Cadet Life
Originally from Somerset, but now living in Portsmouth, Jon came to Warsash Maritime Academy as a Deck Cadet when he was 19. Jon returned to WMA in August 2008 as a lecturer on the Deck side.
“I heard about the career by accident really, I was all set to join the royal navy as a rating, when a family friend who was ex Royal Navy introduced me to the idea of being an officer in the MN instead.
As a cadet I was sponsored by P&O Containers, but later I moved to Foreland Shipping where I worked on Ro-Ro (Roll on/Roll off) vessels.
Being a cadet was amazing, certainly looking back on it. It was not always fun and frolics, but the travel aspect was brilliant and the camaraderie/”banter” was like nothing I had experienced before!
My time at college was great most of the time, they used to make us do early morning runs, and we had cabin inspections from the head at the time! The work was challenging and if you found yourself falling behind it was a struggle but we all looked out for each other; you never felt isolated. I’m still in contact with many of the guys I was here with as a cadet!
When I first started as a cadet, on board there was very little in the way of communicating with the outside world apart from by letter or postcard!
It started getting better on my third ship because we were trialling an email service, although it is not email as we all know it ashore. Messages were only ever sent two to three times a day, and could be read by everyone onboard, so nothing too personal ever went in there!
By the time I joined my last company, six years ago, we had private email accounts, but again they only went online two or three times a day, and were limited to a certain size so that they could be sent by satellite! Some companies out there now have broadband and VoIP, but I cannot say I have experienced such technology at sea.
As for the living arrangements, on the container vessels it was amazing, the ships were so big and they had such massive accommodation blocks - even the cadets had giant double cabins, en-suite bathrooms, and sometimes even separate living areas!
Food was normally great, many of the ships out there have foreign crews, so you find yourself eating such a diverse diet, and it is generally very healthy too!
In my time at sea I have been to well over 50 countries, and close to 200 places within those countries.
To name a few: Australia, New Zealand, North America (east and west coasts), Brazil, Canada (east and west coasts). Most of Northern Europe, Norway, Finland, Poland, Estonia, Malta, Cyprus, Crete, Greece, Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, India, Colombo, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Korea, South Africa, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and The Ascension Islands.
It’s difficult to pin down just one best moment of my career, my Crossing the Line (the Equator) was an amazing experience, the feeling leaving the MCA building having passed your first oral examination is impossible to explain.
Also seeing things like the Northern Lights for the first time, or the midnight sun up in Norway – people pay thousands of pounds for the things we get to do for free! There is no career like it – it’s fantastic. I’m so glad I followed it. I’d recommend it to young people, absolutely. You get to see and do so many things that you would never normally do.
I hadn’t planned to come ashore when I did, but there were many career options open for me; there were superintendent roles, management roles, personnel, legal, consultancy things, the list is quite large and varied. One day I hope to be able to get back out there to make up the extra sea-time I need to take my Masters orals.”