I almost ran over my Dad.
Well, a few times I reckon, but here’s the first time that I can remember..
I was 12, we were living on a boat and this was during the period where I was learning to spearfish. Contrary to what some might think, at the time, this process seemed fairly traumatic for me even on the best of days. I basically imagined sharks around every corner.
One windy day, we were in Blue Lagoon in Fiji, I had gotten out of the water early and was in the dinghy, while he was still diving. For some reason that day I was then moving the boat around – I had pulled the anchor up. Maybe because it was blowing so hard.
I was motoring around, following him but keeping some distance, trying to navigate the wind and the reef while he took a breath and dove down looking for fish. He’d be gone for a minute or more and from the surface there was no real way of knowing where he was.
Anyway, I hadn’t seen that he popped up next to me, the wind had caught the side of the dinghy and the 25hp Johnson outboard was still in gear – so the prop is still going while it’s blowing me sideways
He ducked his head under at the last minute, just missing the prop.
He popped back up a few meters behind, yelled something at me into the wind. I didn’t need to hear it, I realised what had happened and immediately learned the lesson.
I can think of at least 20 near misses over just a few of those boat trips. Some of them with mild injuries, some of them just close calls. All of them rapid learning experiences.
The thing is, a near miss is a powerful and steep learning arc because of the depth of the experience. In these situations, we become very present and the mind is silenced as we move suddenly from what feels like instinct.
If lack of awareness got us into the situation, acute, last minute awareness gets us out (if we’re lucky).
Unfortunately, if you’re tied to a phone or a computer all day, the near misses simply aren’t going to come. Most people will say this is a good thing, however there’s definitely an upside to rapid experiential learning.
Here’s to a safe long weekend, with possibly a near miss or two, out in the real world.
