The Byte: Bert TerHart ~ Circumnavigating The Globe By Boat!

Bert tells a story of oceans, waves and six-story walls of water coming at you, when you are all alone on the ocean's surface! He's an adventurer who urges us all just to get off the couch and go out our front doors, never knowing what awaits us out there. Magic, miracles, killer whales and beauty are out there...if only we go on the adventure!

Transcript

Hello all,

And welcome back to another episode of the podcast,

Dropping during this two-week holiday season of Christmas and New Year's.

You know I love me a good scientist,

And I'm always looking for someone to interview who might indulge my scientific whimsies.

And this week,

I was lucky.

I got to interview Bert Terhart.

And I mean,

He's not only a scientist.

He's also a soldier,

A sailor,

Adventurer,

And serial entrepreneur.

So when I say that this human being contains multitudes,

He probably contains more than multitudes,

And I'm not sure where they're all stuffed inside of him,

Because he really is a fabulously complex and intelligent man.

Now Bert and I had a great conversation.

In this episode,

We bring up killer whales.

We bring up the ocean.

We talk about danger.

We talk about making good decisions.

We talk about what it looks like to go out into the world and have an adventure,

Or maybe begin a journey that absolutely terrifies you.

He has had a lifelong passion for the oceans and oceanography,

And he has advanced degrees in math,

Physics,

And physical oceanography.

So when I'm saying scientist,

I mean Bert hits all the right buttons for me.

It was a great conversation,

And Bert is such an incredible human being with so many fabulous stories.

So I hope you enjoy this episode as you're wrapping your presents and maybe baking those last Christmas cookies.

And I'll see you on the flip side when the next episode drops.

But until then,

You have this episode and my conversation with Bert.

After an hour of traveling,

The first thing you're looking for is a place to stay because the weather can drive you off the river or the lake.

It could be a storm.

I was on the outskirts of a tornado and a hurricane.

So it rained nine out of 10 days that I was gone for the six and a half months.

So finding shelter is extremely difficult.

And without shelter,

You're just dead man walking.

I would call it a miracle.

We're surrounded by miracles every waking moment of the day.

But that was certainly one that,

You know,

Certainly got punched me in the face.

And the other one I would say similarly was that,

You know,

Paddling across the country.

That was,

Again,

I mean,

That's pretty tough.

Canada is almost all wilderness.

And if you choose to walk across it or paddle across it,

It's very much unchanged than it was say 200 years ago.

And it's very difficult to find a place to stay because I was living in a tent that was no bigger than,

You know,

Packed up.

It was less than a pound because that's all I could carry.

It was this big all rolled up.

So you can't just,

You know,

You can't just stay everywhere because firstly,

It's a river bank and typically a river bank or maybe a lake and the shore is completely inhospitable and rugged and wild and crazy.

Within the first hour when you leave,

So I'm paddling maybe 10 or 12 hours a day and or walking or whatever I need to do to get across the country.

And after an hour of traveling,

The first thing you're looking for is a place to stay because the weather can drive you off the river or the lake.

It could be a storm.

I was on the outskirts of a tornado and a hurricane.

So it rained nine out of 10 days that I was gone for the six and a half months.

So finding shelter is extremely difficult.

And without shelter,

You're just dead man walking,

Like literally,

You're just not going to make it.

So shelter is incredibly important.

So every hour,

After the first hour of traveling,

I'm immediately looking for it because I might have to get off the river.

I might have to stay where I am.

Maybe I can't get around.

Maybe there's maybe something's broken.

So there's all kinds of things to go wrong.

And the first thing you have to have a shelter and you're completely exposed,

Not like the big boat where there's,

You know,

There's a cabin and now there's just nothing.

So I would,

I worried about this constantly.

Like I would at every hour,

I would be grading potential campsites,

Right?

So out of out of a scale of five,

So that I knew that if I came to one that was say a five out of five,

And it was late in the day,

I would get off at the five out of five.

And if I hadn't seen a campsite,

You know,

That was above a two in the last three hours,

And I came across a three,

I was getting off the water at the three because the chances of not me seeing anything better were very low.

So I had this,

I'm constantly,

You know,

Playing.

So there's a lot of,

You know,

Emotion and anxiety and energy that that goes into that.

And it I realized that every time I needed a place to get off,

There was always a place to get off.

Every time,

Every time I needed one,

It was right there.

And I wait a second,

You know,

Isn't that what isn't that what's in the that's what's in the Bible.

Like,

You know,

You know,

The birds never worry about,

They're not worried,

Why should you be worried,

Basically,

To,

You know,

To butcher that piece of scripture horribly.

So I stopped worrying about it completely.

I said,

Whatever I need,

It will it will be provided.

I just have to have I just have to accept that.

And it's easy to say that it's something else to be mentally,

Physically,

Emotionally and spiritually aligned with that belief.

That's the only way that you can succeed in anything is that you need to be aligned in those in those in those four ways,

You know,

Mentally,

Emotionally,

Spiritually and physically.

If one of those if you become misaligned in any one of those,

And your chances of success start to degrade,

And if you're misaligned in all four,

Then it's going to be miserable.

So I became aligned with the fact that whatever I needed,

I would find and whatever circumstance I was in,

That was the correct circumstance.

So that and that's a it was tremendously uplifting,

Right to actually realize that in the deepest way.

So you hear this all the time,

In popular literature and culture that you have to live in the now.

But that's that's almost impossible to do in our culture,

Where we're bombarded by,

You know,

By things 24 seven,

Like my phone is going off at three in the morning,

You know,

When clients on the East Coast are calling me.

So I just it happens all the time.

So it's hard to be embedded in the now.

But embedded in the now part of that is that you you're physically that you're aligned completely and faithful in that whatever you need is going to be provided.

So I think that's I think that's that that to me,

That was one of the most it was one of the most beautiful realizations of the,

You know,

Of the canoe trip.

And it manifests itself,

Not just in shelter,

But it manifests in finding food,

It manifests and in being lost,

Like because I had I only used a map and,

You know,

An compass,

No electronic navigation,

And it's a wilderness.

So,

You know,

Just go out in the woods sometime and have a look around.

Like most most people won't get in a car without,

You know,

These days without the phone telling him which way to the grocery store.

So now imagine that there's nothing like most people actually aren't afraid of losing sight of.

They're not afraid of going to see they're afraid of losing sight of land,

Because once you lose sight of land,

There's there's no more navigational direction.

There's no way to tell you which way to go anymore.

Like at least if you can see the top of the mountain,

You guys should probably head over there.

Everything else is just a wilderness.

So you know,

Losing sight of land being lost is a very,

It's a very primal fear.

It lives in every one of us.

All you have to do is,

You know,

Leave your phone at home and get an idea of what that might be like.

So yeah,

I was actually when I walked the Camino in 2013 in France,

I there you go.

Yes,

They actually in the middle of the forest,

They were doing some clearing of land.

So they cleared the or they cut down the actual signpost that was supposed to tell me which way to turn.

So I blazed right past it.

And all of a sudden found myself somewhere in the French woods,

But also on this weird,

Like logging road.

Yeah.

And it was raining.

And it was so cold.

France had the worst weather they had in 90 years,

I could feel myself becoming hypothermic because it was so cold.

And I was just getting so I just kept walking,

Kept walking.

And I realized I am not I'm not anywhere near where I'm supposed to be.

I have no clue where I am.

Yeah.

And so eventually,

I bumped into this really small village and I crawled under this person's like garage or whatever,

My hands would barely work,

But I got my phone out of my Okay,

And I did not have Wi Fi in France.

But somehow,

For like two or three minutes,

I was able to access the map app,

Yeah,

Look at where I was supposed to be,

Versus where I was in this village where no one was coming out to say,

Are you okay?

And I found myself on a highway and I walked to where I was supposed to be.

But I mean,

I was drenched,

I I played around with putting,

You know,

Just erecting my tent in the woods and my rain fly and everything.

And I thought,

No,

You're too cold,

And everything soaks and you will die,

Potentially,

You have to keep walking.

And so I did.

And that's what saved me is like,

I did not stop walking.

Also,

I didn't get hit on the French highway,

Which is another miracle,

Because those people drive crazy,

Kind of like they drive in New Mexico,

A little crazy.

So I was so grateful when I got to where I was supposed to be.

And I took a hot shower.

And then I literally just passed out in bed.

I was like,

Well,

There's there's a couple really amazing things about that,

About that story that just warm my heart is one of them is that when you when you're when you're faced with a decision,

That's really,

Really dire.

So do I set up my tent?

Or do I keep walking no matter how hard keep,

You know,

To keep walking is?

And you make that decision like this,

It's easy at that time,

In that circumstance.

But if I pose that question to you,

Now,

You go,

Well,

I don't know,

I should put it up.

Maybe I could have made a fire,

I could have rubbed a couple of sticks,

I you know,

Whatever,

I could have waited,

I could have had something to eat,

The list goes on and on and on.

But when you're actually in that situation,

And you're in the moment,

Like you're embedded in that moment,

And you still have the you know,

You're still lucky enough to be able to make a decision,

Then the decision is very,

Is very easy.

And that's always been my own.

Like understanding when to quit,

When to quit is really important.

Quitting is important.

It's not that,

You know,

It's having your head down and you know,

Full steam ahead,

Regardless of,

You know,

Damn,

The torpedo sorts of thing is is ridiculous.

It's interesting that you didn't when you're describing that you didn't hesitate at all that I couldn't put up the tent,

My hands were too cold.

I knew if I kept walking because you can walk for a very long time,

You can keep going,

Right.

But as soon as you lay down,

Then you start to get cold like right now.

So yeah,

That was it's amazing that you just then you made that to me,

It's not like you made that decision very,

Very quickly.

And then the miracle of it all.

I mean,

Not just the fact that you survived,

Of course,

Because that's miraculous in itself.

And I know on a big scale,

But on a much smaller scale,

You need to look at your app.

You haven't had no you've had no phone connection for,

You know,

For weeks.

And suddenly it works for the two minutes you need and shuts off like how is that?

How is that you you can't say I'm going to walk around like this.

It's your phone until I have cell phone coverage.

Yeah.

So I think that's like that.

That was beautiful.

I hope you all thoroughly enjoyed listening to Burt's stories and actually hearing what it sounds like to navigate the entire globe and travel the Indian Ocean and see six story waves.

I mean,

At the end of our conversation,

I thought that is an adventure that I'm going to skip.

I mean,

I can walk across France without speaking the language,

But alone on a boat for months and months on end.

And then those six story waves that we talked about.

Yeah,

I'm going to I'm going to skip all that.

But it's a good thing that we have people like Burt in the world because he is the one that goes out and has these adventures for us.

And then he comes back and tells us his tales.

As this year is winding down,

I want to thank each and every one of you for all the love that you've shown the podcast this year and all the love that you've shown me.

It has been an extremely challenging year filled with lots and lots of unexpected surprises and needs to move from place to place.

And frankly,

Sometimes I look back on this year and I wonder how I actually got a podcast out each and every week.

I am very aware that lots and lots of people,

Including many of my dear friends,

Have had the years from hell.

And so I think we're all looking forward to 2025 and hopefully better times,

Although that is to be determined because we know what's happening in January.

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Burt,

Be an adventurer.

I mean,

Really,

Honestly,

Like we joked about laying on the couch and getting up and going to work out.

But I mean,

There's your front door and you could just walk to your front door and open it because the second that you cross that threshold and the second you go into the outside world,

All bets are off and any adventure is yours for the taking.

So be like Burt,

Get up off the couch,

Roll off the couch,

Crawl off the couch,

Whatever that looks like,

Put on your shoes,

Put on your jacket and then go to your front door,

Turn the knob and then step across the threshold because you never know what's waiting out there in the world for you.