big thanks to everyone who joined me today and for all of you tuned in, and until next time, enjoy your week.