If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my many years at sea, it’s that you can’t command a ship whilst wearing heels. I gave a crash-course to a bunch of landlubbers last week, and for some strange reason one of the ladies came aboard wearing heels. Some people just don’t have any idea what life at sea involves, I suppose. One long weekend later and she certainly learned her place on-board!

The ways of the sea are steadily being lost to time, even as they become more advanced. My father, and my father’s father, and his father before him…they never had access to outboard motor services available in Melbourne right now. They had to work on their own boat, and fancy repairs done by other people were all for the rich and powerful. Now…they’re available for all. Which is good, but people are only now reclaiming the sea, and they’re utterly clueless about it. 70% of the planet’s surface is covered in the stuff, and yet we’ve lost the art.

Well, not if we manage to get more folks on-board. And by on-board, I do of course mean on-board, because they’re not going to learn if they don’t set foot onto an actual ship and get their sea-legs. That’s why I established Shanty Joe’s School of Seafaring. Might just be a gimmick to plenty of people now, but so long as people are signing up for a joke and a fun weekend, then they’re getting their sea legs nonetheless. And it is, of course, not actually a joke. They do not get a fun weekend. I work them hard, and they’re all the better for it.

By the time I’m finished with these landlubbers, they can swab the deck in their sleep while performing anchor winch repair services. Melbourne will have a fresh crop of seafaring folk in no time, if I can keep this up.

-S. Joe