When I first wrote about Tony Mowbray for the Newcastle Herald in 2017, I quoted that famous line by poet John Donne, "No man is an island".
As a long-distance solo sailor, Tony Mowbray seemed to be living proof that Donne had got it wrong.
After all, in 2000 and 2001, Mowbray spent 181 days alone on his own little island, a yacht named Solo Globe Challenger, as the Lake Macquarie adventurer sailed non-stop and unassisted around the globe.
But now in this time of isolation and social distancing, it feels like we're all being encouraged to prove John Donne's words wrong.
We're island living in our own homes.
"I'm fully supportive of it," Tony Mowbray says of the restrictions to contain the spread of COVID-19.
A naturally gregarious character, Tony Mowbray has "pulled my head right in". By day, he is renovating his Belmont home, then in the evening he is playing backgammon with his partner, Carolyn Read.
Having spent half a year in solitary confinement on his yacht, dealing with whatever the sea and the elements tossed at him while circumnavigating the globe, Tony Mowbray is comfortable with his own company.
But he knows how easily cabin fever can set in, when we are told to batten down the hatches and ride out the storm.
"Oh, it's the mental challenge, there's no doubt about that," Mowbray says. "You've got to have some tools you employ on a regular basis, not just every now and again, to help you get through the tough times.
"For example, when I've been in the Southern Ocean heading across to Cape Horn - which I've done three times now, and it's a foreboding place, with the Furious 50s, Roaring 40s (winds), all that sort of stuff -, one of the things I've learnt, when you've got your back to the wall, like we all have right now to varying degrees, is go back to the basics.
"I just do the things that I know work. So, for me, it would be 'eat, sleep, sail, navigate', keep doing that every day. Do the things that you know work.
"Eventually the door will burst open, and the sun will come bursting through, and the wind will stop blowing. Although, at the time, when you've got your back to the wall, it seems like it never will. But you have to keep telling yourself it will come good."
To tackle a big challenge, Tony Mowbray says, break it down into smaller pieces.
Mowbray recounts advice given to him by an older mariner when he was struggling one day in his preparations for the solo round-the-world voyage. The older sailor told Mowbray, "It's like eating an elephant. One bite at a time."
So in setting goals during this time, Tony Mowbray says, we should look not just at the long-term (at the whole elephant, so to speak), but also at the medium- and short-term.
"And short can be short," he adds. "It can be, 'What am I going to do today? Am I going to do a jigsaw?'.
"Don't worry about what's going to happen in August, September or October. That's too big a picture. Right now, it's today."
Read more: 'When The Going Gets Tough" - Centenarians Alf Carpenter and Neville Chant
In acting on your goals, he says, there are a couple of key elements that could apply to the current times.
"One is you can't be too rigid in your approach," he says.
"If I'm in the Southern Ocean and there's a huge storm raging on deck, it's no use me being down below with my earmuffs on and my music up loud and ignoring the conditions up on deck and saying, 'Well, Cape Horn is my next goal', and it's 2000 miles away.
"Be flexible in your approach, put Cape Horn to the background, and get up on deck and deal with the storm, deal with the problem you have right now.
"Then when the storm has passed, the second key element to achieving your goals, I believe, is the ability to quickly refocus."
In his sailing adventures, Tony Mowbray had occasionally felt like he was losing control. More to the point, it felt like Mother Nature was yanking control from him.
While competing in the 1998 Sydney-to-Hobart race, for example, when terrifyingly wild conditions smashed the fleet, Mowbray believed there was a good chance he would die. But he concentrated on living. He accepted he couldn't control the weather. He could barely control his fate. So he just concentrated on what he could control, working with his crew to survive.
In a less dramatic way, that's what we're doing now. He points out many of those markers of routine and security, from employment to planned holidays, have been taken away, fuelling that feeling of losing control of our destiny.
"So shorten up your sights, control what destiny you have at this point in time, which is basically in the four walls of your home," Mowbray says.
"Family is number one. And whatever is second is a long way distant. So it's time to really draw into your family and take support in your family. Everyone has strengths, and everyone has different elements in their skill sets that they're not so strong in. So work out what your strengths are, and work to your strengths right now, whatever they might be.
"Take control of what circumstances you have at your disposal right now. We're at the behest of governments and medical people to look after our best interests as a group. As an individual or a family unit, control your circumstances now.
Read more:Breaking Bread profile of Tony Mowbray
