American Meets German

On Monday my Vessel Ops class and I had the wonderful experience of going on a tour of a cruise ship. I was very excited because I had never even been near a cruise ship before Monday. As soon as we chain locked all our belongings and tied off Indy alongside what seemed to us a very sketchy port we went to get checked in. At the front desk besides being bombarded with tons of security we were greeted by a lovely young lady named Tabea Nele Bouwman. Tabea is A college student back in Germany. She goes to a maritime college which I admire because I would like to attend a maritime college as well. Tabea is an apprentice and  has only a year left of college which is just a year at sea. She just finished a month on this cruise and has 5 more months to go off her contract. Tabea's schedule consists of an 8am-12pm shift with an hour break for lunch and then her shift continues 1pm-7pm. She is allowed to dine at most restaurants but isn't allowed to use all the amenities that the ship has to offer like the swimming pool. I found to have some similarities with Tabea like we both share a love and passion for Tall ships. Tabea has worked with Fair Transport which is a company that takes experienced and inexperienced people out on sailing cargo ships and teaches them all about being responsible global citizens. Its an opportunity for people to learn more about the industry while also learning skills and disciplines that have grown too old to be used in today's maritime industry. Tabea took part of this adventure for an astonishing 8 months. Tabea is planning on going back on Nordly  which is an engineless cargo ship. She plans her return once she graduates college this upcoming year.