How often would you say you’re ever bored? Or maybe I should ask. How often do you allow yourself to be bored? The answer, I imagine, is rarely.

That’s the way the world is now. Every idle moment filled, every silence interrupted. Our attention is constantly being solicited, served up in notifications, newsfeeds, updates and constant noise. Look around in public and you’ll find most people buried in their phones, whether they are catching a bus or on a first date. It’s become the norm to be constantly distracted.

But offshore, a refuge, reminiscent of a time now past, still exists.

Sailing out of sight of land and out of reach of phone signal, you are held by something quieter. Something slower. Something ancient. And though it demands your constant attention, from trimming sails to watching the weather, and keeping a constant eye out for other boats, it also gives you something vanishingly rare: space to think.

Not distracted thinking, but the deep kind. The kind that only wells up in long silences, when your mind is left to wander like the wind and waves around you. Out there, with only water in every direction and time stretched out like the horizon, your mind starts to move differently. Thoughts become looser. Your mind feels lighter. And with it, curiosity blooms.

I once read a book called The Comfort Crisis, which described the “three-day rule.” The idea is simple: it takes three full days of disconnection meaning no emails, no phones, no input, for the brain to finally begin switching off. For the constant noise to subside.