AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

Notice the gap between this and the last post. It's pushing an entire month. YIKES!

Tons of things have happened since then. I won't go into too much detail about Saba because in terms of diving it was like Bali but without as many fish. It was great however to have some variety from St Maarten. I'll put up pictures tonight and try to finish up writing about going home and then post that update.

This is me having fun on the first dive.







On the right you can see a fireworm. Very very very very very painful. Do not touch. If I had, I would have been in the hospital.







I still think stingrays are incredible.




And of course barracudas are always great finds.

What a Sensation

I'm too charged to sleep.  I close my eyes lying in my bed, awake.  What a sensation.  My bed.  At home.  In Ohio.  With my family.  Safe.

I sift through memory after memory as they pop up in my head just like the balls that decide the winning lottery numbers.  They come in short snippets, sometimes just images, other times full experiences.  Some come just as feelings while others are series of events.  Memories.  I have been gone for a year and now I’m home.  I’ve been to the ends of the Earth alone and have made it back safe and sound.  At home.  With my family.

My body is relaxed but my mind ticks through memories of the year.  Sitting on the porch in Hawai’i, the view of Arthur’s Pass in New Zealand, the Hindu ceremony in Singapore, finishing and passing the scuba instructor exam, the dogs I passed on my way to work in St Maarten, cleaning the rail on the sun deck of the yacht, and biking through the coconut farms on my way to work in Indonesia.  Memory after memory comes to mind then is replaced by another one just like leafing through a textbook and looking at the pictures, stopping occasionally to read a caption.  But now I’m in my bed.  In Ohio.

I still can’t sleep but I’m enjoying the feeling too much to move.  Everything at home is just as I left it, almost untouched.  The memories keep coming to me, almost as if my mind doesn’t want me to forget.  Everything is as I left it so my mind is afraid that I’m going to pick right up where I left off as if nothing ever happened.  It does already feel like it was a different life, like it was a different me.  As the memories float past, I remind myself that they are my memories.  It wasn’t someone else, it wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t a parallel universe, and I didn’t imagine it.  I went to the other side of the world and now I’m back.  In my bed.  Safe.

As I lie awake with all of these thoughts swimming in my head, I can’t help but think of the future.  I’m excited to see friends, go to church, drive through town, and even in the more distant future like working in Egypt and going back to school.  It’s all going to be an adventure.  I’m ready for it but I don’t want to rush it one bit because I am enjoying too much the feeling of being safely at home, in Ohio, with my family, in my bed. What a sensation.

Day Tripper

I'm taking a day-trip to dive the nearby island named Saba. It supposedly has the best diving within hundreds of miles. Not only that, but it has one of or possibly THE shortest runway of any commercial airport in the world. That will certainly make for a fun flight. I'm going with our Dutch divemaster-in-training Rene and both of us are pumped for a great day. I will take my camera and post pictures later.

Photo of the airstrip from partway up the mountain

I just certified 3 more scuba students so my certification count has jumped to somewhere in the teens at least. Yes, quite shameful for a guy who's trying to pay his bills as a diving instructor for the past 10 months but hey, I have to take what I can get.

Singing the Blues

As I've said before, I have very little excuse to complain based on where I'm living, what I'm doing, and how much fun I'm having along the way. However good days wouldn't be good unless you have bad days to give perspective. If there were 365 days of happiness a year, life would be boring. Feelings of sadness, frustration, or anger are not only normal but necessary for a healthy balanced emotional life. Sure this is coming from someone who hardly knows the difference between Freud and Pavlov or Plato and Confucius, but considering how much I love life no matter what obstacle it throws at me, I would say that I have at least a little room to talk.

Where were we... ah yes, singing the blues. It would be painfully dull for everyone to get a narration of the goings-on of every downer I've had and I wouldn't wish anyone to read a post like that. What is much more relevant is how I Feel about things. The problem is that I don't really know how to describe my feelings in words. I've experienced a high concentration of humbling conversations over the past week. It started during my last few days on Passion and continued well into my first several days back at my old job. It's a varied combination of people being tired of me, sick of talking to me, disagreeing with my actions, reprimanding me for not doing something a particular way, and scolding me for asking questions. I can deal with quite a bit being dished at me, but the fact that it is incessant is getting under my skin. All of these feelings lead me to believe that I'm not very professional, competent, fun to talk to, or a hard worker. I know myself and I know that I have all the best of intentions and I'm always just trying to do my best but sometimes it's simply not enough of a consolation. Sometimes, people can just make you feel so small that you can't even be seen, then someone else comes along and takes the liberty of crushing you down even smaller. It's interesting how every once in a while a ton of negativity comes crashing down at once.

These thoughts then lead me further to the heart of those feelings to discover that I am weak and alone. I have no friends or family here. I am alone in the crowd. There is no one here to talk to, to hug. No one who understands who I really am.

In a couple days I'll be completely over it all (actually I already feel better), but for now I'll keep hanging in there. As I was saying before, without the bad days, good days just wouldn't taste as sweet.

Lifestyles of Those Working for the Rich and the Famous

Dear Friends,

I do apologize for not updating as I should. I have had a few opportunities come and go but my motivation has been lacking. It's easy to forget that after yachting consumed my life for over 2 weeks that many of you are still not sure what it's like. I have about 30 minutes before I plan to head out and go catch How to Train Your Dragon at the cinema. Until then, I will try to explain what it's like to work on a private charter mega-yacht.

Pictured above is a typical guest cabin

Schedules rotated regularly from day to day. The first 3 days, I was on the 12-4am watch which meant I could go to bed at 7pm, wake up at 11:30pm, and be on deck ready to work at 11:55. The first order of business at midnight (or whenever the last guest went to bed) was to move all the bulky chairs on the aft deck where the guests eat every meal, sweep up the crumbs, spray K2R on every oil spot on the floor, scrub it away with a pad and water on hands and knees, scrub away all skid marks made by guests dragging chairs, rinse the deck, dry it off, clean and dry the main and two side tables, then move all chairs back. More often than not, I would also have to rinse the decks which meant getting out a hose, spraying down all hundred feet or so of an exterior side deck, wipe it off with a squeegie, then touch it up with a chamois. Additionally, every hour on the hour I would have to fill out the boat log with environmental and boat conditions. At 4am when the next watch came, I was able to get about 4-5 hours of sleep after briefly checking the engine room.

During the day, things would be different. Any time we took up anchor, the swim platform on the far aft of the boat would have to be packed away. Tenders and jet-skis had to be lifted out of the water up onto the second deck and then they needed to be quickly rinsed, washed, rinsed, dried, and secured. Kayaks, life jackets, noodles, rafts, goggles, snorkeling gear, etc had to be thoroughly rinsed and packed away. As the anchor was hauled in, I would go into the bow to flake the chain, making sure it didn't pile up on itself and become clogged or tangled somehow. When we arrived to the next location, all the tenders, jet-skis, noodles, life jackets, rafts, goggles, snorkeling gear, towels, etc were brought back out and would stay out until either the next move or until sunset.

The hardest part about the job was not the constant work, or seeing people relaxing on vacation right in front of me. The hardest part was trying not to screw everything up. Never being on a yacht before, I was very uneasy as to the particular details of what needed to be done and how it had to happen. I felt as if I was constantly doing things wrong and would regularly ask to make sure. Not only in terms of the work, but joining a team that has been working together for years is not easy. They know each other almost down to how everyone else thinks. It should come as no surprise as they all live together in close quarters 24/7, as well as eat, work, and hang out together. It's not easy just to jump into a group like that.

In stark contrast, my cabin - I sleep on the upper bunk.

So the big question is whether or not I will do it again. Even I don't know the answer to that. I'm going to focus on the definite things such as spending the summer in Egypt and the almost definite things such as taking a semester at U of Miami. Any bridge that comes up after that will be crossed as necessary. If I have a few months between one thing and another, yachting is definitely a good way to bank a lot of money in a short amount of time, and I will keep that in mind. However in the meantime, Passion is about to leave for the Mediterranean thus I'll focus on trying to get my temporary job back at the dive shop. Wish me luck!

I'm on a BOAT!

Just to let everyone know, I've been working on Passion for about a week and a half now, 6 days being spent on the boat with guests on board. It's been a lot of work but also a lot of fun at the same time. Would I do it again? With this group, yes I would. One of the things that's easy to forget is that this crew is not typical: everyone gets along. Apparently on a ton of boats, that's not the case.

Unfortunately the best shot I have of the exterior

We've been from St Maarten to St Barths, BVI, and now we're sitting at port in either St Thomas or St John, US Virgin Islands. We moved when I was asleep and so I'm not exactly sure. I get to go to shore relatively frequently as well as snorkel, play beach football with the guests, swim, go tubing, sail the laser, and ride jet skis. Sometimes my going ashore consists of taking out garbage, but at least I get to see more of these islands than those who stay on board. Most of my work consists of rinsing, cleaning, rinsing, and drying off again. I don't think being a deckhand on a private yacht is what I want to do with the rest of my life, but it might be a perfectly viable option to make money for a year or so. First thing's first, and that's getting course selection approval from the University of Miami where, by the way, I have been accepted. Until next time, don't sleep in so late, stop to watch the birds every once in a while, and eat your vegetables. Peace!

Right Place, Right Time

The one guy I had contact with before coming to the Caribbean is the captain of a 173-foot yacht and his name is Colin. Colin gets the credit for me being on St Maarten. If it weren't for him (having one little distant connection to this island), I would probably be in Barbados right now. Last week he offered me what is called “day work” on his yacht. Day work involves scrubbing, cleaning, polishing, washing, rinsing, drying, staining, waxing, etc. If the yacht was a butcher shop, I'd be the one killing the cows. It's eight hours of physical labor under the sun in the heat of the day and it sure ain't glamorous. Imagine detailing cars 8 hours a day in the summer sun for a week. It's not pretty, but it pays the bills, I'm getting to know more people, I feel very productive, and … well, I'm getting to the next part.

I came in early (per usual) on Thursday, my last scheduled day of work, and bumped into the temporary deckhand having breakfast. One of the first things he tells me is that he spent all night deliberating and finally decided to take a permanent position on another boat. I bumped into Colin later and he asked me when I was planning to leave the island and how work was going with the dive shop. After answering that I'd be here for a while longer and work at the dive shop was completely off and on, he asked if that meant I would be available to leave the island for a couple weeks at a time to which I said that I certainly could.

This little conversation left me with a smile on my face because I was expecting that I might be able to work for him a little bit more sometime before leaving the island. I was not prepared for what happened. A coupe hours later he called me below deck and asked me flat out if I wanted to work for him as a deckhand on a 16-day charter beginning in 2 days. He made sure to explain the details and the large amount of work that would be involved and within the hour the deal was sealed. So tomorrow marks my first day on a yacht (I did spend a week on a schooner, but that's completely different), my first day as a full-time (though temporary) deckhand, and my first time with guests on a yacht in my life. I don't have any experience or any qualifications to take this job, but because I was there when Martin was leaving, I got the job. Well, and because Colin is really cool.

The charter will take 12 guests, all of which are regulars on the boat and will spend 16 days going to St Barths, the British Virgin Islands, and St Thomas. I'm thrilled to be a part of it and expect that I'll have a great time doing it. I will have internet access but they made it sound as if I will be busy all day every day so my access will be limited. For anyone interested, here is the link to Passoin:
http://www.mycharter.com/PASSION/index.asp?pass=952891

Post-date

I threw a post up for the 26th of Feb. I know it's out of order but I forgot that I never wrote about it. I'm working on getting caught up:
Finding Blaskie
Playing for Money
Yacht Life (this probably won't come for at least a week since I'm not going to start working on a yacht until Monday)

The latest news on my life plans are this: try to get into University of Miami to take a semester of oceanography classes. If I decide it's awesome, I'll stay another semester and so on. If I don't like it, I'll get the STCW yachting certification and spend many months on a yacht while I figure out what I want to do with my life. If I don't get into U of Miami, maybe I'll just be a scuba instructor until Christmas time. Or apply somewhere else that's not as good.

3.14

Today marks the completion of 23 years of being alive. Hooray! I made it! I'm feeling a bit older but I still have the world at my fingertips.

I haven't yet told anyone it's my birthday b/c I'm sure that as soon as I do, people will start insisting that I go out and insisting on drinking drinks that they insist on buying for me. It is easier to just let it go and celebrate with people I know when I go home.

Work is going very well so far, exploring the island has not happened yet, I get my first paycheck on Monday, and I'm trying very hard to find a cheaper and better place to live.

As for post-summer plans, I don't have anything figured out yet. I am really considering taking a semester of oceanography courses and then 6 months or a year of working on a yacht to decide what I really love. Yes, it would postpone grad school (if I go - remember it has always been only a possibility, never a definite plan).

Until next time, keep checking back for more, take care, and live your life with a purpose.

Standard Life Crisis

This post is much more for my own immediate good than anything else. It not so much an update as it is me recognizing the necessity to put all of my possible plans down in writing. It is a perfect day to think about my life because it is very gloomy and rainy outside. The possibilities start with the simplest and go up to the most extreme.

At the end of the summer, I will continue with my original plan of being a basic scuba instructor somewhere (perhaps Red Sea or Great Barrier Reef) for about 3-4 months. Christmas will be spent at home (hopefully including a quick ski trip somewhere!) and then grad school would start in late February in New Zealand. After two years of obtaining a masters degree, I have no plans.

By the time late August rolls around, I will get on a plane to London Heathrow. During the final month of the racing season in England, my work is going to consist of cleaning boats (decks and hulls) while perhaps gaining experience sailing on any boat that offers me a position. The money and experience will be well worth the travel expenses. When the weather turns for the worst and the boats leave in search of warmer waters, I will move probably to the Red Sea and spend 2-3 months working as a dive instructor before going home for Christmas (hopefully including a quick ski trip somewhere!). Grad school would then start in late February in New Zealand. After the two years that it takes to receive a masters degree, I have no plans.

Immediately after Broadreach is over in late August, I will spend a semester taking university classes in oceanography and/or marine biology. The benefits here are that the subject matter is interesting, I will receive a proper introduction to marine sciences, the benefits of being a student would be back (discounts, clubs, organizations, many cool people my age, etc), health insurance would be covered under my parents' plan until I'm 25, and as long as the university is near water I could keep up with diving and boating. However, the downside is that I will be paying a lot of tuition, living in an expensive American apartment, I will have to deal with winter, and I won't be living somewhere exotic like the life I've been getting used to. After going home for Christmas (hopefully including a quick ski trip somewhere!), I will either move out to New Zealand in late February for a masters or decide that I like the school so much that I end up staying there for a degree. Two years after completing a masters, I have no plans.

My last option that I've given to myself is going to be the farthest from my original plan. Before training starts in May, I'm going to fly up to Florida to get what's called the STCW95, a basic qualification required by most boats in order to work even as a simple deckhand. Once I finish working with Broadreach in late August, I'm not sure where exactly I will go but what I will do is definite. With my degree in Physics, experience as a diving instructor, loose grasp of the French language, and the STCW95, I will find a long-term position on a yacht. While on this yacht, not only will I be building experience but I will be training as an engineer. Once leaving the yacht, I will be able to get my yachtmaster qualification and then do more training as an engineer. I'm not sure about the details but training off and on boats will continue for 5-6 years at which point I will be able to work as chief or second engineer on a large (150 ft) yacht of my choosing. The benefits are that my job consists of fixing things, I will be living on a yacht, my work by nature will consist of traveling to beautiful coastal areas, there is a very high demand for engineers that will only increase over the next 5-10 years, if I decide yachts aren't my thing, I'll have plenty of training that can be applied to a lot of other things, vacation time is long and frequent (sometimes 2 months on and two months off), and depending on the boat I could easily be making 6 figures before 2017. On the other hand, it's a huge commitment and I don't really know what the yachting life is like – I don't scare easily but making a decision like this would be the most frightening thing I've ever done.

I'm not an idiot – this fork in the road is not like a game show where I pick what's behind doors 1-4 and that's that. I of all people am well aware that things change. If I don't end up taking one of the four proposed paths or any combination thereof, other opportunities come up which can change everything. One thing is for certain though: whatever I end up doing before Christmas, it will affect (not necessarily determine) the rest of my life. Let me also say that I of all people understand the beauty of life as a full journey. I'm not looking at these options like “Oh no I have to pick one!!!!” but my attitude is more along the lines of “Alright, here are some of my top options. Which one will I most enjoy?” Ideas and input are always welcome but I think prayer is going to be my best bet.