First Ever

Hello family and friends!

Welcome.

After much deliberation and thought I've decided to start a blog on my life and most notably my time I'll be spending at sea starting this September. yes that's correct for those of you who don't know I'm currently attending the New Zealand Maritime School(http://www.maritime.ac.nz/ if you are interested, wouldn't really bother though as the sites pretty rubbish) studying towards my Second Mates Foreign Going Ticket and a Diploma in Nautical Science (not sure if that all should be capitalized but it makes it look more exciting so hey). i have to amass a years worth of sea time to be able to sit the oral exam for my ticket. Thus this September I'll be shipping out to sea as a cadet (like an intern sorta) to learn the tools of the trade.

Most of you may be thinking that all very well. and yes it is. but i'll take this time to elaborate on my course as I'm not at sea at the moment and there's nothing else really to talk about. My course is a three year one with a mixed agenda of sea time and classroom learning at the school on Auckland's waterfront. Currently my courses range from the topics of basic shipboard familiarization to cargo practices to industry knowledge. all pretty basic stuff, the hard stuff comes along next year when we do passage planning and radar. then we head out to sea again for 8 months to finish off our sea time. after that the rest of the next year we complete all the courses we missed and sit our oral exam which just happens to be 5 hours long. ouch.

So top on my mind right now is the finding of a company to get my cadetship with. which is rather harder than it sounds as most companies spend around 100,000 dollars per cadet and they get really very little out of it. many companies, for example Swires Shipping, make you sign a two year contract to work for them after you get your ticket if you do your cadetship with them. I wouldn't really mind signing a contract like that with a company. What i'm looking for is an interesting professional company that i can go places with, get internal promotions, and that will look after me as much as i look after the company's interests. oh, and they have to have sweet boats like heavy lift or icebreaking offshore tugs. So far i've contacted 15 companies. no replies so far. fingers crossed. I've listed a few off the top of my head that I've applied for.

Grieg Star line (Totally pimpn fleet there)
Holland America Line ( cruise ships, not really looking to go on them as its not 'real' work but if i had to i'd go here)
Swire Pacific ( offshore)
Jumbo (heavy lift dutch company)
Heavy Lift (yah guess what that one is)
ANL (container)
ACL ( PCC and RORO vessels)
CMA-CGM (french container company)
Trans Atlantic Shipping (container Roll on Roll off (RORO))
Hamburg Sud (container)
Reef Shipping (break bulk)
Spliethoff (multi purpose)

and a few more i can't name off the top of my head.My favorite company keeps changing but at the moment my favorite is Grieg Star Line (http://www.griegstar.com/) as they have a pretty mint fleet. They own 12 offshore/icebreakers supplying the oil rigs off the coast of Greenland. that would be an amazing job. working in the offshore industry would be pretty cool too as the pays +A, you get six months off a year, and the vessels are generally pretty new. The downside is that they work your ass off. but i always figure if you like your work you don't mind working more and if you don't like your work. make yourself like it or just deal with it.

that's all i can think of writing at the moment. leave a comment if you have any questions and it'll make me feel a little more loved. maybe even give a fuzzy warm feeling inside. yes that's correct. my happiness is directly in your hands. so comment.

lastly i'm gonna make it a tradition to post an interesting fact/figure at the end of each of my posts. Just because i like random facts really. So today's fact is that the paper clip was invented in Norway. who would'a guessed. if only i knew that on Tuesday night for the weekly pub quiz dammit.

oh and every shipping company gives upwards of $500 dollars a year to each officer at sea to buy sunglasses with. mint! ( and yes that was two facts but i just couldn't contain myself)

cheers and so long
Todd

PS i'll try to post as many photos as i can but i don't have a camera so we'll sea (see the pun there!)