There are many things you experience on ships that you wouldn’t on land. The only real comparison is show business, as it’s a very similar mind-set. One of those things is the sensation that sweeps over everyone approximately mid-way through a contract. Which is where my ship is right now. In my case specifically, my exact half-way point was a few days ago, on the 26th, 5 months out, 5 months left, but the others are pretty much in the same boat.
This is the time when we all start feeling the pull of the anchor lines, reminding us just how long it’s been since we had dinner with our parents, got a hug from our brother, a smile from our sister, had drinks with our best friends etc etc….
What does this mean? It means all of a sudden we all start getting homesick, we all start getting tired, we all start feeling a bit worn down. This is also the time when a lot of the hook-ups start happening, when people start needing to be reminded that they’re still people at all – instead of robots simply programmed to smile day in and day out. For myself, this is when I start missing my family, both ship-side and shore-side. All of you know who you are – at least you’d better by now….
The funny thing is, it does pass. Once you get over the hump of the half-way point, it does pass. It doesn’t bother you all the time. The whole crew tends to get hit by it in peaks and valleys. That’s why you learn to take things in pieces. You can’t look at your contract as one long piece (in my particular case, doing so would be a one way ticket to the insane asylum), you have to look at in manageable segments. You pick a goal for the next month, a carrot to dangle in front of you and get you through. Once you reach that, you pick another one for the month after.
For me? It’s all about making it to Christmas, from there? January I get to see my Sister (for the first time in nearly two years!), February is Easter Island, March one of my friends from one of my old ships boards as F1, April well…April I go home…
But still, when it hits, it hits hard. For all of us. You never really get used to it, if you’re lucky (like I was) you find Family on board, but in some ways that’s not so lucky, because you end up missing them just as much once you switch ships. A taste of bitter and sweet that one is…
Looking at the calendar though, I can’t help thinking how fast the time of this very, very long stretch is actually going. We’ve only got one month left on this Grand Voyage. Only November and November will go quickly as it’s mostly ports.
Australia here we come!