On The Question Of Loneliness

I don’t know what to tell you, my darlings. Everything I start to write sounds too cheerful, or wallows in self-pity. The truth of it is, you’ll be lonely. You’ll feel abandoned by the world, even though you’re the one who hopped on board a ship bound for the deep blue. Maybe you’ll cry, or feel numb, or get angry. You might try to bond with your crew (and succeed, or be rejected, or have it confused with flirting). You’ll stare compulsively at your phone, even when it has no reception. Personally, I get brittle and touch-starved and end up buying a lot of weird things on Craigslist. 

But hold on. There are people who love you, and their love is a cliched nautical metaphor! Like an anchor in a storm, it just gets stronger when you let out more scope. They will text you horrible details about their office jobs. They’ll rejoice if you show up on their doorstep reeking of gurry and in mortal need of a nap. They’ll give you rides to the dock at ass o’clock in the morning, and collect your mail for you so you won’t end up like that poor, nameless sailor who used my Post Office in San Diego. His friends signed him up for the Bacon Of The Month Club while he was circumnavigating South America.

My point here is that there are up-sides to the weeping and the solitude. Shore leave feels urgent, and that urgency can spark better, more vibrant connections with other human beings. Maybe you’ll stop putting off calling your mother, because you have to do it before you ship out again. You’ll have a hard time keeping acquaintances, but you’ll fly across the country to laugh with an old sweetheart. You'll find a sort of peace in it, some kind of rhythm or a set of habits that help you through the emotional swells. 

And maybe most importantly, you’ll meet other mariners who you can call at 3am when you’re on wheel watch in shitty weather, because they are, too. We’re out here with you, scared and sleepy, somewhere in the darkness or squinting under the endless sun, and we have your back. 

Packing for a West Coast River Tug

For the most part, I still try to pack like I'm going to live on a 34-ft salmon troller. I've seen a lot of burly tugboaters casually wrestling with enormous rolling luggage or haphazardly-filled garbage sacks. If you're ladyfolk, though, your luggage will somehow become a Symbol of Gender and boatbros may give you shit if it has wheels or colors or seems, ahem, "delicate." You can plan to minimize this, or you can go get a Bedazzler and cover your luggage with an enormous middle finger made of rhinestones. I support you regardless.

My bag is a canvas duffel from Goodwill. I sewed a skull and crossbones on it. For morale.

The luxury of on-board laundry means I can pack clothing for 5 days and plan for two wash cycles during the 15 day tour.

Summer is light, ripstop pans with many pockets; crewneck tshirts with some sleeve (I buy men's undershirts in black: they're fitted without being form-fitting, don't advertise my armpits, and don't show engine grease), thin wool socks and a hoodie or windbreaker. Winter is all that plus longjohns and a wool sweater, thick wool socks, and a safety-yellow wool hat knitted by a dear friend. And a backup hat. And more socks.

Bring sleepwear appropriate for emergency muster and/or bathroom trips through the galley.

Always bring rain gear. I personally don't like the Tactical Breathable Gore-tex variety. The material’s magical pores fill up with grime, I don't have the time or space to be re-treating it with whatever fancy spray it wants, and it gets ripped open regularly by the many sharp corners on deck. I like the old PVC stuff that is basically two squares with arms and legs and a hood slapped on. Viking Journeyman Oil Resistant costs $30 or so, and has lasted me years. This is also good stuff for commercial fishing (just chop the sleeves off at 3/4 so they don't wick fish blood up to your elbows).

A Kindle and an mp3 player. CHARGERS. Toiletries, always to include a Diva cup, baby wipes for removing engine oil between showers, and heavy-duty lotion. Travel-size, screw-top bottles for all liquids. Two tennis balls and a giant rubber band for DIY physical therapy. Stick-on disposable heating pads are pretty great, if you get cramps.

A pair of leather Keen shoes and a pair of steel-toe rubber boots (Xtratufs are flexible and have good traction, and make you look Super Legit on the West Coast. Seriously, I think I got my job in part because I wore these to the interview).

A chart book, so I know where the hell we are when there's no phone reception.

Extra gloves. A headlamp and flashlight. Locking-blade pocket knife. Victorinox serrated knife for emergencies, strapped to my life vest. Life vest pockets also contain a tiny winch repair kit, electrical tape, cheap plastic safety glasses, and a continuity tester. Basically anything I would need on the barge and not want to spend 5 minutes fetching.

Basic meds, if the boat doesn't have them. Melatonin, if that's your jam. Good chocolate and your favorite tea.

And since I don't work on tiny boats anymore, and the staterooms are very soundproof: a banjo. 

"How did you get started in the maritime industry?"

The sea is Poseidon, they say. Mazu, protector of seafarers. Ahti, god of fish. Illuyanka, dragon of the ocean. Every place where land meets water the people have built up a mythology, stories piled like sandbags to hold back the raw salt tide.

I'm a white American woman, so in my pantheon the ocean is a cruel ex who used to text me sexy pictures until I forgot, again and again, how bad it was.

I grew up on an island, with the sea licking at the foundations of our house. I wanted to be a fisherman like my parents. I wanted to be a sailor like my brother. I got seasick on damp grass, and I dreamed of landing salmon and trimming sails and squinting knowingly across the trackless deeps. I talked my father into letting me crew for him, the two perfect summers before he retired. I have never been so euphoric or so miserable.

I bought a derelict sailboat with my friends, and we spent two winters living aboard and rebuilding all the systems from scratch. We sailed for a grand total of 10 days, and I came ashore an exhausted wreck. 

I worked on a a fishing boat named the Princess, with an Amazonian captain and my oldest friend as crew. We followed king salmon through azure waters in the shadow of a jagged mountain range, and I gloried in the hunt and the blood and the camaraderie while throwing up my toenails on a strict 20 minute schedule.

I broke up with the ocean. I got a degree. I got white-collar jobs. I don’t know whether to blame naivety, the economy, or fate, but I ended up working in a windowless hallway and writing soulless advertising copy about roadside assistance.

Finally I looked around Portland, the city I’d happened to land in. Hey, I thought. There’s a river. Rivers don’t go up and down. They don’t, for the most part, try to murder people with hurricanes and rogue waves and whirlpools. I see some boats out there. They’re big, weird rectangles that look ready to flip over in a light swell. They’re perfect.

I quit my white-collar job. Re-built my resume to play up all that ill-fated sea time. Started making phone calls, visited the Inland Boatman's Union, walked the docks like you do when you’re the new kid in town and you just want to find some raspy old man who will trade pre-season work for a chance to prove yourself.

Turns out the Columbia River is even more of a closed industry than fishing. There aren't actually any docks to walk; they're all blocked by chain link fences and MARSEC warnings. I applied for a job as a marine dispatcher, and the interviewer told me point-blank that it was a miserable job and would never get me out on the boats.

After almost a year, I had yet to even talk to anyone who decked on river tugs. I got in touch with the Workboat Academy in Seattle, thinking that a mate's license might give me more traction. The week I planned to sign my entrance papers, I saw a deckhand position appear on Craigslist. 

I came to the interview in rubber boots and told stories about bears and gave everyone very firm handshakes. I was the only woman in a crowd of burly, Copenhagen-dipping dudes, but I passed the physical capacity test (pulling and pushing 200 pounds; lifting 120 and carrying 80) and could talk about rebuilding marine reduction gears, which I guess gave me an edge.

I’ve been a deckhand on tugboats for three years now. I traded the adrenaline and euphoria of seafaring for a good paycheck, a predictable schedule, and 100% less nausea. I think I’ve finally deleted the ocean’s number from my phone, so it can’t wake me up at 2 AM with visions of billowing sails and gleaming fish. I miss the way it smells. I miss its voice, the unpredictable moods, even the damn sea lions. I miss hanging out with its friends. But the river and I are moving in together, and it’s promising me a future that the ocean never could.