All Of The Feelings

I bet you all have been thinking, 'wow. Megan hasn't talked about her feelings in awhile'. Where's the crying in bars?  Where's the meowing?  I mean...could she possibly be turning into a well adjusted adult?  Nope. 

I am having all of the feelings. 

I figure, what's better than 'writing it out'?!

I hesitate to write about work in this lovely space. Which may seem incredibly stupid considering it's all I actually seem to write about. In all honesty though, I keep lots of important details to myself...like what ship I'm actually on...who my employment agency is...etc.  This is going to be an incredibly vague post, and for that I apologize greatly. 

When my ship was reflagged I struggled to find a new ship...you guys know this part. I looked high and low...and some may argue that I could have looked lower but, really?!  Who wants to look lower?!  

What I discovered when I was ship-less was that I had no seniority. I had been working for a company for years - they had no ship for me. I had been in the same group of people looking for work since I graduated (ahem, nine years ago). They too had no ship for me. 

I felt like I was on a fast track. I had been moving up right on schedule throughout my career. I really and truly thought there'd be a captains job for me in the next 1.5 years. 

Instead of looking lower and instead of borrowing money I made a drastic change.  I moved somewhere I felt I could build seniority.

When I lost my ship - and realized I had no seniority - it was almost sad to get my Captains license.

I shipped out as Second Mate. I'm happy to be here and lucky for me I've always enjoyed this position. I enjoy being the navigator. Not having to listen to bitching sailors and overtime disputes first thing in the morning as Chief Mate...I don't miss that. 

Except. You knew there was a but. 

I feel like I'm going backwards. It feels like everything I busted ass for just flew out the door. It's gone. I'm back to square one. 

Here I am, essentially starting over at the exact moment I've hit my ultimate goal. Where's the fanfare?  Where's the red carpet?  Where's the golden egg?

I know what you're thinking. You're young!  You've got tons of time ahead of you!  You're right...and sure, I'll sail Chief Mate again...and sure maybe even Captain. Except that's probably now years in the making. 

Here's what it truly boils down to. I'm a lady sailor. It's hard not to feel like my time at sea has an expiration date. Years in the making?  That would have worked just fine for me....five years ago. 

There's nothing to be done about it. Curve ball. So, I'll just enjoy my time. Hard to complain about cruising up the Yangtze River and eating Soba in Okinawa. What else is life but an adventure?

Chilly Buns + Greetings

Nautie Friends,

Please excuse my absence!  If I thought my last ships Internet was slow then that makes this ships Internet sloth-like. Plus, I've been getting settled in and you know how that goes...lots to think about! 

This is a test post just to see how long it will take a pic to load, etc.  

It's going to be a lot harder for me to post direct to FB so for those of you who use that, apologies. 

xoxo, 

Megan

p.s my buns have been pretty chilly!  Look at those snowy mountain tops! 

Wordless Wednesday

Mettle Mission :: Day Forty Five

Here's a little Nautie History.  

I had a tough ship as Third Mate.  My Chief Mate was a 'very not nice man' (insert every bad word you can imagine).  He made my life hell.  I cried all the time.  I was going to quit.

Then I had this epiphany - if I did my absolute best, if I defaulted to absolute professionalism, if I answered every one of his inquiries with absolute positivity - he'd eventually wear himself out - or better yet, he'd be the one who looked like a loser even though he was doing everything in his power to make me look like a total reject.

I realized that it was a matter of me biding my time.

I had an arsenal of 'biding my time' survival tactics.

I made a playlist full of antsy rock songs that I listened to non-stop.  I decorated my room full of photos of home and happy things.  I had three plain white t-shirts that I transformed with sharpies and glitter glue.  One said, 'Make Puttanesca'.  One said, 'Don't Worry, Be Happy'.  The last one said, 'Hakuna Matata'.

Long story short:  very not nice man ended up getting escorted off the vessel by the Coast Guard after pretty much diving off the deep end.  I ended up smelling like a rose, a professional rose.

Hakuna Matata.

Via

Until I get a job there will be a daily Mettle Maker - we're on a mission - a mission to get a job and maintain mettle - so we'll call it the Mettle Mission.

Endings & Beginnings

What's an ending if not a beginning?  You really don't need to be an expert on life to have that one figured out.

When I was displaced from my vessel it felt like a premature ending.  Within days of getting the news I had a huge surge of energy and it prompted to me to start my own business.  I figured there wouldn't be a better time to put some of my energy into something that would belong to me in the long run.

I filed the paperwork to set up my LLC, designed a website for it and, told my friends throughout the industry that I was officially available for hire in areas other than deep sea sailing.

I set myself up to offer maritime consultancy, surveying, inspecting, training and a whole slew of other services.

It's pretty exhilarating (*cough* nerve racking *cough*)!  While it's true that experience is on my side there is nothing like a new venture to get your blood going!

As fate would have it someone actually hired me - to survey / inspect my own ship.

I boarded my old girl as the sun was rising and greeted the foreign crew with a cup of coffee and set off to crawl around the vessel.  

I inspected cargo holds, ballast tanks, engine spaces - you name it and I probably took a photo of it.

As I left the vessel to head home and write a condition survey report I said one last good-bye and then I got in my car and did a little happy dance.

I've officially christened my own company.

(to be clear - I'm still looking for a job that will take me back to sea - I'm hoping to develop this new venture further during my vacations and as the years go by)

Boobies. Of the Bird Variety.

The men around town are tired of talking about Boobies.  The blog hasn't exactly been gender neutral lately so let's cut them some slack, shall we?

Let's talk about Birds.  Of the Booby variety.

Somewhere off the coast of Mexico (during my last rotation at work) we got birds.  Lots of them.  There was A Bird....and then there were Many Birds.  I loved them.  They dipped and soared and reminded me of one of my favorite poems.

I took Big Bertha out on deck and took as many photos as I possibly could - before I started feeling like they were looking at me - like the kind of looking at me that made me feel like my skull was going to get pecked open.

I managed to take hundreds of photos and was in full on Many Bird Love Mode.

Then day two point five of Many Birds rolled around.  Someone commented, 'who spilled a bucket of white paint on the bow?!' to which I had to reply, 'ummm shipmate....that would be bird shit....'.  Riiiight, needless to say Many Bird Love Mode was over.  These birds destroyed the deck.  When we finally rid ourselves of them I said to the Bosun, 'lets get some scrubbers and tsuji the deck' (this means scrub with soap and water.....nautical lore says that back in the day sailors sourced a soap called 'tsuji' overseas...my guess is Japan....this would be WWII era....anyways, scrubbing the deck has been called 'sugee-ing' ever since...and I roll with the Japanese spelling....).  Turns out this bird shit was potent stuff - the deck gang had to literally scrape it off....as in with a scraper!

I spent some time on the interwebs and best I can tell these are Boobies - possibly Brown Boobies - and you guessed it - the booby jokes were alive and well onboard - can I tell you how many times I heard, 'I loooove brown boobies!!!!!'.

gah, it was amazing to see how close they could get to the water without actually touching...

the best part was watching them fight and stick their feet out for not so graceful landings...

....and there are more so, click through at your leisure!