I can only apologise for the recent radio silence, my friends. I’ve been a busy boy of late. It’s a bit of a shame that the cooler the stuff I do, the more NDAs and social media disclaimers I have to sign. I don’t think many of you have a spare $800M lying around that […]
I drafted this article after I’d been in a metaphorical decompression chamber for about a week, since leaving that last ship. A little 25 Gross Ton workboat. I’d been on her for only a few days before that visit, so I didn’t know the guts of her well. This time I spent 21 days on […]
It has been over a month since I posted. Apologies to loyal readers expecting their weekly tot. It has simply been too difficult to write recently. Has much happened this past month? FTX fraud and collapse? Uprisings in Iran and Communist China? The Dutch attempting to leave the WEF? Sunak and Hunt taking the supposedly […]
Monarchy, Mortality, and Morality. I never met The Queen. Neither did most of you. But I’m willing to bet that every single one of you had some sort of emotional reaction to the news of her passing. For my part, I have been reading the book of revelation, and Paul’s address to the Romans, in […]
Threat detection, empiricism, relativism, and authority. It’s been a busy old week! Since joining my ship on Wednesday I’ve had nine arrivals and departures, shifted berth twice, went alongside a ship in harbour for cargo, and pushed on to so many ships and towers offshore that I’ve lost count. And I’ve been training a new […]
A short piece on the portability of principles, instinct and having enough certainty to become your own ‘authority’. Has being ‘unvaccinated’ (i.e. normal until five minutes ago), damaged my career or made my life more difficult? Should I have kept my mouth shut? Was I just being a desperately paranoid weirdo? I don’t think so. […]
What does it mean to believe in fate? Why bother with the ‘Christian Label’? We Merchant Sailors live a hungry freelance existence. Your dream job comes up three or four times a year, but you are already engaged elsewhere and unable to take it. The guy with his bag packed, ready to go, is the […]
What good is knowledge if we don’t apply it? For the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity. Proverbs 24:16 ESV The sting of failure cuts like a whetted knife. The butterflies in your stomach turn to fear, then to rage, then to disbelief. Dizziness. What does […]
It was the second phase of my career in the Merchant Navy, and the step to the promotion that really marked me out from the crowd and secured my future. The move from Officer of the Watch (OOW), to Chief Mate Unlimited. Obtaining this licence would mean that you would be qualified to go on […]