I am at this very moment going through the motions of looking for work within the yachting industry.  It is a painful process for me any way, as it never seems to run smoothly or go as quickly as I would like or anticipate making me get right to the edge of my seat and finances.  With people trying to assess you from a flat piece of paper, how can you look at that CV and see me? How can a 3 dimensional person be flattened, squished and yet still be represented.  I do not get it, having to try to get a whole personality on 2 pages.  I have been taking on board the advice that is given tweaking this changing that as I want this process to be as easy as possible.  When I arrived in Antigua with such high hopes and a real need to get working and learning I was excited but knew I had been out of the industry for a short time so was going to have to prove myself again so to get the references I needed.

This is an industry of ‘ist’s sexists ageist racist and all of the ist’s that are in the english language.  An industry that does not have to adhere to the conventional rules of normal society shall we say and so they can pick and choose and decided what and who they want on board their vessel.  This comes from owners and a few captains, who wants an unattractive crew when you could be surrounded by youthful beauty.  Some captains do just want crew who get on with their jobs and are ok to hang out with.  You live in each others pockets so it is essential that you get on so always picking the right personalities is very important.  When a crew works well it is a great environment and everyone helps each other, on the other hand if it is bad than it can be hell on earth.

Antigua is a beautiful Caribbean island and I was living in a slight dream world within the crew house.  I have spent time in other ports and crew houses so have had this nice sense of being looked after before but not quite as nicely as this.  This was shared accommodation but we had our little pockets of space as our beds where carefully placed around the two main houses.  She had three other smaller self-contained apartments for the real guests for the ones that had a little more cash and wanted some luxury.  Sometime the two worlds collided badly and she was trying to entertain people whose expectations where high against the rabble of 25 of us kids, partying and making a racket in the main house.  Not an easy juggling act to say the least.  We had a big dog who we all collectively spent time with “Rum dog” was his name of course.  The beach was a short walk from the crew house and in the afternoons we would all go and soak up some sun and take rum dog swimming he was a salty old sea dog of course.

As always in this industry I meet young boys which is always fun and  then amazing strong independent women.  This time was no exception with a Kiwi some Ozzies and a few sailor ladies who were inspiring.  We all bonded quickly and started to learn about each others skills, I was especially interested in the girls who worked out on deck as I Always wanted to be out side but seemed to keep getting sucked back into the galley.  Crazy when I say it now because I am an outdoor girl tough and strong always have been so I want to be out there but am good at cooking so have made my way into the galley.  We are all dock walking most mornings talking to crew and trying to network, dock walking to those that have never done it can be soul destroying.  It reminds me of  door to door selling you need to be confident and approach crew on board the yachts whilst they are working.  Most crew are kind and will inform you that they are fully crewed already sending you away with a little smile and some encouraging words.  Some crew on the other hand can be rude and a little cruel this is when little pieces of your confidence and maybe even self respect slowly starts to get chipped away.  Like being pixellated and little pieces are flying off into space.

I am sure there are people out there whose skin is so thick that they do not feel any of this and they bowl along and get work.  It amazes me to see these over-confident people get work just through their arrogance really and some good marketing tools.  The really organised people have business cards and they hand them out to perspective captains and crew members.  Marketing is a powerful tool as we know and people do believe/fall for it.  If you can make yourself look good with cards and websites than you will probably get the job.   This industry is what it is because of the amount of people willing to work within it, so they can choose to be picky.  I think that there are a lot of people who just need to be given a chance and they will flourish and be a lot less annoying to live with than the arrogant ones.