I'm Not Done Yet

Digital art collage by Stella Kalaw

The blanket fell off my body onto the floor, where drips of water and pools of ginger ale sloshed around. And I didn’t care. I grabbed it with my hand and pulled it back over my body. I was lying on one of the dinette couches in the vessel’s galley, thinking of ways to escape, but there were none.

Our vessel was traversing through waves that crested at four metres. Winds of 99 knots came our way. It was epic. The boat rocked and rolled; there was no way out but through it. No one would send a Coast Guard helicopter to haul me off the deck, although I dreamed about Kevin Costner doing just that.

The boat motion didn’t affect just me. One of the ship's much younger crew members had been puking and, in his darkest moments, said he was considering a career change.

Earlier that day, I leaned out of my bunk and grabbed the garbage can. The contents of my stomach heaved themselves out. I felt much better afterward, but I was still immobilized. That was before I learned that motion sickness medication was my friend. I figured out how to ration the recommended dosage to avoid running out in the 24-hour time slots they discussed on the packaging.

That night, I slept fitfully on the galley couch in the stern of the vessel, one hand holding onto the side of the table so I wouldn’t slide off when there was a particularly good lurch. For days, I pulled together meals when I could stand, and the deckhand helped when I couldn’t.

Some of the crew were unaffected by the ship’s trajectory. Lucky them. A couple of the suffering (me included) bunked down in the galley because the motion was less, the other two took turns sleeping in an unoccupied cabin located further from the bow.

The song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot played through my head. It’s about a freighter that sank on Lake Superior in 1975, taking all 29 souls on board with it. Several lines of the lyrics relate to the cook on that ship. One is “Fellas it’s too rough to feed ya.” That’s exactly what I was thinking.

In my worst moments, I told myself that I was too old for this. That my days are numbered and wasting some of the remaining ones wishing to be dead on a turbulent sea was silly. Whose idea was this anyway?

How did I, a sixty-six-year-old woman who had never worked anywhere but with children and families, find myself with a job as a cook on a ship voyaging through Arctic waters?

Sometimes, a question is asked that you think you know the answer to well in advance. No way in hell I would ever agree to work on a ship. Hard no would be the answer. Would I sleep in a bunk in a tiny cabin, work 12-hour days cooking in a galley whose floor rocked with the ocean beneath it? No thanks!

I was telling a friend about the job offer last August. I remember her asking, “So are you going to do it?” Suddenly, it seemed a very real choice. To stay on the path I was on, or not.

I had been watching older friends and family members decline in health and mobility, their lives shrinking around them. Sometimes, it was necessary. For others, I wondered.

Was that where I was headed? To a life where I narrowed my choices before I needed to? I was treating my remaining years as if they were a countdown to death. Were all my stories already told? Was there anything left to add, or had I lived all the adventure in my fortune?

As I talked with my friend, I had an epiphany about aging. I reminded myself that there was still life in me. I have energy and good health. What if the part of my life that held new experiences wasn’t over yet? What if I could still do something I had never done before? My age was just a number, a marker on my timeline, not an off switch for excitement.

A week before the storm, our plane had landed in a small hamlet above the Arctic Circle. After several days of waiting on the vessel for crew and baggage to arrive, we set out on a journey that would take us about 3000 nautical miles south. We would navigate through Straits, Sounds, Basins and Gulfs, eventually finding our way past Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec and into the St.Lawrence River.

Within days of being aboard the vessel, it felt like home. I learned to walk the darkened companionway at night, heading for my bunk after setting out an evening snack for the crew who would be working all night. Taking the steep steps to the pantry and freezers on the lower deck required care and one hand to ensure I kept my footing when the waves tossed us. I discovered the risks of leaving dishes on a galley counter and how to wedge pots on the stove.

I asked questions. “What is that rectangular piece at the bottom of my cabin door?” It was demonstrated that I could kick it out if I became trapped and the ship was sinking or otherwise in peril. Comforting, I thought.

“How about the ladder set in the wall just ahead of my room? The one that leads upward to a round hatch?” That was to climb onto the top deck if the access to the stern was blocked and there was no way out. Also reassuring.

I was the only female member of the crew of eight. We were a small community travelling the seas with only one another for company. The internet was sketchy; everyone worked long days. We didn’t get to sit down together for meals. Shift work kept the vessel running 24 hours a day. Our homes of origin were scattered across the country. We had varied opinions on everything and we talked lots in the hours we spent together. Over the month, we became a team. Different from any I had ever worked with before.

After the storms, when we returned to a normal level of motion, the trip became more than pleasant. I was back on my feet and cooking the way everyone liked. Hot breakfasts that the crew could eat on their way to or from their bunks. Big dinners every night and soups and casseroles for lunch. Fresh coffee always ready.

The landscape was beautiful. We saw belugas, minke, and humpback whales. Dolphins and seabirds swooped nearby.

The days of seasickness drifted behind me like the sunsets we left behind each night. The captain informed me I’d be welcome back next year. Another crew member offered me a two-month gig on a different ship when I left this one.

It was gratifying to have the option of a new career just when I had considered my working days over.

I’m waiting for what adventure will be on the horizon next. I’ll be sixty-seven this spring. It’s just a year like any other, but who knows what it will offer?