On a sunny August the 24th, after a weird night spent in a guesthouse in Southampton, England, mainly spent watching Titanic and spending sleepless hours imagining my future, I joined my first cruise ship.
That was 2013, I was 23. I had just graduated from University and had never been on a cruise ship, never mind worked on one for months. I got used to sharing a bunk bed with a stranger, letting the swishing of the ocean below send me to sleep. I got used to having set mealtimes and not having a lot of control over what I ate. I got used to waking up in a new country every day, working every night and watching the beautiful sun sink into the endless expanse of water. I got used to never really knowing what day it was or what date it was, or even what season it was. I got used to living and working with people from all over the world, picking up little parts of languages and learning about places I’d never heard of, whilst on the ship and also when on land. I got used to having people constantly around me, losing most of my hobbies and having limited choices of how to spend my night: bar, gym, movie night in the cabin or watching the stars and the moon’s reflection on the water. It was beautiful. Most of the time I beamed with happiness.
But I couldn’t go on living that life forever, and that thought loomed over me. It’s not to say that it’s not possible, actually there are a lot of people who work on ships for a long long time. It’s a pretty good deal! Okay the jobs on board generally aren’t all that interesting; I worked in the boutique and found myself getting so bored that I often kinda hoped for a surprise hurricane or pirate attack or something just to spice up the long boring hours, while the guests were dining or watching the shows. I often switched off my brain while enduring a guests verbal diarrhea and had a lot of mental anguish over the often offensively stupid questions (‘do these stairs go up or down?’). But as long as I could focus on the fact I’d be swimming peacefully in crystal clear waters in the morning, getting lost in some cobbled old European city or maybe visiting some incense infused ancient Temple, I would get over it. On the smaller, more luxurious ships I actually enjoyed speaking to the guests as they were generally quite a bit older and had interesting lives. But still, it couldn’t go on forever.
In June of this year I quit. I was sat at a beach on Bora Bora Island, taking in this amazing beautiful place, knowing that I had to leave and go back on the cruise ship in a few hours and I just felt numb. I felt like I wasn’t living properly, like I was living some false life. I still had three months left of working on board and I just couldn’t bear it. I decided to leave in Los Angeles, after a week hopping the beautiful islands of French Polynesia, a few days at sea then more island hopping in Hawaii. I had joined the ship in Sri Lanka three months prior, I went to 20 countries in that time. Sometimes a few ports, sometimes for a few days. It was amazing, but I wanted control of my life back. I knew what I was giving up – Mexico, Costa Rica, Florida, an overnight in NYC, various ports in Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Faeroe Islands, down through Norway, various ports through Europe to the middle east and eventually flying home after an overnight docked in Dubai. But just knowing that this was all going to happen kind of dulled the shine. I would rather go see these places on my own, than be shipped into another fantastic place each day. Just getting moved around. Plus, I’d been everywhere after Norway on my previous ship. Instead I went home, I luckily got an almost instant job offer in Italy, living with a brilliant Italian family and teaching cute kids at Summer camp, then spent a few weeks travelling round. I headed home for an awesome August with my friends and family, with a few trips to England to visit friends and headed to Bordeaux for a few days to party with the ship, which was docked overnight. I wrangled myself a job in Hong Kong and flew out mid-September, and here I am now. Today I sang some songs with 2 year olds, did some colouring and pretended to be a lion. I talked about princesses with the cutest 5 year old Chinese-Korean girl and then blew bubbles as she jumped around squealing with joy. I have no more classes, and it’s ridiculously sunny today, so at lunch I went and had a cider in the park across the street while singing along to my iPod. Freedom is golden!
Recently I’ve noticed some interesting habits and mentalities that I subconsciously picked up from Shiplife. For the first few weeks of my current job I found that my mind seemed to bear resemblance to that of a mildly traumatised goldfish. Not in a bad way really, like when the kid stops shaking the tank and the fish chills out and forgets about all the darting about trying to find an escape. The tank is pretty nice when it’s not being rattled about. Moving around so much gets pretty tiring. Working on the ship I was in constant movement. In Italy the same, at home I knew I would be leaving, I did various trips and have only really stopped changing location now I’ve got to HK. But still I can’t stop. I’m constantly moving, finding something to do, exploring, experiencing, living! I caught a cold and I genuinely could not rest. I hate wasting time. If I’m trapped in work with nothing to do I’ll be reading up on things I can do, or learning something new that will contribute toward some other adventure. It’s crazy! But I love it. I feel like I’m living. I’m not sludging around watching TV or letting life pass me by. I’m the kid, I’m shaking the tank. Recently I watched a few movies while trying to rest and get over this virus, but at the same time I constructed a home for my new Nikon DSLR camera out of an old t-shirt, post cards, bubble wrap and some material from a dress I bought which was a bit too long. I got a button from the flea market and hey presto:
After living in the alternate reality of shiplife I feel like I can see the possibilities in life much more clearly. It is amazingly liberating. Next year I could be au-pairing in NYC, working at a vineyard in France, working at a horse riding school in Germany, working on a farm in Menorca, working on a yacht, working at a B&B in Italy or various other things that I haven’t even looked into yet. These are just a few of the option’s I’ve been contacted about recently after registering with a few travel related websites. Coming from a small town in the West of Scotland, where reality is pretty firmly fixed, where my Gran was genuinely excited for me to get a husband so I could run him baths and have his dinner ready on the table for him coming home from work, where (at least what I felt growing up) it’s pretty much expected for you to get a decent job, get married and have children and a mortgage and a car and go on holiday once a year, to meeting the type of people who work on cruise ships or yachts and teach English around the world, or even those who just go work in a bar in New York city or a hostel in Amsterdam, it’s fair to say my perspective has changed a lot. It’s not to say that any path in life is better than the other, just that I never really felt so drawn to the career, marriage and kids bit. There are so many beautiful places in the world. So many different cultures and languages and traditions and mythologies. That fascinates me, it interests me more than settling down in one place. I wish I knew I could do this when I was younger, but life in general now is so different to the time when my Gran or my Mum grew up that it’s kind of unchartered territory. Gap years and travelling have only really became a big thing in the past decade or so, at least documented evidence of it has. With all the free wifi these days, smartphones with Google maps, Facebook check-in’s, Insta-fame, blogs, vlogs and foursquare or trip advisor at your fingertips, it’s a lot easier to be inspired and shoot off on an adventure.
I still get the occasional twinge to go back to shiplife, I actually recently got offered a place at nautical college for navigational studies, which I very nearly accepted. Free food and board plus great wages just to drive a ship around? Sounds perfect! But I realised that it would mean giving up my freedom again. I was lucky enough to have my old ship visit me in HK recently with a lot of friends being delivered to me. It felt amazing seeing all these great travel-minded people that I lived, worked, partied, and seen the world with and when they left, I felt really upset. But, there are plenty of opportunities to work and travel that don’t require this sacrifice of freedom. Now I’m used to travelling on my own again, to having control over my food intake, to having my own space, to choosing where I travel to, how I get there and when. I’m still trying to figure out what day/date/season it is, but if I can have a sunny 29degree C afternoon chilling with a cider in the park in the middle of November, I don’t particularly care!
I love Hong Kong, but I feel like I’ve lived here long enough. I’m off to somewhere new. At 26, I’ve only recently realised that my compulsion to travel is not my ‘running away’ from something (though I spent much time pondering this question), I’m actually running towards something. MY LIFE! I don’t have a career because I don’t want one. I don’t have a mortgage because I don’t want to stay in one place. I’m absolutely in love and addicted to adventures. Whatever I end up doing in January will be fully my responsibility, and if I don’t like it, there are a million other opportunities waiting for me to try out. Every experience holds some lesson, nothing will ever be perfect but it’s always worthwhile. I have shiplife to thank for my exploration of about 60 different countries and for opening my mind to this way of life, but now it’s my turn to take the helm. Full steam ahead! Bring on 2016!
Jenniferism 
Love this SO MUCH!!! You are a true gem! #SOinspired
amazing. i needed to read this right now