A TURNING POINT

After over ten years of sailing all over the world, I challenge myself to an even bigger adventure. As a single mother I set out to captain an all female crew with my one year old daughter from Mexico through the Panama Canal. The ocean itself in that region is difficult in its own right, before taking into account the danger of traveling through some of the world’s red zones.

By the time we reached Panama we had become an extremely efficient team navigating a 50 year old sailing vessel that was most certainly working against us. The project had started underfunded and we had made many field repairs by the time we neared Panama. I felt extremely proud of us.

Then, on a moonless windless night eight men tried to board my boat. I throttled my engine all the way up and turned into them in an attempt to run them over. At the same time I had one crew member take my baby to the closet to hide and the other I instructed to begin filling any glass bottles she could find with gasoline.

I called my mother and asked her to get my step father to get in touch with the US coast guard and dispatch a cutter to our location. We were in a known drug trafficking area that is obviously not marked on the maps.

We escaped the pirates and were ultimately pushed into a storm that had me solo at the helm for many hours. Several other boats were in distress and had to be rescued. At the height of the storm in the middle of the bay of Panama I realized I was in my element.

I found myself asking a question that has stayed with me ever since:

Is this really what I want to be good at?

I realized I had fallen in love with the woman that I met on the other side of difficulty. Had I somehow inadvertently created a live of extreme difficulty for myself and called it necessity.

That question became the catalyst for The Edge of Strength, a long-term research project.

I am interviewing one hundred women whose lives have been shaped by leadership, responsibility, courage, and service. I am not looking for polished success stories. I am interested in the moments that changed you, the paradoxes you have encountered, and the wisdom that only experience can teach.