Sailor Girl

You? A sailor? How did you ever end up at sea?

STV One and All

Well, it just kind of happened. I never planned on a career at sea…

When I was 15 there was a careers expo at school where the sail training ship Leeuwin II had a stand. I thought it looked like a fun adventure, but one that I couldn’t afford. When I found out it was possible to get sponsorship through the Captain’s Fund, I applied. I also got a job at the customer service training agency known as Maccas to pay the rest of the voyage fees. So I had my ten day adventure at sea…which I never planned on as a career, just as an adventure. An adventure I figured was finished when my family and I moved interstate to a land locked country town a few months later.

Then one day Mr Dooley came to school and spoke of sail training and the sponsorship he could help provide. A bunch of us signed up as interested, but I was the only one who followed through on it, so I got sponsored to go to sea a second time! My savings from the service agency paying the remainder of the voyage fees. So I had myself another ten day adventure at sea, this time on the ship from the city I then went to university in, the ship which has been part of my life ever since, the One & All.

Sunset on One and All

Moving to Adelaide for university, I joined One & All’s volunteer crew, slowly learning what I was doing then forgetting half of it before the next chance I had to sail. Maintenance days, day sails, voyages… they all added up and I found that I did indeed know what I was doing. When I graduated university six years later I knew that my long term plan was Bible translation, but I also knew that I was not yet ready to commit to that path. A job as a watch leader on One & All became available, so I took it. That which had started as an adventure, had become a volunteer pastime and was now a full time job!

A few years as a watch leader, including some experience overseas, and I was ready to return to university to start my theology degree and start the journey down the road to translation. I had also reached a point where I was bored with being a watch leader. As I had the sea time, I went to Maritime college and got my Master Class V. This allowed me to keep sailing, but gave me new challenges and responsibilities. It also gave me an income to help pay my way through a theology degree.

With other casual jobs, you can usually juggle them around your study schedule. With sailing, I would miss weeks of classes at a time, always pre-warning my lecturer and getting notes and readings to do so as not to be behind when I returned. Always keeping close tabs on the 80% class attendance requirements. I doubt I ever made it to more than 85% of any subject, but never to less than 80%. Mostly I worked over the summer holidays, often missing the last week of the school year to go to sea, and the first week of the new school year as I’d not yet returned from sea. Somehow, with no real holidays in three years, I managed to not burn out and to pass all my subjects. Thank you to all my lecturers who made it possible for me to juggle study and sailing, as well as to my compassionate and long suffering housemates.

When I left One & All it was as first mate, with a passion for sail training and an unexpected yet successful career at sea. I had also worked as an officer on other traditional sailing vessels, enjoying expanding my accidental career path. When I left Australia to work as a Bible translator, I thought I had given up on sailing. My best hope was that it would be an occasional pastime when home on furlough.

Playing with a telescope on HMB Endeavour

Then the organisation I am part of joined the Wa’a partnership with other organisations working in the Pacific region. They asked for volunteers to help build the partnership, in particular by joining YWAM on their medical ship, Pacific Link, during her annual season in PNG…

…so it was that I found I could bring together my former life at sea with my new life in PNG. The adventure that started in high school and became a career was once again needed, but as part of my translation career. Sure, this was a far cry from sail training, but it was still a chance to bring my lives together and contribute to something worthwhile. A chance I very much enjoyed.