Tag Archives: working on the water

Maritime Monday for September 26th 2016: Encore Performance

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This weeks Maritime Monday is a good one. I do love art of all kinds, and especially maritime art (of course). This week there’s a very nice showcase of artists who liked to work on maritime subjects down through history. There’s also a mention of a new group, the “Sea Sisters”. I’ll definitely be checking them out. A neat article about the elevators on the Three Gorges Dam (I was excited to be able to cruise through there before the dam was finished), what an impressive project! Thanks to Monkey Fist and gCaptain for sharing all this great stuff!

The World’s Largest Elevator Can Lift 6.7 Million Pounds of Ship sploid.gizmodo …

Source: Maritime Monday for September 26th, 2016: Encore Performance – gCaptain

All About Me

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Todays prompt from the Daily Post is to write a post explaining “why you chose your blog’s title and what it means to you”.

I chose to call my blog “Captain Jills Journeys” for a couple of reasons.

I wanted to write a travel blog, since I love to travel and I’ve gone to a lot of interesting places (and hope to go to a lot more). So I tried to come up with words relating to that. I picked the work ‘journey’ because it sounded good with my name (Jill). I was also remembering how I used to write in my journal every day for years as I sailed around on the school ships. Journey- journal… which one? I wanted it to be about more than writing, so- ‘journey’ it is! 😉

So why call it Captain Jills Journeys (rather than just Jills Journeys)? I’ve spent most of my life on the water and worked my way up the hawsepipe to earn a captains license (finally managed an unlimited masters license a few years ago). I figured I would wind up blogging about boats and working on the water along with the travel. After all, one of the main reasons I started working at sea was the opportunity to see the world (and get paid for it!).

I also liked the alliteration and the sounds of the J’s together. It makes a short sentence and sounds cool. 🙂

I added on the tag line “she sails the seven seas in search of FREEDOM” to explain more fully what my blog (and me) are all about. My passions flow together in that sentence. I love to sail. I love to travel. And I am very intensely concerned with the issue of freedom.

Liberty and justice for all. Human rights. Individual liberty. However you want to say it. I very fervently believe that every person deserves to live the best life possible, that they should be able to chose to live the way they think is best for themselves. I do not think people should have to bow down to ANYONE.

We should all be equal under the law and any and all governments should obey the principles the US government was founded on (and no longer has any respect for). To PROTECT the “god-given” (or NATURAL) rights of the people. I just do not understand why so many people seem to feel that others have some sort of right to rule over them. I just don’t get it.

I am looking for some place in this world I can live free. I hope one day to find a place to settle down with other like minded people. A place where everyone is content to just “live and let live”. Most people think that’s some kind of fantasy, that it could never happen. So they won’t even TRY. I will at least keep on trying.

Wild Wednesday: Mola-Mola

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I’ve spent a lot of time at sea in my life. I grew up around the water and on boats. My father had a boat that he used for commercial fishing for a while. I used to go out commercial fishing before I got into working in the offshore sector. I even went deep sea for a while.

In all those years, I’ve never seen a mola mola (ocean sunfish) in the ocean until recently. I had heard about them and seen them in pictures and on TV and they fascinated me.

They just look so weird.

It looks like a shark or something chomped off half their body but they still manage quite well.

I finally did see a wild one recently. I was on watch on the bridge on my last ship and one was floating around. It must have been a pretty big one for us to be able to see it at all from the bridge.

I couldn’t leave the bridge to get a good look at it. I could only see it from the bridge wing which is about 75 ft above the water and about 200 ft forward of where it was. We were able to pick it up in the camera but not very well.

I hope to see some more of them around here. So far this hitch we have not seen much wildlife, but this evening there was a school of dolphins just off the bow. That’s always a good sign. 🙂

PS- it is Wednesday here.

2013 Women on the Water Announcement

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2013 Women on the Water Announcement.

It looks like I won’t be able to make it this year. 🙁

I’ll be heading back offshore on Sunday and won’t be back in time for this event (www.sunymaritime.edu/wow). I would encourage anyone living in the NY area to try to make it.

I went to the one in Galveston at Texas A & M two years ago and had a really great time. It was so interesting meeting all the people there (not just women 😉 ). We went on a dinner cruise around Galveston and had a reception on the sailing ship Elissa.

I’m sure SUNY will do a great job too!

How Long Have You Been a Sailor?

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How Long Have You Been a Sailor? | gCaptain

sir stuffington cat

What a cute kitty. Too bad it looks like its already been through hell. 🙁

I would adopt it if I could. Anyone need a good ships cat?

So, how long have I been a sailor? Almost as long as Sir Stuffington. 😉

I wasn’t born on a boat but my brother almost was. He’s only a year younger than me so that’ll give you some idea. For sure I could swim before I could walk. My family has always been close to the water.

When I was very young, we spent a lot of time playing on the beach and our families had boats we would go out on. We spent a lot of time around Long Island NY. My grandfather had a nice old cruiser we used a lot. We would go to Montauk, East Hampton, Jones Beach, Fire Island…

We settled down in Florida when I was ready for 1st grade. My father fell in love with the Island Girl. She was a large (LOA 72′) staysail schooner built in Detroit in 1910. He bought her and sailed her around from Miami to Madeira Beach where we spent the next few years working and living aboard (part time).

He eventually turned the Island Girl into a commercial fishing boat which is where I got my start working on the water. Between fishing trips, he would take friends out for fun sails around the Gulf of Mexico. We had such a blast with that boat. She was well known around Florida for years.

Island Girl

I moved on to the party boats down the street as soon as I could. That was a much more fun job for me. I could make a couple of trips on the weekends and earn enough to pay my dad rent for the month. I know it was unusual to rent an apartment from my dad instead of living with him but it worked for a while.

I was able to go to high school with the Oceanics. That was a HUGE opportunity for me and I jumped on it. It literally changed my life. I was able to sail around the world and I decided on that trip I was going to be a sea captain (instead of a Dr). 🙂

I’ve been working toward that goal ever since. I moved to Texas to go to school to get certified as an AB/QMED (Able Bodied seaman/Qualified Member of the Engine Department).

I finally earned my license from the US Coast Guard as Master Any Gross Tons just a couple of years ago. I was SO happy! I still haven’t had time to properly celebrate that accomplishment. If any of you reading my blog are sailors, you’ll know what I mean.

I do plan to have a party one of these days. As soon as I can find both the time and the money to spare, we’ll be having one to remember! 😉

So, here’s my question to my readers… how long have YOU been a sailor? Tell us your story. I’d like to hear it.

I’ll call it the ‘How long have you been a sailor’ challenge. Write up your story: when did you start sailing? why? do you still like it? or not? what kind of boat (it doesn’t have to be a sailboat!)? where? If you have a blog, do a link from your blog back here (pingback). If you don’t have a blog, don’t feel left out, just post it as a reply.