A cadet on a maritime school aspires to become a good seafarer someday. With his learned knowledge he strives to embark onboard a ship in a good company. Working onboard the ship for more than 6 months even up to 1 year gives him a chance to upgrade his profession and for possible promotion as an officer. After a few years of working onboard the ship he suddenly decides to stop and start to work on land. Nobody knows the reason why.

Why choose to work at sea?

Many seafarers are like the example above. A lot of reason may contribute to a person’s decision of becoming a seafarer. I can still remember the question that my Captain asks me during my cadet days. “Why you choose to become a seafarer”? I give him a quick answer, “I want to become rich”. He said to me that if every seafarer would give the same reason that I did, it would be a selfish answer.

“The reason that we choose to become a seafarer is to give our family a better life and to encourage other mariners to become good at their job as a seafarer”.

Those are the humble words of the captain that I was lucky enough to serve with. The life onboard the ship cannot be compared on the life on land. We do our job in a more difficult environment. We seldom see the land. We expose ourselves to different kinds of weather. We see the same person every day. We work with different types of people in different countries. We work under pressure. So why choose to work at sea? It’s simply because we like the challenge and the adventure behind our work.

Why quit your job at sea?

Various reasons contribute to the seafarer’s decision of leaving the ship. A lot of person consider it personal or work related reasons. Here are 10 common reasons why they decide to leave the ship.

1. They were given a chance to work in a shipping company
2. They had a very bad experience onboard their previous ship
3. They had a problem with their wife that leads to divorce and could not handle the problem, which leads to the decision of stopping his profession as a seafarer
4. They manage to find an alternative job in land with almost the same salary of his job on the ship
5. They were given an opportunity to work on land related to shipping and maritime industry
6. Their wife and family doesn’t want them to work onboard anymore
7. They were homesick
8. A member of their family died while they are still onboard the ship and this became a very bad experience that they can never erase from their minds.
9. They started a business and became successful
10. They won in a lottery

Is there an option to work on land?

There are a lot of options that a seafarer can work on land and quit shipboard job. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can become successful. It’s the level of success that you desire that matters. You can read the stories behind the seafarers who decided to quit shipboard job on this link.

Have your say

As a seafarer we always think of our future. We talk a lot about our retirement and how we’d like to spend it. Finding an option so you can quit your shipboard job in order to work on land would be a tough decision. You must prepare yourself to whatever circumstances that may arise. If you have any ideas that you would like to contribute or share to our fellow seafarer who plans to quit their shipboard job, you can write your comment and be heard. Share us your opinion so we could benefit from it too. You can bookmark this article for future reading.

Click Bloggers Guide for more topics/videos, or visit Pinoy Maritime Forum.