No one ever said working at sea was going to be easy and no one said a cargo ship would be any easier to live on but such should be life. They called me Jack back in school. My actual name is Jackson Culgurt but I’ve never been a fan of my name, so I just went by Jack. And now the open sea is like my home; it’s the only place I know, like the back of my hand.

But today was different, the air was salty and cooler than normal, and the birds weren’t out. The waves were soft and smooth against the ship. And the sun was blocked by a haze of clouds, gray, deep clouds sitting like heavy anchors. Then little taps hit the windows, the rain made the deck wet and the air felt gloomy on the bridge.

Over the very awesome walkie-talkie that all deck hands were granted, I heard:

*Attention attention man overboard portside I repeat man overboard man overboard port side it’s a boat* 

As I came up to the deck on the port side I could see a tiny speed boat adrift at about 30 meters. A group of seven men were on board; they looked thin from this distance. They were most likely Somali men which put us all on guard as they didn’t have a very good reputation with cargo ships, but we couldn’t just leave them there in the water miles away from land. So, we slowed the ship to a halt right beside the tiny boat of men and threw a small ladder to them. As the thin Somali men climbed up the ladder…

Photo by Nathan Fertig on Unsplash