Sailing anchors new meaning of life

I've got a secret. Better yet, let's call it a good story.

It's a story about living -- about taking eight University students who were strangers to each other and turning them into the best of friends. It's about learning everyday communication and leadership skills and finding where they fit in on a team level. It's about using judgment and insight in high-pressure situations. It's about instinct and about the reality of nature -- all on a 30-foot sailing boat in the middle of the Florida Keys.

When I signed up for the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School through the University, I had some idea I would be dealing with each of these factors. Yet the capacity of my imagination could have never dreamt the extent to which I would experience each and every one of them.

Through a period of five days I would come to learn everyday things I took for granted -- a shower, a toilet, a bed, clean clothes and personal space -- would take on a new meaning of uselessness. As I slept on a row of oars underneath a blanket of millions of stars on a rocking boat that awaited the sun to dry its wet boards. I realized society and civilization were as far from the boat as the stars were.

And as I sat on the bow of the boat in the middle of the night, with a careful eye on the anchor, I realized the world is moving on a bigger and more consistent schedule than I ever will.

Throughout those five days, as we traversed through Everglade canals and around remote islands, I would realize there still are places where humans have left nature untouched. Pristine environments, however rare, do exist. And with the help of a wooden pulling boat that could sail in two feet of water, I was going to see them.

I could go on and on about the amazing sights I encountered throughout those five days, but that is only a small part of this adventure. At the heart of all of these sights and sounds were the people I was experiencing them with. And this is where a larger part of the secret unfolds.

I was introduced to the other students who would later venture the Keys during a series of lectures before the trip. There we learned the navigational skills necessary to chart our courses and some of the terminology that would make the instructor's commands a little easier to understand.

But the lessons we learned in the classroom were minor details that would assist in the big picture, and in no way prepare us for the actual living situation on the boats. And that is the part of the secret that bears the most importance.

We were split up into three boats -- it is fair to say that all of the boats gained somewhat similar experiences. Yet the individual people on each of the different boats are what made the experiences, not the events themselves.

Whether they had signed up for the trip to get a good tan or they needed the three credits to graduate, the diversity of the group was evident from the start. Clashing personalities aren't exactly something you can avoid on a small boat for five days. Yet it was those different personalities that made us grow close.

Through the sunrise swims, the choppy waters or the miles of windless rowing these people, who were as different as the wind directions, came to work as one. In situations that demanded immediate decisions and actions, struggles with nature as well as with each other were a common occurrence.

And as the days went by, the seemingly small boat expanded -- personal space and modesty were no longer an issue.

And just as a beautiful sunset ended every day of hard work, so did an inspiring reading, a group huddle and an amazing meal in the cockpit.

Now that the adventure is over, my slip knot still needs a little work and I couldn't tell you how we made it from Big Pine Key to the Florida Everglades and back. But I can tell you that the reality of nature -- both harsh and beautiful, both of people and of environment -- created an experience that will forever be embedded in the depths of my memory.

In times of stress and chaos I need only remember the sea of stars I viewed on my bed of oars and the constant rocking that put me to sleep in a larger world where life was a little simpler.