This Thursday evening I will complete my last day of sailing in the UK/Europe.
Just over 2500 miles in the last 9 weeks. Over 30 passages and countless days of messing  about on rivers and estuaries!

I’ve ran the gambit of experiences – enjoying beautiful scenery, massively challenging weather and met lots of interesting people in the process! Even the Medway River in Kent – a bastion of historical industrial activity can be exceptionally beautiful when you get off the main channel and into the marshes beyond. It was the setting for Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Vast expanses of water with dangers lurking below the surface – like very little additional water and lots of land! In a rain storm it can look like hell and when the sun shines and the sky clears – it can look simply stunning.

Along the way – I’ve collected my Royal Yachting Association Day and Coastal skipper ratings so I can charter a boat anywhere in the World (in theory).

I hold a Theory certificate at the Yacht Master level –  covering Advanced Navigation, CoRegs, Weather Interpretation. 

I have my Royal Yachting Association Sea Survival, First Aid, Diesel Maintenance, Radar and Power Boat Certificates AND I now hold a UK License to operate a VHF radio! Really, to legally operate a radio on a boat – you need a license!

I know which vessel has the right of way in any given circumstance and what to do even if they don’t (regardless of their size)! I can tell you the right day shapes boats should use for any situation – restricted by draught, limited in their ability to maneuver, towing, fishing, trawling or pilot vessel (on and off duty) and I can tell you what lights they should display at night including when they are “aground” or “not under command” – Maritime law is quite precise, if a little bit archaic. I can even tell you the probable length of a boat at night just by looking at its lights and if it happens to be towing (happens more often than you think) – I can tell whether the towing boat is probably over 50 meters in length and whether the overall tow is more or less than 200 meters in total length. ? If another vessel sounds a horn, rings a bell, hits a gong or just whistles, day or night, I know what it means and how to answer. Wouldn’t you like to know this too

I know which lateral and marker buoys are which and what they mean in a channel  – day or night, Occluding, Isophasing or just plain flashing!

On a good day, I’ll sail you on to and off a mooring ball and may be even a pontoon (on a good day – not every day may be – unless you can jump at speed). I can guarantee you if you fall overboard – I can come and collect you using or not using an engine (as long as the sea conditions aren’t ridiculous – in which case you’re on your own)!

If I invested another couple of weeks I could guarantee to collect a Yacht Master Offshore Certificate – and demonstrate my abilities to an examiner (sailing on on and off a mooring ball, a pontoon and the like – skills that are not totally relevant – offshore!). In truth, the thought of another couple of weeks living in a floating caravan will drive me over the edge – and so this adventure will end when and where I originally planned and so – I am officially done with qualifications and just before I stop loving sailing and also the will to live! Enough is now very much enough!

I set out on this journey with a very simple sailing objective in mind – to become a more compenent and safer sailor and I am definitely that now – no ifs, buts or maybe’s! BUT – in the process – my mind is now a little bit frazzled and I am really quite exhausted. BUT – I am very happy and ready to move on to whatever is next! 

Thank you to all at Elite Sailing in Chatham. To Steve Ellis – a 50 something year old naughty schoolboy who willingly imparted great knowledge (both theory and practical) and nearly always put a smile on our faces (nearly always). To Tom, who over 2 weeks drove us to be much, much better sailors (and he was one of the most practical, able and laid back sailors I have ever sailed with) sailing in conditions that would have frightened the life out of me without his quiet confidence in my abilities – even if he did go to his cabin in the middle of a Force 8 blow with a cursory “knock 3 times if you need me”. Cool or what? To Alex – who, when sailing into Campbelltown gave us a masterclass in how to sail aggressively and safely close hauled with more sail than I would ever have dared to fly (and for sailing on the most inefficient point of sail for way too long – just because you can – duh)! To Barry B – an all round great bloke and skipper who taught me more about boat systems than I ever thought I needed to know and who shared a few harrowing experiences along the way (I’d lay on the deck with him in a blow fixing a broken furling drum any day – but may be next time without the sea crashing over us!). To Dave Allen the owner of Elite for putting this thing together and for creating a wonderful sailing school with great instructors and a genuine sense of care – and for being one of the best instructors I’ve had. Quiet, direct and all knowing without any hint or arrogance. Finally to Shelley who keeps the entire Elite thing moving forward and does so with simple good grace.

A huge thank you to my sailing buddy and great friend, Simon Bell. Three months ago I didn’t know him and yet yesterday I had tears in my eyes saying goodbye to him when he left to head back to Liverpool. Comradeship is a huge part of getting through the good and the bad, keeping a sense of proportion and a smile on one’s face!

And throughout all of this – the wonderful Bernadette has been a brick (read that carefully!). She has tolerated the long absences and vast distances, the moments of lost confidence and distant euphoria and who coaxed me by phone through the days where all was not happiness and contentment, often in remote parts of the UK! She was and is my biggest fan. She has very poor judgement!

Now it’s time for she and I to have some fun together and move on to whatever is next.

Pip pip,

N

I mentioned in the post I made immediately after getting back to the Marina in Chatham from the round GB trip – that I would share some reflections with you after spending a little time thinking about things (the people of Tonic doesn’t count and may or may not materialize – let me know your views on that). Trying to focus on how I feel and what I’ve discovered, figuring out what impact going around Great Britain has had on me – has proved to be more difficult than I expected. May be its because I haven’t quite finished the sailing lark – I am in the middle of the two weeks of Yacht Master training and so I am still sailing or boating every day. 

May be its because I don’t want to admit that the big adventure sail is actually over. Who knows? I had a reunion of sorts the Friday before last, when a few of us (well, Simon, Charlotte, Barry and Gill, Bernadette, Les and Debra) – got together to celebrate my birthday. The atmosphere was lively and there was a sense of liberation (and I don’t think that was anything to do with the age I have reached!) It was clear however, that something wasn’t quite complete, something wasn’t yet over and done with. We needed something else to happen. I really don’t think there is anything that can satisfy that condition – especially not the Yacht Master prep piece. 

Simon and I had just completed a Power Boat course (another RYA License gained!) and a day on Radar and Electronics with Dave, the School owner. I had been able to travel up and down to the Medway each morning and evening and therefore getting to sleep in my own bed and spend the nights with Bernadette – therefore having some semblance of a more normal life. I’ll come to why that was important or relevant shortly. In any case – it seemed that once again we were back being suspended in the incredible, but unreal world of sailing around the UK.

So back to normality and relevance – I haven’t had any epiphanies as such, since getting back from the COGB (Circumnavigation of Great Britain) – and I don’t think I had any on my way around. There were some pretty meaningful things that passed through my consciousness and some of them challenged me to rethink my future, but none of them are what I would call – “road to Damascus” reveals!

At some stage – I think it was when I broke away to go to the North East for the wedding, I started to think about what constituted my comfort zone, as in the places and things that made me feel comfortable. I had come to realized that the entire experience I was having going around GB was really challenging my supposed comfort zone and my personal security.  

There was a very specific moment en route from Oban to the Kyle of Lochalsh that seemed to crystallize things for me. We couldn’t go through a particular narrow channel (Kyle Rhea) until the tide turned. We sat off a tiny little little village (the place was called Gleneig – a little place – just a handful of houses with kids playing in the cold sea water – kids!) and we waited there for almost 3 hours – just sitting on anchor waiting. It was really isolated. The entire boat was quiet and even with 9 people (have I told you there were too many people on the boat), there was a sense of being alone and at one. Sitting alone up on the bow, I just looked at the scenery and the isolation of the place and thought about how I would feel if I lived there and concluded that I could live there, if I was with the right person – but never alone and not without the wherewithal to escape it. Easy to think these thoughts when you clearly have the wherewithal! So in my head and in my rationalization of living in this place, my comfort zone was not under attack – because I knew if I lived there under current circumstance, I could change the situation whenever I chose to.  

Back to the summing up. Most of what happened during this adventure, wasn’t negotiable. You couldn’t opt in or out of it – unless one was OK with letting others down and leaving them in the lurch (we were, after all sailing the boat for others and for Elite). We were integral to what was happening and therefore we had to live up to the responsibilities we had assumed. This might be directly at odds with the argument about having the wherewithal to leave something – unless having the wherewithal includes the option to be released from our responsibilities. When we blew the head sail in the Firth of Forth and Simon came down to my birth to get me on deck – I couldn’t say “sorry – a bit tired old man – just going to have a rest and may be see you shortly” (really wanted the rest – but too nosy about what had just happened causing the continuous and massive banging on the hull and deck). I had responsibilities to others.

In general, one of my strongest attributes – if I say so myself – is the ability to generalize And so, I reckon we have three areas of comfort, which collectively determine our overall zone of comfort.

Comfort with our emotions, comfort with our physical environment and comfort with our psychological state.

I guess one of my motivations for this blog, was to provide an avenue to share some of my emotions, knowing that I would need to show comfort in them and to keep a lid on them when on the boat, unless I wanted to either be ostracized or thought to be a bit of a nut case, or both (which say’s it all really). 

I am, by design and character, quite emotional (Brit use of quite, not US). Some might say too emotional, but those would be the folks who tend to have little emotion themselves. I should share that I am highly suspicious of folks with limited emotional intelligence, who always seem to be in control of themselves, rather aloof and dispassionate (this may be a masterclass in post rationalization – so take note!). May be my view may has personal security at its heart – and emotional v not emotional may be as simple as levels of security versus levels of insecurity. People who have little to no insecurity – to my mind (one man’s thinking) – usually lack perception and demonstrate little emotional intelligence (now this really is Gold Medal generalization, I fully realize that). At the other end of the extreme – folks who are overly emotional, usually lack any personal security and generally are horrendous folks to have to deal with on a regular basis – especially for the totally secure who just don’t get it. I quite like dealing with them! Getting emotionally comfortable is very important and that means being comfortable with the emotions of others. This trip challenged my comfort with the emotions of others.

The journey on Tonic seriously challenged my emotional compass – in that I shared a small space with a wide variety of people, who in varying degrees could, and sometimes did, get right on my wick (not to be confused with respecting or liking these folks). A lack of respect for other peoples’ space, lower standards of cleanliness and orderliness, domination of others time through a lack of thoughtfulness, and intolerance of other’s differences – all played out on Tonic, often at the same time. BUT – overall, there still was always fun to be had (even in Wick of all places) and overall, a sense of Bon ami amongst those onboard. But – there was also an unease, although I can’t quite pin point where it lay – but there was often an evident undercurrent.  

Here’s what I discovered about myself, emotionally. I am fully capable of accepting and being at ease with emotional challenges from others – things that hitherto would have rocked me to the core – but only if I keep in mind that these things are only temporary – as in having a limited shelf life! Because these challenges are passing ones, it’s easier to let them go and move on.

Most things in life happen in the here and now and if you hang about for long enough – they change or they normalize or they become the norm – which means things will either go back to prior comfort levels or become the new comfortable – after a time! Nothing around us is permanent! If they happen to become the new norm – then there is an adjustment period and it’s possible to adapt – if we’re prepared to accept the circumstances and go with it. Resistance is usually stupid – usually.

What about comfort from our physical environment? I have always been pretty good at adapting to changes in my physical environment, although when I’m in my own space I may appear be on the verge of being OCD – now careful here people – if you’re nodding to yourself and saying “Nick, you certainly are” – it may be because you are an untidy SOB who has strayed into my more orderly world – AND THE ISSUE IS REALLY YOURS! In fact – I kind of thrive on the pain caused by having to adapt to the environment around me and pushing through that pain. I have spent long periods of time thinking about what it would be like to live in an alternative place and having to make it work. As a student – I lived in places that would have horrified me earlier in my life – and in the end I loved every place I lived while at college. I think I inherited this perverse gene from my mother which allows me to thrive on personal sacrifice! There are others in my family who have this gene at a much higher level!

Finally, when it comes to looking at the psychological aspect of comfort – I’m not going to touch it – other than to say that while I was away, I discovered or rediscovered some people dependencies that are healthy and appropriate (but not saying who in case it goes to their head – it may be you or, but it most likely isn’t!) – and this deeply impacted my psychological state. How I was feeling was determined more by what I was thinking about at the time, than my physical circumstances or my emotional demeanor. But there seemed to be very little that, at the end of the day, a couple of pints, a drop of wine over dinner and a late night whisky couldn’t fix. No issues there then, surely!

So – and in conclusion (which I am sure you are longing for), I would hypothesize that the world is too fixated with deciding and defining what other people’s comfort zones are (“he/she is so far out of their comfort zone”) – when in reality – only we can define these things. We can challenge and redefine what and who we are and therefore push on our level of comfort as we see fit. There is absolutely nothing wrong with folks who decide that what they have right now is what they want and that’s what makes them comfortable – spared of the the judgement we can bring to other’s situations. 

What I can say, with complete conviction is that I fully believe that driving change and learning to cope with it is a must in today’s world and it is something I constantly fascinate myself with, regardless of the discomfort it can bring (and it was at #2 in Nick Shepherd’s top 10 guidelines to living life, shared almost 20 years ago with my Blockbuster team when I moved to the US). It probably didn’t do them any good anyway!

I learned something from Charles Handy (and if you haven’t read his book – The Age of Unreason – you are missing a treat). I loved the quote he used in the book – it’s a quote from George Bernard Shaw I think, and I have both lived up-to it and quoted it many times in the years since discovering it (almost 27 years ago). “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world while the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself – therefore all change requires an unreasonable man”. See – I told you this would be a master class in post rationalization! 

“Fing is Dave” – life is a blend of acceptance and challenge. in reality, our comfort zone is likely to be challenged on a frequent basis and maintaining the status quo in order to remain comfortable – is likely to be a fools errand. Actually, resisting change is rather stupid if you don’t mind me saying (and on the basis that this is a monologue not a discussion, I don’t really care!). Complicit acceptance that things need to stay as they are – is really stupid. If we place all of our efforts into keeping the the world as it is, in order to preserve our own status quo – is way beyond being unreasonable – it’s clearly selfish, definitely narrow-minded, certainly naive and frankly dumb. If we get comfortable with the notion that our world will constantly change and we must adapt to circumstances (essentially future circumstances), we might just prosper. 

All of this claptrap aside – my trip around the UK has certainly had a major impact on me. It may have failed to answer the questions I thought were important on the way in – but it has crystallized the questions I really should be addressing on the way out. I am more adaptable than I was. I am more appreciative of the importance of certain things than I ever was – but I am probably more reliant on some than I ever realized. 

I love sailing and will continue to do as much as I really want to, for as long as I can. I have no wish to be a long passage maker and I do not want to earn a living from it, nor be a master of all things sailing (sorry Alex my friend, but you are and you deserve to be – but stop shouting at people and accept that there are more ways to skin a cat than your way). 

Coming into this adventure, my simple objectives were to become a safer and more competent sailor, to be more appreciative of the things I have in life and less demanding of what I don’t have and may want. Also, I wanted to accomplish something new – from something I am not a natural at – and I am not a natural sailor. I also wanted to figure out what I want from the future. I leave this adventure with more than I brought in – but not the answers to all of this. There is a tick in almost every box other than the final one. BUT – I was incorrectly trying to figure this out from a career POV and not a life POV. I have more of an answer to one and less for the other, but then only one really counts! You can figure out which one that is.

I may go ahead and take the next exam at some point – all 36 hours of it (take the exam or not – a constant question in my mind and one I flagged earlier – and one I have yet to answer, even though instructors have told me I should – but I am losing the will to live right now by continuing to work up to it). But, to be clear, the exam doesn’t test who the best overall sailor is – it tests who can memorize the most and who can do the tricks best – per the RYA way (and trust me, there is so much that is different between the RYA and US Sailing). I seriously think it’s like a successful CEO doing an MBA. Could you get something out of doing it? Of course you could – but is there a sufficient purpose in it? Probably not. I just don’t want to lose my love of sailing and frankly – I am.

I now know that a great sailor is able to intuitively know where the wind is and how to use that wind to achieve the sailing objective. I know that I can now feel the wind like I never did, in reality and figuratively speaking – the winds in our weather and the winds in our whether! I now know where the winds are coming from that blow through my life and so I feel better equipped to navigate my way ahead! We’ll see!

Has this been life changing – you bet. Can I articulate quite how – not really. I know that being a CEO or a SeaEO isn’t what defines me and nor should it. 

When it’s all said and done – don’t waste time, yours or other people’s, make memories for yourself and for those closest to you – and always remember – life is grand if you want it to be – just solve for what is really important and what makes you really happy, not what makes you comfortable. And then – value that for all it’s worth!

A last pip pip, may be?

N