And so ends one of the more trying, ridiculous periods of my life. My foray into Holland ended awkwardly with me flying home after 6 days. I thought things were going well but I was given flights home with no reasoning. To say I was furious is an understatement. Two months of wasted time, countless emails. Five interviews and at every stage I was told things were progressing well.

I still don’t have a reason but after countless hours of musing.

“I was not posh enough”

Needless to say my brain toiled on the 30 hour flight home coming up with wise and pointed things to unleash from my fingers at the vessel. I would sink it with vicious verse. To this very morning I was still going to write this angry email but I lost motivation when I got offered another much more suitable position.

Yacht recruitment is a strange and curious beast. A lot of the good jobs are never advertised. The crew agents spam Captains and HOD’s with hundreds of CV’s and it is very hard to get that face to face interview. After a couple of weeks of badgering crew agents I did have a bit of a brainwave…..

I have not been doing much writing and I would write my way out of this predicament. My words have always served me well but over the last year I have abandoned them. So I wrote a covering letter/story which tells my tale. I solicited some good luck from proven candidates. I then had the good fortune to find out about a position that was not advertised. 5 days later I have a job offer and will be flying to Europe next week.

There is a nice symmetry with this. It is five years ago just after easter Anna and I began our tentative steps as Sailors.