My days at Sea ended

Dear Bloggers,

Once again it has been a really long time since I wrote my blog about my old job as a sailor…and I think I have come to realize the I’m just not one of those people who is a very good and regular blogger. Maybe it’s that I try to do my blogs to perfect and I will put too much detail into my posts…then they become too long.

However I did not want to leave this blog as an old sailorman that ended up landbased and would feel incomplete….I've had the feeling that my job at sea all of a sudden had come to an end and I walked around being unemployed and had to go search for a job that wasn't like evryone elses. I felt for awhile that i had failed and unfinished my job that I loved so much. So I decided to do my best and find a new one, A second kind of lasting love….

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So here is the short version of whats going on with me now….as I wrote in my former blogs, I started my new job with a temps office and learned how to be a bus driver on commuter busses close to home that was my first contract with them. As I was just there for the Summer but I stayed on until Newyears. I applied for a new contract with a different temps office for the same bus company but in the area of Groningen. The start was maybe quite rough but I learned quickly and some of the elder drivers told me, just do the best you can and don't be afraid to ask. 
 

I enjoyed the busy student routes and I found my way in most of the areas. During the seventh contract I got employed by the company at Qbuzz (the buscompany is one of the smallest ones in the country) …but then got transferred to the city of Groningen (the largest region and the biggest in the Northeren fleet!) Eventhough everything was better on the newest and largest depot I was not really happy here. (I enjoyed the old and quite a bit smaller depot and getting my own locker and little safetybox) I love the raw personalities of the drivers here as they are a smaal group and deal with the situations how they are crossing their paths. But let us go back to my goood old days at sea:

I have been sailing on the Mediterranean sea….with cruises starting out from Venice and Barcelona…and we docked in ports like Livorno (Pisa and Florence), Piraeus/Athens, Rome, and Naples and in Greece we saw some of the Islands(Santorini, Lesbos, zakhyntos.)…also Palma Spain (which is one of the most beautiful islands that I have ever seen). Also I got a chance to stop in Odessa in the Ukrain and Yalta on the Island Crimea, Limasol on Cyprus and we stopped over on Gibraltar and in Porto in Portugal as we were sailing up the Atlantic coast towards the North of Europe.

Also, my social life on the Astor was much more exciting than on any other ship or any other job. I actually kind of loved the job and hated on the same time over there….and though it did not work very well working long hours and going ashore and party after work…it was somewhat nice at the time as well. 
 

I visited so many amazing cities and places….in Venice Italy of course the Gondoleras…in Istanbul the Blue Mosque, well in Rome ROME!…I mean everything in Rome is beautiful…old…elaborate, and historical! And Athens the city of the Olympics and the Acropolis The tour starts at the temple of Olympian Zeus (6^th c. B.C.), one of the largest in antiquity and close by Hadrian's Arch (131 A.D.), which forms the symbolic entrance to the city. From there, we were walking along Dionysou Areopaghitou Street (on the south side of the Acropolis) you pass the ancient Theatre of Dionysos (5^thc. B.C.) where most of the works by Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylos and Aristophanes were performed.

Continuing, you will reach the ruins of the Asklepieion (5^th c. B.C.) and the Stoa of Eumenens (2th c. B.C.) and from there the Odeion of Herodes Atticus, which was built in 161 A.D. and is nowadays the venue of the performances of the Atheus Festival.

From there you climb up to the sacred rock of the Acropolis, the site of some of the most important masterpieces of worldwide architecture and art, the most renowned of which is the Parthenon temple. Apart from this, also impressive are the Propylaea. The temple of the Athene Nike and the Erechtheion, while you shouldn't skip a visit to the Museum, located close to the Parthenon. Moreover, from the rock you have an impressive view of the city. My advise hire a tourguide and you will understand so much more about all this.

The Atlantic Coast, …with all of the gorgeous weather in gulf of Biscay, High winds and rolling ship, and the amazingly beautiful Island of Guernsey. I could not believe that after waiting all that time…and working on a few ships…I had finally made it to the Northsea in my part of Europe to see some of the most charming places I have ever had the privilege of visiting! 
 

However, as exciting and beautiful as my time onboard was….I was not really enjoying the job on the ship anymore. Honestly I don’t know if I ever really loved being a waiter on a ship with no youth and having the felling sometimes that I was there mental counselor…not that the job is that bad…it’s just as a person with a service education as a background…and being a bartender at heart…I really wanted to do more with serving cocktails and logdrinks…and all the other things that we offered… I got the feeling somedays that we were basically their shrink. As they were telling me things as I was their therapist….after a little while it becomes annoying. 
 

Plus on a ship the size of the Astor…with lots of elder couple’s (I think in high season we had over 50)…there was almost never ever drama and conflict so it was boring like …. I was tired of that too. Then there was ship life itself…though I loved being out in ports…I was always sad when it was time to head back to the ship and get back to work after a busy and sometimes exhausting day of roaming the streets of Europe. I just wanted to have some time to decompress,reflect and relax.…and on a ship like this I did not have that.  

Having all these reasons and probably more….I decided in March 1995 just before they began with sailing down South and do the Atlantic Crossing I offered my resignation to the Hotelmanager and stopped my contract I left the ship and the feelings were double I would miss it and on the other hand I was reunited with my love. My search for a job started again and I started to do something that I had been dreaming about for years.

I went on an interview to sail on a ferry again closer to home and still being overseas, in between the countries The Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The interview was in Amsterdam …and I heard back from them within a few months that I had the job and if I wanted it, I had to jump on today a rough start but that is typically me. I was so excited…because for over the last few years this was my dream to find closure for other things…I had been wanting to actually move to a totally different continent, and experience what it would be like to live in big country like Australia this dream failed unfortunatly as I enjoyed life there but there were no jobs due to economic recession and we were just trying to become actually residents of that country. (So no Australian girlfriend or someone from another foreign country would have become my wife or anything like that). 
 

Therefore…I knew that my time on the Astor…would not be my last time on a ship (at least full time for a long period.)…because in March 1995 I came back from Bremerhaven in Germany and found a job in a local tobaccofactory for the time being to pay the bills. And next to it I had a job in the weekends in a local discotheque (I travelled home on my own dime at that because I ended up shortening my contract)…and started my preparation for the new start of my life! It took a while to recover and fill up my resources.
 

So in April 1996, I had to come back home after a early morning shift and prepare for my new job in the DFDS company as a bartender and waiter. A bit of a short notice so we quickly bought some shoes and utillities for my uniform. I sailed for this company on several cotracts,jobs and ships. I started as a bartender and waiter, as a shop assistant, night security guard, restaurantwaiter and running the Guest Service Center. I'ne sailed on the King of Scandinavia, Prince of Scandinavia and on the “new” King of Scandinavia (renamed nowadays as King Seaways)

I am grateful for the experiences and the relationships my time on the ships brought, I wished that I was able to chronicle it in a better, and more detailed way…but I hope this blog has been helpful to someone. I will keep my blog open for anyone who still finds my posts useful…and I may (I’m not 100% sure) start a blog about my time on the M/S Astor. 

If I do…I will certainly post the pages here…so those of you who are interested can follow my journeys half way across the world and the intriguing world of the lives on a cruiseship. I probably have to split up the story in several posts and I'll promise that they will follow eachother on a montly base. Mylife on the ferry has been told in earlier posts,

Thanks to every reader for coming along on the journey…it has certainly been an interesting one to say the least…and I have been happy to share this with you!

The Old Sailor,

Saunter

Dear Bloggers,

There are amazing sounds coming from the little silhouette in the tree. The dark blue sky shoots through the small beak. Could there also be birds who do not dare to sing their song? Who only sing their father's psalms when sitting next to him on a twig. My dad could tell me directly what name this little animal has received. With his eyes closed. So he must have seen it with me too. I did not know what a sissy was. Some kind of vegetable, I thought. At least I understood that it was something dirty. Not that I was busy with those kind of things. I did not search for these kind of answers as I do nowadays constantly. Just because I am curious and want to know why? Things were just the way they were and yes it was bad news and I had to man up. But in that regard, I was perhaps more a sensitive guy and sometimes I was maybe more a girl or a little sissy like my father called it.

For example, my mother always had tea ready when I came home after school. It seemed like she had been waiting the whole day for us, something that I could do as well. Just I love to hang out with my wife and kids. I was really a bit of a softy who could enjoy these little loving and caring things that my mother did. Yes and I was a pretty simple guy, I burned my lips and tongue on my tea over and over again.

Next to each other, we sat in the window sill, our wet hairs against the glass that protected us against the ticking drops that wanted to get in. We just had been under the shower. She looked at me. I looked at her. We sat together hand in hand in the window sill. The ticking was going on and it felt like that the window had disappeared and all the drops of the world sat in my body and wanted to get out. Tickling, tingling, tickling against the inside of my skin, my belly, my eyelids, my burned tongue and lips.

Abducted by my shivering spine. Sitting there in the window sill I saw how she, cold as ice, took a few big slugs of the steamy tea. Why did not I see that, she was not a little softy girl at all? And yes she was a lot harder and tougher than me. But I did not care about that I just loved her and did not really know yet, what I could do with this girl. So I just enjoyed each moment we had together.

Now I'm sitting on a bench in a park looking at a little bird whose name I do not know. It's singing so beautiful that it's got to be afraid of love and it must be heartbroken. Only years later, I just realized that there were many other possibilities in relations, and that boys with boys and girls could be with other girls and that these were the so-called sissies. So I was not a little sissy but a little wimp or a softy. In the years that I went to sea and sailed internationally, I discovered that this was not strange and that these people are actually very nice people. And some have become really the ones that should be counted to my best friends. So, I did not understand anything about fear of gays, no, they really don't play with you and it's not really contagious. 

I've been married with a marvelous woman and I understand that luckily we're not all being the same. The fact that I was not a sissy-boy was something I showed during my military service. I struggled and fought hard and cautiously there was only one way and that was only forward and it was sometimes that it felt tough and the road was heavy but with your comrades you can do a lot. Although there are some things that stick forever in your system, but it has made me the man I am now. And I'm very proud of it, even though I have to tell it to myself. I am maybe a bit off the wagon, but I think you should be a little bit crazy and I think it;s actually very healthy.

Do you see that there is an old exercise book between my feet on the ground? With the two horses on the cover. One white and one black, both are galloping, running, jogging. Ah, whatever. In that exercise book I wrote my first voluntary sentences. Her name is on top of each page. After a sweet story about just fun things and yes, what did I have a huge butterfly garden in my belly. 

Suddenly I saw those horses grazing between my old school stuff. Stories about her and me. That we walked into the village hand in hand. She secretly stayed with me without touching her own bed. I have described millions of kisses in detail. Descriptions of kisses that I would give her. And then there are only empty pages left, Blank, Virgin white pages. The stories stopped when she unfortunately did not come back to me again. What we were to each other it did not come back to me. She all of a sudden just collapsed and died on a volleyball court in a sports hall. What do I hate tumors in the brain. There are all those empty pages again.

Why does that little beast in my head not shut up? Why do the hollow sounds of the little creature still enter the empty night? I will flick him out of that tree with this damn book. It will now know that nobody will listen to him if I hit him with these running horses on his beak. I'm on to the bloody beast with his big mouth. Nobody will be able to see on which side the beak was. With a Smile on my face I will listen to the squeeze and the bloodshed of the blood under the weight of my foot. Very short and fierce I will laugh. Then tears will come and their will be regret. I will scrape the puddle with feathers from underneath my boot. I will punch it and push the air on my hand. "Fly, fly, fly again please," I'll whisper to it, "sing, sing, sing please." His parents will be heartbroken pops in my mind, all of a sudden. An t question myself: So much sadness and why? I'm still angry with the fact that someone will be ripped so out of your life. No, you don't want to give this to your worst enemy. For years I have been thinking about the deep wounds that must have struck in the life's of the parents, siblings, school friends and friends. 

And what to think of what was still to be explored in the field of love. Hardly and all of a sudden stopped every one's world and I became sick of the thought that I could never see her again and that I could not hold her anymore. Never more the fun together and doing things together. No, I picked up my life again and I could not change anything about it. Still, I ask myself these questions and I can sometimes walk around with this. Probably at a certain time she would have walked and had found somewhere in the world a tanned Adonis that could've made her happier. But yes ,,,,,,, I will never get these answers. The Lord is merciful but also about that I am no longer sure.

The galloping horses do not blow up any dust in my brain. It's been almost 35 years since and my life has known a lot of ups and downs. But never has anyone ever called me a sissy again. And yes, meanwhile, I am also the father of two children, and I hope I will do things better than my own parents, but that's the purpose of every parent in my opinion. I'm also making mistakes and I've forgiven my father for a long time. He was full of grief as such a young life should not stop this way, his heart broke as every parents heart would, he had to get us back on track as a family because everyday life just goes on. As I grow older, I notice more and more that people around me sometimes have deep scratches on their souls.

There are still beautiful sounds from the silhouette in the tree. The vocals of animal are answered by another birdie and suddenly they shoot through the branches. So there is always a new beginning and this is probably the most beautiful thing in the world. It's just those little things that can make life so beautiful. And then I realize that bench where I'm sitting alone and that I just have to go on with the most beautiful memories and the thoughts that just came together. I hope therefore whatever you should do in this life, think it's been worth it and I had the chance doing the most wonderful things in my life. Sometimes I was falling on my face pretty hard and I just wiped my tears away and took my loss, Even when it hurt I still got up again. So be careful with what you are saying to someone.

The Old Sailor,

Salty Waters and Strong Stories

Dear Bloggers,

While I'm here looking through my old records from the time I was a sailor, my great years at sea and I'm breaking my head about what will be happening with my retirement, I just feel like wanting a resentment and I would like to respond to the strangest stories I heard that have already been going around years and years. Quietly I am dreaming away in the turbulent waves of my thoughts. In order to write my other stories, and that will be over the coming months of the near future, my sailing stories are slowly running out.

But first of all, I would like to go on with this strange subject, as I have been that lucky to sail the seven seas in the world, and yes I have sometimes seen strange and impossible things at sea. But also the beautiful pictures with the most insane color spectra are shooting through my mind. Everyone knows them the wild but also strange stories about the well known and by many feared "Bermuda triangle". As many websites have been made about this particular phenomenon, it is considered as it could be true or not true. Shouldn't we be able to regard this as well as some popular stories and cases, If it did happen or not.

Yet around the famous and infamous Bermuda triangle located between the places of Porto-Rico, Miami, and Bermuda, the most wild stories and sevens make incredible stories where everyone is listening to with red ears and with full thrills. The cold chills will ripple over your back. It is where some people, get into the story so deeply that you just hear their brains squeaking.

Ships that suddenly disappear, planes that disappear in nothing in an inexplicable manner.

The most beautiful story I've ever heard is telling about the triangle is the following one. I think most of the sailors that have been there and those who will once go there will know this story too.

A ship sailing into the triangle area, comes at the level of the triangle and sees at a certain moment a steering less vessel drifting around. The captain of the arriving ship tried to get in touch with the steering less ship, but no one was found aboard to give any answer. The ship seemed to be abandoned and drifted like a ghost ship. The captain decided to go on board and have a look around and try to find out what was going on.

When he arrived on board there was no living soul to detect, but the tables were covered and the soup already served in the plates and they seemed to be very hot. In one of the cabins they found women's clothes which suggested that women had been on board of this vessel.

Then this story was hung up around this ship, and very detailed it was still exaggerated to help the story. In the first story, the crew would have seen land, a remote island. On this island, naked women stood waving to them, and the crew would have lowered the longboats to go to the island and join in with those naked ladies. Once set foot ashore, this all of a sudden sunk away and the crew was swallowed by the rouge waves.

In another story, it would be that the captain was corrupt and would have sold his cargo, and he had left the ship at sea and with crews drawn into longboats sailing further to safer places to waste the money. And so there are many stories going around, compasses that spin like crazy, And later all electronic devices that would fail to work or even blackout.

And then there are stories about spaceships that would abduct the crews of their ship and so on. All in all the crazy stories are going on here. And nobody can give a thorough explanation for this.

I have also been able to sail the triangle, and even it was in the period that it would statistically be the most dangerous the month of December. According to a research report most ships would disappear every 15^Th to 30^Th December. I have not even noticed something at all or had a strange feeling in my stomach about this peculiar phenomenon as well as the dull running of the compass or radio connections that are lost and what more they told. Yes, just name it.

A strange phenomenon what I have ever seen and experienced was on a high sea. This was on my night guard shift during the fire rounds from 20:00 to 06:00. At one point I suddenly see a beam of light somewhere in the distance somewhere in the close range, it seemed to me like there were driving cars in the distance and the light beam of their car was shining than overseas and was coming towards us.

About half an hour later, you saw lights from a city in the distance and saw the lights of the cars getting faster and getting closer to you. Once on the bridge again I talked to the on duty officer about this. Nevertheless, on the radar, nothing was detected and there was no sign of land or anything else nearby. The officer also looked with interest on this strange things and wondered just like me what was going on. Yet here was a statement, just an air reflection called a Fatah Morgana, nothing more nothing less. Anyway you can see and find strange and also weird things at sea.

Also the stories of the true sun-burned tough seamen who fought with huge jaws to rescue their ship, big monster-like octopuses, and just mention those with their huge tentacles dragging the ships to the bottom and what all can even happen more?

Is it true? Who knows? And who will tell?

The Old Sailor,

The day that something snapped in her brain

Dear Bloggers,

If one day you have the feeling that something in your brain just snapped.
I take care of my wife in times for better and for worse that is what I promised her when we married 20 years ago. And now that has become reality.

"She was still in bed because she had to get up later than me. I was up at 4.30 in the morning to go to work as I am a commuterbus driver. She talked about a snap in her head that she had felt on her job yesterday but there was nothing strange to see. It turned out that she could not get out of bed. She had woken up from the alarm clock and could not filter the sound properly. It's like there are ringing a lot of bells and she could not stop it. 

 

She also noticed that her right side did not work too well.
Obviously she wanted to get up. But it failed and so she was laying next to the bed. She knew that this was trouble and all the things she learned at the Red Cross as a rescuer and she began to check out all the signs of a cerebral infarction. Once in front of the mirror, she smiled at herself. I do not have a slanting mouth so that is all that matters. Eventhough she did not manage to talk properly and she seemed to be a bit confused. Just go to work dear, I'm taking good care of myself today. The day passed and when I came back home she was laying on the couch and looked at me with teary eyes.

Only then did she warn me by crying very hard and said she would like to shout and scream like a wild animal. There is such a pain in the back of my head and on this side of my face I feel nothing. When I sat down next to her, she was a little panicky and tried to talk to me what was not going to well. Fortunately, she was consiousness and we found together that it looked very similar to the picture of a stroke. Then the mill was turning. And so we crossed all of a sudden through the doctor's office towards the hospital, no serious brain injury was detected. But what was exactly the cause of this was not really clear but it according to the doctor it seemed to be a part of serious stress.

After half a night at the hospital, we returned home and she told me that she was very afraid of getting a stroke. Still somehow it kept worrying us and we were forwarded by our own doctor to see the neurologist for further and deeper research. Due to the serious anxiety and panic disorder, it was all very complicated to get an MRI scan. But together we can concur the whole world.

Once at home, the misery got started and was for real. I had a full-time job in addition to it I had to take care of my wife and two children, My working hours were quickly reduced from 40 to 36 hours. She could not take care of herself for the hours she was at home. Most of the day she slept and I had to leave her home alone for several hours, I could not live with this. What I also arranged before I went to work, I fixed her medication, prepared a sandwich for her and made sure she did not had to miss anything. Nothing really worked out and she slipped slowly into the abyss.

As a blessing in diguise I had to be unemployed and sit home for a half-year in connection with my temporary contract and enjoy a benefitpay. I have visited many hospitals in this year and psychological helpers our car brought us everywhere. A deadly tiring route for the both of us.

It's amazing she has not even once been taken to a mental hospital and for everyone it is a big surprise because in this total period of 24 months with the help of a psychiatrist and to deal with a complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and a pretty intensive treatment for this, she has been advised to spend a day and to search for a daycare to find some balance. Now her days are filled with a morning spend at a care farm and 1x physio gym. She has always been a busy and active person. Her job was call centre agent and she was a specialist in solving complaints. Now she has now been disapproved for work for 80 to 100%. 

 

I did not cancel my job to help her but I work a 32-hour contract with a few good appointments with the planner and together with our eldest daughter we are doing fine. We put ourselves in such a way as caregivers do because the only alternative was a hospitalization / nursing home. We do not have a personal carebudget because this is not indicated, and unfortunately my salary is not big enough for hiring a nurse 8 hours a day for private guidance and for domestic assistance.

She can do quite a lot and even though she has already being picking up a lot of things, it's no longer as it was before, and she can not do as much anymore as in the good old days. Her long-term memory is as good as before, but some moment she no longer knows where she has left her glasses. The sense of time she has lost with some regularity. 

 

She can get into a panic attack at any time if something happens in her area that she has not provided. Her senses such as hearing, brightness, light, smell and taste are severely affected and seriously reinforce more than necassary during the bad periods. I therefore try to protect her all day from too many incentives of this kind. Unfortunately, I can not always be as successful in this regard. Nevertheless, she is accepting her situation slowly

Besides being a partner and her sweetheart, I became mainly her driver, nurse, butler, caregiver, supervisor, spokesman, administrative / agenda administrator etc. etc. Her hobbies are now a little puzzling and working a bit on the tablet.

Together we were always active in the neighborhood and we were happy to help with friends, acquaintances and family. All practical / physical hard work is going to be pretty good. But what we miss the most is walking hand in hand (although this happens sometimes more and more often.), We cannot say spontaneously anymore: "Let's go on a trip for a weekend," an old-fashioned steamy night (even a little bit of cuddling is not always possible No longer we can be unprejudiced intimate). What I miss the most is being the equivalent in a conversation (if that's possible because these kind of things are often too tiring to hold the concentration). I never know how she will respond as it is differently due to the PTSS or because she can dissociate sometimes completely. I often see that when I tell her things, it does not come to her completely. Also, she often can not remember all of it and I havr to tell it again.

And then ther is the worry about the finances. Previously, we both had jobs with related to it a fairly good income. Now we only have her benefitspayment and my 32-hour salary. In addition, we have two school-aged children therefor you will pay enough, which remains after deduction of transport costs, school fees and daycare expenses. We live in a private home which is not really suitable for someone who suffers from conversion disorders, which makes climbing stairs difficult sometimes. We are looking for a nice bungalow so we can sleep on groundlevel, but how do I sell our current property. Fortunately, as what has happened to many other homeowners, the mortgage is not heavily underwater. But a bungalow often costs quite a bit more. I get that residual debt for what we have to take on as extra mortgage we will never be able to pay this all back because I'm not in a position to work more because I want to take care of her and I need to take care of her.

And then the decoration of our house is cheerful but not too crazy because that is not possible anymore. Anyone who comes will agree with us. As this situation now it is not ideal. No, we know that it isn't ideal, yes we realize that. But how would you be doing this...? Nobody has an answer to these questions. I do not want to buy new furniture in the wild, as it shows afterwards that it might take several years to sell the house and move and maybe it might turm out different.

Let me make one thing clear PTSD will hit the whole family.
And one more thing ........... My wife fortunately has no admission indication for a nursing / nursing home. Because then she should live there seperate from us. We do not want that, our children are entitled to have a loving mother and I would like to offer my life for my love. She's only 47 years old and I'm 49. But our life never gets back to how it was. Yep, and all of this has been done to her at her workplace by a couple of sick types who will call themselves Team Leader. And as I feel now, my life will never be really fun anymore and I've had my best days in live already. A PTSD gets the both of you and will hold you hostage. These kind of things are too sad for words.

The Old Sailor,