A Sailor's Life is the Life For Me

I am a firm believer that you have never truly seen the sun set until you have seen it out at sea. The most serene and picturesque sunset that I have experienced was the first one that I witnessed onboard my first ship at sea. The Sky was orange and silver as the stars made their way out to shine. The water was smooth as glass and calm as my ship gently glided through. Silver in color, yet somehow still deep and blue, you could hear the ship’s bow as it cut ever so tenderly through the water as we pressed on forward. The sun was a radiant orange and red and as it touched on the horizon it almost looked as if it had been extinguished as the sky changed from the orangey-silver to the deep black of night.

This, among many other reasons is why I love being a sailor. I love being at sea. There is a serenity that can only be found on the water in the middle of nowhere where you have no where to go and nothing to see but clouds, stars, and water. If you haven’t guessed by now, I am once again out to sea for the ump-teenth time. And while most complain and gripe about it, I actually enjoy it. I look forward to it. I live for it. I can’t imagine life if I couldn’t have time underway. In all reality, I find myself working a billion times harder when I’m out to sea, but that is part of what makes an underway fly by, the constant working into the wee hours of the night, since in all reality, you have nothing better to do anyhow.

I know that this will all change once I am married and my wife and step-son are waiting for me on the shore. But I still think that I will enjoy my time on the open water. And when you stop to really evaluate things, being a sailor can keep a relationship fresh and new… (The time away will usually make the heart grow fonder, and returning after weeks or months at sea is like returning to a new relationship.) Being a sailor grants you, no, affords you the necessary space that every relationship needs every now and again. And even though I love my future wife more than anything, I wouldn’t trade my life as a Sailor for anything. Sure there are a whole slew of negatives with being a sailor… but when I stop and truly analyze things, I would have never found my fiancé if it weren’t for the navy. (We met through mutual friends acquired thorough the navy, and she lives in a part of the Philippines that I may have never gone to if it weren’t for our mutual friends.)

Factor in the new and exotic places that are possibilities… if it weren’t for the US Navy, I would have never seen the many places that I’ve been in the world. Mini-Vacations if you will (when you get time off that is…) compliments of the United States Government. So while others may complain, you will hear nothing of the sort from me. For a Sailor’s Life is the Life for me, and I love to be on the open sea…