Sea to Shore : An open Clandestine

Transitioning ashore for a mariner is not easy. But a time comes when this change becomes inevitable.  Please sit back with your favorite drink and read through my own experience of the transition from sea to shore. I will try to keep it short.

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The notion of quitting sea and transitioning ashore is a thought process which is synonymous to all mariners .But what makes it so difficult is something that i would like to express.
Life was going smooth & steady as planned and god was being kind enough in unfolding every page
as and when needed. My sea career started in 2007. The juvenile child in me was excited to take on the world of my dreams. Over the years, the glasses of maturity had become permanent. We tend to understand things more realistically and life is being read from a completely different thought process.
The home sickness was never there for me but the time spent at sea definitely taught me what does family and home bring to your life. I was fortunate to grow with some of the great leaders who helped me shape as a qualified mariner with great panache.

But life is not all about rosy days. As mentioned in my previous article, losing my father while being at sea brought a mammoth change in my life. Remembering his golden words "Hard work and experience has no substitute" kept me going. Mind & heart were collaborating and paving a path to towards a new chapter.

March 2020 : A time when the world was battling the wrath of corona virus.
Sailors were declared as the essential workers. The world stopped including the aviation industry but ships manned by their mariners were cruising through the seas and serving the world.
I was one of the many sailors sitting in my house wondering if going to sea is the right call during the outspread of corona virus

But what other options did i have? The impulse answer was NONE.

And then the hurricane of eagerness in me had risen. The search of various shore jobs was on my google search. Be it a marine supdt, vetting, operations, surveyors, pilots, etc : you name it and i knew the criteria for them and soon I had my juvenile conclusion : i need to go back to sea. Ha ! Destiny had its own plan. The juvenile Baldeep had woken up with a mission. The mission was to find out which shore job is suitable for me and why is it so difficult to come ashore.The plethora of advises from the industry peers was of great help but it also kept procrastinating the decision and to some extent make it confusing.

The few weeks of brain storming on the shore jobs had made one thing very clear. I was not going back to sea without giving my heart and soul in an attempt to find a shore job and then came a role knocking towards me. I say knocking towards me because it was totally unexpected.

The selection process started and with every round my eagerness was amplifying.
The offer letter found its way in my inbox and it also left an unwritten question.
Is this money enough to sustain? Am i doing the right thing?
The above questions have safely anchored across all the mariners always. How strongly money was taken over our lives is simply unimaginable. 😉

It was that time where i had to take the call and put an end to the turbulence in my mind.
Speaking to some of my trusted peers, i accepted the offer and thanked almighty for this opportunity.
At times, we go into the ungrateful zone and make it extremely difficult for ourselves to trust the almighty plan.

As i write about this experience, i have completed 4 years successfully ashore and have even blessed with an elevation at the beginning of 2024.  Whoever said that God is great and trust his plan must have gone through a similar experience. The last 4 years have been enthralling for various reasons. Its simply incredible when mariners approach me and seek advise prior coming ashore. :D

Some words of wisdom to end this write up.
"Glass is half empty of or half full" was an idiom written by a genius.
  Do not complicate things my fellow mariners. Trust your self and the almighty.

With that, I am presuming the drink poured at the start of the article is over.
And if this article has forced you to have another drink, do invite me but ensure the glass is always half full. 😊

Cheers !
Rab Rakha !
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Baldeep Singh