Left San Diego at age 23 on a Kettenburg 50 for the South Pacific. Never did get away from boats ever since, either shore side or on the water.
After being on tugs for almost 18yrs my goal is to keep my kids off these things.
My Father took me down to get my Z-Card as soon as I turned 14 as that was the minimum age (If I remember Correctly). From that time until I got out of High School I spent every summer and break from school either painting on Oil Barges or working in the E.R. on Tugs.
I am 5 Generation MM and it was great to work and learn from all of the old timers. There was not a dirty job that I was not told to do, and I did them.
I am the last one to sail in my family so it ends with the 5 generations with me as all of the next generation decided that a life at sea was not for them.
Started my first circumnavigation at age 7 with my family on a 40’ ketch (no engine, no electronics). Got my 6 pack at 18. Went to college and grad school. Decided I missed the ocean and joined the USN. Been working as a civilian mariner continuously since '93. Did the first 40 years for love. Now doing it for money. The love part was a lot more fun, just didn’t pay worth a damn.
Good luck with that LOL.
Born in Puerto Rico, lived on a 55’ Norwegian built ketch till I was four. Delivered a steady stream of boats (yachts) with my father my whole childhood. Started on small tugs out of HS and did the svo program at Maine maritime. Have done passenger boats, tugs, currently in the oil patch.
And my shoes still aren’t old enough to matter
Stepped on my first ship on April 10th 1974 when I was 18, US navy destroyer, finished my 3 years and went to offshore tugs, 40 years later I’m on a 300’ DE supply boat.
At 18 in '80 on CG icebreaker, buoy tender, shore duty. Worked as a ships agent in Philly. Then to Fort Schuyler to “shape it all up.” Moran Tugs offshore, “coal run” for a while. Thence into NY Harbor to work the garbage for some single screw handling experience. On to another harbor company for ship docking barge handling for a year. Last 17 years started a company outside the industry. All the while, wanting to go to sea again. If my wife and young son can handle it, I’ll be back.
I was all of six
Notice the antique old wooden boat I am on in the pic? That terrible addiction never went away no matter how severe the electroshock voltages tried! Did make me very, very happy though…
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Joined the Navy at 17…makes 30 years on the water.
17 years old and in the Navy for five years, at 45 did the PMI Workboat Mate Program, been sailing commercially for seven years. Like the money. Love the time off!
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My son @ 10 days old. Hopefully he follows my lead!
I was 20 when started Piney Point and joined my first ship on 29 May 2001 (M/V Tellus)
the future! Jk
Joined the USCG at 17. Served aboard 2 cutters in my 4 years in. Got out at 21 and started a career in the Gulf oilfield aboard crewboats and supply boats. Went aboard a few small cruise ships in Alaska as an engineer. Worked there for 3 years, then back down to the GOM and currently work aboard a lift boat.
I grew up around the waterfront in a fishing family. The summers during college I started my career in commercial fishing and retired from that at 55. For the past five and a half years I have been in the oil patch and have worked my way from crew boats to anchor boats.
I`m still trying to get in the oil field at 33, I fished scallops, swordfish and bottom trawl as a teenager but dad was afraid I was gonna die so I left, been a mechanic and missing the sea ever since.
We found our families Ellis island papers when my grandmother died, they came from working on boats in Scandinavia, to the tugs in NYC. I grew up on the farm up north, swinging dirt and cutting logs. When I got out of high school things where slow, my uncle who worked for Bouchard asked me if I wanted a job for a while. Kelly green on a Moran tug @ 18-1/2. Been out here 12 yrs.
My dad was a fisherman for a while. He used to make me go out with him starting from about 6. I hated it! I got away from that and onto the head boats down the street as soon as I could. But there was no future in that. I tried to get on the commercial fishing boats and got out a few times, but as a girl it was REALLY hard to get out there. Things were not looking good for me going to sea. When I was 16 I got sent away to ‘boarding school’ on board some large traditional sailing ships. That’s when I decided that I wanted to be a ship captain and sail around the world and get paid for it. As soon as I graduated high school (on the sailing ship- our graduation was on the quay in Copenhagen), I moved to Texas to go to the Ocean and Marine Technology program to get my AB and QMED. It was basically the same course they offer now at PMI to get mates license. I started there in 1978. I’ve been working at sea since then. I did go back to school in 1988 and again in 1998, mostly just to satisfy my grandmother who said I would “never get a good job without a college degree”, Regardless of the fact that I already had a college degree (she said associates degree didn’t count) and I already HAD a good job (OSV captain didn’t count). Still working on boats every summer, every christmas and spring break. I went back to sea permanently as soon as I got my BA (math- never been able to use it anywhere- so showed grandmother it didn’t matter anymore, you STILL couldn’t get a good job even WITH a college degree and just wasted years of time and money). I’ve FINALLY just managed to earn my unlimited masters license in December of 2011! Still waiting to celebrate properly. 
Just hoping I can KEEP it now. With all the STCW and USCG BS we’re already dealing with and lots more coming down the pike. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to stand it. It’s a real shame they’re doing everything they can to keep us from actually enjoying our jobs and almost impossible to get into it now if you don’t have the ability to go to school for 4+ years. Not to mention that we don’t really have any deep sea (unlimited tonnage) ships any more and have to sail foreign vessels to keep working.
I was 27 and had never been on a boat, nor a ship before. Here I am 14 years later and hawsepiped my way up to Chief Mate Unlimited Oceans