The search for a job that pays me to travel the world was over and had actually been a thought buried in the back of my mind for a number of years, but the way my life made it round the snakes and ladders board led me to begin working and living on a yacht at the ripe age of twenty five.
The job search was tough, super tough, while it was great being in sunny Florida the reality was Captains trying to trick you into sex, Guatemalan men offering hospitality only to tongue rape you and old men that picked you up outside of stationary stores to work on their boat and when you point out to them its illegal for you to be working on it, their reply is ‘you are my mistress, not my stewardess’ – dirty wink.
Longing for a normal job on a normal yacht, sick of all the men in Fort Lauderdale and the temptations of all of the surrounding countries I had dreamed of visiting for so long pulling at my adventurous strings, the fight to resist giving up growing more challenging each day.
After a few uncomfortable nights and even more awkward days living on the little boat outside of the American guys house, my lovely friends Rod and Brooke invited me over for dinner and toured me around their place to see if I would like to crash there for a while. As they showed me around their rooftop pool and art deco apartment, their mouths dropped as explained my current situation. Rod laughed at the fact that the engine was leaking and I was re-cleaning the same spot over and over when the boat clearly wasn’t going anywhere. I desperately wanted to move to their house but didn’t know how I would go about it, my job and my bed now being in the same place and minus the bike that had gotten stolen (nice expensive mountain bike borrowed from the Guatemalan). Rod cracked it, having me realize that it was an American flagged vessel.
I moved in to a comfortable double bunk bed on the penthouse floor of their trendy Las Olas apartment and looked forward to chilling in the pool, working out and a fresh, pressure less start to the job search. As life goes in its wonderful and wicked ways, I stayed two nights before I got the call- ‘how fast can you pack’ she said? My suitcase was zipped up just minutes after my finger hit the end button.
With a Cheshire cat smile; I step onto my new home. I try my hardest to concentrate as I am receiving my walk around, what to do in case of fire, man overboard, engine room checks ect, I'm so god damn excited that I know it's just going through one ear and out of the other.
The job search was tough, super tough, while it was great being in sunny Florida the reality was Captains trying to trick you into sex, Guatemalan men offering hospitality only to tongue rape you and old men that picked you up outside of stationary stores to work on their boat and when you point out to them its illegal for you to be working on it, their reply is ‘you are my mistress, not my stewardess’ – dirty wink.
Longing for a normal job on a normal yacht, sick of all the men in Fort Lauderdale and the temptations of all of the surrounding countries I had dreamed of visiting for so long pulling at my adventurous strings, the fight to resist giving up growing more challenging each day.
After a few uncomfortable nights and even more awkward days living on the little boat outside of the American guys house, my lovely friends Rod and Brooke invited me over for dinner and toured me around their place to see if I would like to crash there for a while. As they showed me around their rooftop pool and art deco apartment, their mouths dropped as explained my current situation. Rod laughed at the fact that the engine was leaking and I was re-cleaning the same spot over and over when the boat clearly wasn’t going anywhere. I desperately wanted to move to their house but didn’t know how I would go about it, my job and my bed now being in the same place and minus the bike that had gotten stolen (nice expensive mountain bike borrowed from the Guatemalan). Rod cracked it, having me realize that it was an American flagged vessel.
I moved in to a comfortable double bunk bed on the penthouse floor of their trendy Las Olas apartment and looked forward to chilling in the pool, working out and a fresh, pressure less start to the job search. As life goes in its wonderful and wicked ways, I stayed two nights before I got the call- ‘how fast can you pack’ she said? My suitcase was zipped up just minutes after my finger hit the end button.
With a Cheshire cat smile; I step onto my new home. I try my hardest to concentrate as I am receiving my walk around, what to do in case of fire, man overboard, engine room checks ect, I'm so god damn excited that I know it's just going through one ear and out of the other.