Oh ship life…
A humorous part of this life is not actually what happens during your contract but what happens once you leave. Yes, you leave the ship with your bags, your passport (Which you actually have grown an attachment to after it has been held captive for so long), and of course your plane ticket(s) home. You are happy once your feet leave that vessel maybe a sense of longing to bring your new friends home with you lingers but after 6-8 months away from home, it’s time to go. Sorry, I’m not sorry friends.
Once you leave you, you have not got on vacation according to your friends. No.
You have died.
Your name is mentioned in the past tense, only reminiscent of the good and happy times. Sitting at the bar stool you used to take up was more a ritual of mourning than a normal activity. After a week or so (or maybe a cruise or two, depending on the length of cruises) this will wear off to an extent as you stay in contact or you are steadily replaced by a new sign on or even a crew member who themselves have “overcome the grave” that is vacation.
Now this is taken to a similar extreme for someone who is transferred from their present ship to another. Usually transfers are spontaneous orders from head office to cover an empty slot opened by any number of reasons (Health, family, or even resignations). I’ve heard people getting transfer orders with 2 weeks notice to 12 hours notice. And in that time you pack all your things and poof you’re gone.
Sign off is dying of old age and transfer is dying of a violent and aggressive cancer. Every time someone looks to you, a frown reaches their face as if you actually lying down, pasty, pale in a hospital bed, a blank look staring into the abyss. When that isn’t true in the slightest, as, of course, most are usually in denial or attempt denial that they are being moved.
Life on ships is not for everyone with this constant touch and go way of life. But the friendships that you can sustain are ones that you can hold onto for a long time. This life is an accelerated college dorm life. Work hard, party harder, and smiles all the time.
Even if it is time for your sign off “Funeral”
😉
Skip The Moment 