Merchant marine academy students,
If you weren’t chosen this year for CTI’s Summer Mariner Program, try again next year.
The trainees have finished their shoreside training, on everything from steering, to throwing heaving lines, to setting cargo gear. Our training boat Curlew couldn’t cross the Canadian border this year, due to C19. So we arranged a challenging six-day voyage with the Oyster down the mud flats of the Snohomish River, through Deception Pass, then around the outer San Juan Islands.
The present crew of three trainees are all from Maine Maritime. Whip-smart, and hard as rock. No complaints from them, even when Nature handed them their asses. And happy to get paid to train.
This final week they’re out on the Curlew, steaming around the Salish Sea, learning engine room procedures and piloting. After that, they’ll get underway for their “internship”: a summer of work as deckhands.
The second crew begins training week after next. We start interviews for next year’s trainees come October, and again in March.