Opportunity

Soren Larsen
I was told today that I could crew on a tallship – the Soren Larsen (see photo) for 4 months beginning at the end of november. I have a couple weeks to decide for sure.
It would be extremely hard work, with very little (virtually no) pay, however I’d have accomodation and food all taken care of, and I’d really be doing something I’d normally never do. I should dive right in, but I have my reservations.
(I am a geek, after all – I hate going through the withdrawl of not using my toys for awhile.)
The 4 month tour would involve some refit work, learning how to maintain a wooden vessel, swabbing the deck cabin-boy style, learning sailing techniques, etc. I think it would be a good experience. The ship goes on an 8 month pacific voyage following the 4 month NZ tour. The crew is full at the moment, but who knows. Something could fall into my lap. Now that would be exciting.
Sailing is something that’s always appealed to me, although I don’t tend to talk about it much. Much of my motivation for going to school and getting a job was to be able to fulfil the financial aspect for my romantic idea of sailing around the world.

As most people I like to think that everything has a purpose, that things have reason. This opportunity has presented itself, and at the same time, I haven’t been able to get a job doing IT, simple office work, or even construction. Maybe this is it.
The skipper even said they don’t normally take ‘green’ people like me, and I’d be an extra crewmember.
I want it, so why am I hesitating?

________

Btw all your comments are intruiging and interesting. A lot of people actually visit this site (which blows my mind) but the comments transform the page into more of an interaction. Thank you.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 9th, 2005 at 8:09 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

  • lyquidfyre
    Mmmm...nestea, I'm gonna go grab one.
  • Here I go to take the nestea plunge...
  • P
    'I took the one less traveled by,
    And that has made all the difference.'

    You've been washing and waning about deciding where to go, what to do, what the next step will be... you've already taken a huge leap and travelled half way across the world where you know no one, where you had no ties, and where you virtually were walking blind. Don't stop now just because you're afraid of loosing an opportunity for an IT job, or because you think that if you take this chance you wasted four years at school.... Do it Trev. You may not have mentioned sailing in general conversation, but you sure have done more than mentioned it to me. So maybe you'll have to scrub the poop deck once in awhile... its an amazing opportunity for you to do something you absolutely love. Screw IT. Screw conventions and expectations and the idea that you should be starting a career. Stop second guessing yourself and do what you know you want to do.

    I'll send you an eye patch in the mail.... arrrrr. ;)
  • zztop
    Amazing....You're my hero and I seriously mean that.

    -mikev
  • Arif
    You said it your self, "I want it, so why am I hesitating?"

    Go for it. Better than waiting for some lame IT job to come along which you will probably get tired of in three months anyways!
  • lyquidfyre
    You're afraid :) Plain and simple, it's a situation where you have little to no control and it scares the shit out of you. You also know nothing of what's going to happen, no fucking idea of where this will lead you or do you know already? Do you know that you'll love it so much that it might even entice you to give up the IT world completely? Causing your strange sense of duty and perhaps honour to kick in. After all you spent 3.5 years in school for IT and you're going to throw it all away for a 4 month stint on a tall ship where you don't know what will happen after?

    This is where you gotta shut up the logic and reason and that weird fucking sense of duty off.
blog comments powered by Disqus
google.load("language", "1"); var curstate = 0; var hasloaded = 0; function bnc_show_translated() { if (hasloaded == 0) { bnc_lang_callback(); hasloaded = 1; } for (i = 0; i < 0; i++) { var elem = $("bnc_original_" + i); if (elem) { if (curstate) { elem.show(); } else { elem.hide(); } } } for (i = 0; i < 0; i++) { var elem = $("bnc_trans_" + i); if (elem) { if (curstate) { elem.hide(); } else { elem.show(); } } } if (curstate) { $("bnc_trans_state1").show(); $("bnc_trans_state2").hide(); curstate = 0; } else { $("bnc_trans_state1").hide(); $("bnc_trans_state2").show(); curstate = 1; } } function bnc_detect_div(div_id) { var text = document.getElementById(div_id); if (text) { text = text.innerHTML; if (text.length > 0) { google.language.detect(text, function(result) { if (!result.error) { if (result.language != "en") { if (result.confidence > 0.25) { $("bnc_translating").show(); bnc_xlate_div(result.language, div_id, "en"); } } } } ); } } } function bnc_xlate_div(src_lang,div_id,o_lang) { var text = document.getElementById(div_id); if (text) { text = text.innerHTML; google.language.translate(text, src_lang, o_lang, function(result) { var translated = document.getElementById(div_id); if (result.translation) { translated.innerHTML = result.translation; } }); } } function bnc_lang_callback() { } function bnc_startup() { bnc_xlate_div("en", "bnc_translate_info", "en"); bnc_xlate_div("en", "bnc_translate_info2", "en"); } google.setOnLoadCallback(bnc_startup);