Biography - Mary Morgan
Deck Cadet

"Trying to write this synopsis of a Deck Cadets daily life and keep it shorter than a novel wasn’t the easiest task ever undertaken! Life onboard means each day is very much different from the last. On a voyage you may travel from the Caribbean to the slightly colder North Sea, crossing the expanse of vast ocean to an intense industrial environment of a working port.

               As deck cadets we are training to become deck officers where ships, cargoes of sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars and lives are in your care, not a responsibility faced by every profession!

                Typically my day is split between Bridge watch keeping duties and day work or cargo work in port.

At sea my schedule is as follows:

03:40                                    Day starts bright and early!

04:00 - 08:00                       Bridge watch.

08:00 - 10:30                       Breakfast followed by day work.

10:30 - 16:00                       Time to myself and to catch up on some study.

16:00 - 20:00                       Bridge watch.

20:00 - 04:00                       Sleep!

Don’t worry Deck Cadets aren’t machines. You need to work hard, but there is a good sense of teamwork onboard. Having a mix of nationalities brings good variety to life onboard and the social life is always entertaining. A cadet can go ashore in port and here a great benefit of the job manifests itself, we can visit and experience other countries and ways of life.

                I find being a Deck Cadet interesting and rewarding, I have hopes that being a Deck Officer will prove the same."

Mary