A conversation with Dave Rearick after his circumnavigation of the globe on his boat Bodacious Dream.
You took a Hurricane Island Outward Bound School program years ago. Why did you decide to do that?
I became aware of Outward Bound when I was 15 or 16 years old. I thought “boy that sure sounds like fun” and it was kind of right up my alley of things I like to do. When I was about 20 years old I had enough money together and spare time to be able to commit to an Outward Bound course. I chose the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School because it was sailing oriented and I was a passionate sailor. I had never been to Maine before. It all fell into place. That was September of 1978.
What were your biggest learnings from your Outward Bound program?
Oh gosh. There is so much that comes from a course! And a lot of it you don’t really know you’ve learned. I think for me the biggest thing that happened is it confirmed who I thought I wanted to be and who I thought I was going to be as I grew up. I think when you are young you are trying on all types of things –ideas and activities – golf, art, whatever. And I had a pretty good idea that I wanted to be a footloose and fancy free out-in-the-wild type of person and I think doing the Outward Bound course confirmed all of that for me and set me off in that direction.
Switching subjects – what does Bodacious Dream mean?
Bodacious Dream to me is more than sailing around the world – it is an attitude, a positive thought process. Bodacious is a combination of the words bold and audacious. I want people to look at their life and community boldly and consider what they can give back to others. It is about living your life as full as you possibly can.
How did you decide to circumnavigate the globe?
The decision came over a long period of time. When I was a young man of 12 or 13 years old I got to sail for the first time in my life and that peaked my interest and I started reading books about the famous guys like Howard Blackburn. And this was back in the mid to late 60s where Sir Robin Knox-Johnson first accomplished sailing non-stop, solo around the world. The dream developed from there and became a lifetime passion to accomplish sailing around the world by myself.
Did anyone tell you that you were crazy for wanting to circumnavigate?
There were certainly a lot of people who thought my dream was a waste of time and energy. Something that you should stop doing, you know. Most people have the opinion that success in life is having a great career and having plenty of financial strength and that was never my idea of success in life. So I accepted peoples’ doubts and questions as they attempted to realign me in the direction they thought I should go but I knew in my heart where I was headed. You have to go with your intuition.
What was the scariest part of your circumnavigation?
A lot of people ask me this and a lot of people expect me to come up with some answer involving a ginormous wave that nearly flipped the boat and almost cost me my life. I learned from a lifetime of sailing and preparing boats for races and long distance races that preparation is 90% of the game. The sailing becomes easy. I was well prepared both physically with the boat and mentally with myself to be out there up against the wilds of the ocean and the vagaries of the sea. There weren’t any instances that frightened me terribly. There were certainly heavy storms and wind and outrunning a cyclone in the southern ocean where everything was very edgy, so I was constantly alert and attentive to everything going on in the boat – the sound of the boat, making sure that nothing was going to fail on me and complicate matters. Scary isn’t the right word for that though. To me, scary is when something very unexpected happens and instantly puts you into a situation you have to react to. And I didn’t have anything I wasn’t terribly prepared for.
What were the highlights from your journey?
I can list twenty of them. Now that months have passed all of it is great – even the storms that were miserable turned out to be great because I survived them. What I find the most unique about this experience and many experience in life is the contrast between things so the times I have been at sea for forty or fifty days and arrived in the harbor have been magical times. The contrast was so significant. There were some of the most amazing sunsets and sunrises and even some of the storms, just watching the waves for hours on end and understanding the dynamics of this natural world. One of the most stunning things was deep in the southern ocean well after midnight a thunderstorm with lightening had just passed over and things had cleared and I came up on deck to make sure things were okay and all of a sudden all around me there were glowing pods of bioluminescence about the size of a softball. I was sailing through hundreds of them. There was no moon or stars visible due to cloud coverage. It was like sailing through the part of Star Wars when they go into hyperspace. I found out later that they were likely a bioluminescent squid that appear every so often. There is a nocturnal feeding seagull that hones in on them.
What advice do you have for teens considering Outward Bound and the path you have taken in life?
The simplest thing is to just do it. The true benefit to exposing yourself to Outward Bound for anybody – youth or adults – is the amazing experience of genuine truth in life. You come out with experiences, skills, and understandings you will use the rest of your life. You may learn a particular field of study and make that your career then find out in 10 years that most of what you learned in college is obsolete. Your Outward Bound experience will lead you down the right course. At the age of 18, 20 or 22, I’m not sure you can invest your money anywhere better than Outward Bound.
Read about and see photos of Dave’s circumnavigation.