Here’s the topper of them all…my first third mate’s job fresh out of school:
Fly US west coast to NY (8 hours), change planes layover (6hours), fly NY to Paris (11hours), agent drive to ship in Le Harve (4 hours), arrive on ship just as watch is starting (4 hours) and then work cargo overtime (4 hours), call all hands to get underway (4 hours), time to go back on watch in the English Channel (4 more hours). Finally get into a proper bed 45 hours after leaving home and all this time in the middle of winter working out in the cold on deck of a tanker. Wake up 7 hours later to go back on watch and have a 102degree fever and the worst flu in my life but thank God that the master told me to get back into my bunk and took my watch for me. 12 hours later, my fever was down so I went on watch again for 6 hours but damn I was one whipped wet puppy and it is a miracle I made it through that watch with the ship on one piece.
All this time I’m wondering if this is what it’s like every time a man joins a ship and how in the hell I’m going to be able to keep doing this to myself even though I am only 22. 25 years and hundreds of crewchanges later some of which were a cruel version of hell, that one still was the worst of them all,Yeaaacchhhh!