With a goal of one day taking her family of five on an extended sea voyage, ETDA Member Moe Carrick of Moementum, shares insights from her September 2005 sail across the North Pacific Ocean as crew aboard the Mahina Tiare –  a 46’ Hallberg-Rassey sailboat.  

I had the opportunity this past September to sail across the North Pacific Ocean as crew aboard a 46 foot sailboat (Mahina Tiare, a 46’ Hallberg-Rassey) with John and Amanda Neal, co-owners of Mahina Expeditions.  We left Hilo, Hawaii in late August and 19 days later, made landfall in Prince Rupert, BC.  I did this as another step in the process of my family taking the leap to sail with our three children across oceans blue, either via several 3-4 month trips over a few years, or one 9-12 month trip. It was a fascinating adventure given the work we all do with ETDA, here are a few highlights I want to share with you . . .

 

Fear Counts - In all the months leading up to departure, I found myself getting more and more anxious, but I just kept those dates empty on my Blackberry. The timing grew more and more terrible as client needs, family illness, and the logistics of three children became more and more complicated.  The day I had alone in Hilo before meeting the other crew was a whirlwind of last minute phone calls , emails and lots of real anxiety:  “Will I make an ass of myself?”  “Will the other crew be nice?”  “Will I be seasick?”  “Will I have a business to come back to?”  “Will my family be okay?”  I realized as I walked through all of this that our clients must feel similarly lost and anxious when they prepare to come off-site with us, whether for a day or a week for a learning experience.  Yikes.

 

The Experience Does Speak - Five days into our trip, it became evident that there were some gender dynamics issues with our crew of 4 men, 2 women.  At one point, I spoke with Captain. He felt no need to call a crew meeting and talk things through.  I realized that his leadership on our group process was akin to the Outward Bound way….letting the experience speak for itself and trusting the participants to get what they needed.  His primary concern was learning, teaching and safety.  If those three things were occurring, the rest was somewhat tertiary.  Despite my initial “really????” OD consultant reaction, I also felt relieved.  We could let these issues be, and work them directly, or not.  There was no pressure to resolve interpersonal dynamics with these folks then or ever.  Cool.

 

Great Teachers Let Go – Mahina Tiare is a very tightly run ship. The schedule is firm and met.  Protocol is established and followed.  Crew did everything there was to do to get the boat where we were going. Our teachers taught us when we needed a rundown, and let us do, and do, and do, and do over and over again until we got it right.  Reefing, for example, was demonstrated one time on calm seas. We all practiced. Next thing I knew, it was my 2 AM watch, in 35 knots, when we realized we needed to reef. My watch mate and I knew what to do.  Our teacher John stood by, coached and supported, but never touched a sail, never instructed before we tried, and never told us what to do next.  Not a perfect reef, and scarier that I would have thought. John’s letting go let me as a learner hang on to knowledge, memory, and eventually, skill.  Do I let my corporate learners feel the ownership of their learning enough?

 

It Takes Time – I have sailed many journeys aboard my own boat Talapus and numerous charters around the world.  None-the-less, I had this nagging imposter syndrome feeling that I didn’t have what it takes or know what I needed to make a long ocean voyage.  I learned aboard Mahina that “seep time,” the critical downtime between learning experiences,  is truly the rich soil that mastery grows in.  The experiences build on themselves and accumulate over time.  Hours, days, years.  This lesson is a profound one for me when applied to my work with leaders trying to master new ways of helping their people do their best work.  Fundamentally, it truly takes time.

 

Body – My fellow crew ranged in age from 42 to over 60, with varying levels of fitness.  I think we all figured, “sailing, how hard is it?”  I never got hurt, and always felt that I was strong enough to hold on, flexible enough to really reach, and resilient enough to bounce back after 3 hours of shaky sleep.  All those runs, stretches, and lunges made a huge difference in my comfort aboard compared to my fellow crew.  In our field of consulting and training, I think I at times over emphasize the mind and the figurative heart for leader learning. The body, and our rigor at keeping it pliable matters as well, especially when we are taxed through an intense experience.  Stay in shape.

 

Innerscape – Outwardly, I am an extrovert (surprise, surprise!)  Inwardly (and on Myers-Briggs) I am an introvert.  The work I do with clients demands of me that I “put out” through interventions, teaching, writing, and talking ALL THE TIME.  Aboard Mahina, I found myself able to create the quiet I needed to reflect privately.  I kept a journal, I read, and I spent hours gazing out at the big green sea, looking at nothing in particular, and talking to no one.  Over 20 days, I filled up and filled up my innerscape, to return renewed for more putting out.  Ahhh.

 

Trash –  We saw some cool fish (and ate many of them!) and lots of birds and dolphins.  But the most frequent item we saw, and we saw it every single day of the trip, was trash.  Plastic, to be specific.  We saw a total of about 4 other ships/boats over 2980 miles, but we saw trash everywhere we went.  Colgate Palmolive bottles, coke bottles, fishing buoys, fishing nets, and more Styrofoam than you can ever imagine.  Sustainable business has taken on a truly new meaning for me when I remember the endless river of trash floating my our little boat.

 

It was a great privilege to have an adventure like I had in September.  It rekindled in me the stirring, the love, the crazy addiction I have felt my whole life for getting “out there” in the world.  It reminded me why I do the work I do, and how damn humbling it is to truly be a new learner and out of my element.  My advice to you, my ETDA Colleagues, for 2006:  GO.