trading passage for work on ship

While I can't give you specifics, I once met a woman on vacation who worked as a chef on a private yacht. She did have experience and a cooking school diploma. She went all over the world.

http://www.toytowngermany.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=134997&st=0

This is a thread from Toytown that discusses booking passage on container ships that travel on the North Sea. Cost for a week, and it includes meals, is about 600 euro. Not bad!

It contains the links to the companies that allow you to do this. There are also links to companies that go trans-atlantic and also river traffic along the Rhine, Main and Danube. You might get in contact with them to see about working for them. The trans-atlantic trip sounded fascinating. If they aren't hiring, they might be able to point you in the right direction.

I would love to do one of the river trips, you don't get a lot of time in port, but just riding down the rivers sounds great and the price isn't bad either, compared to what hotel rooms cost.

Why not get a job on a cruise ship?

You probably wouldn't cook, they want people who speak English for the public service jobs (pursor, cruise director, sales).

I would encourage my son to do this but worry he would come home married to someone who only wanted him for his citizenship.

I had a friend from my travel days who had worked as a croupier in France, and got a similar job on a cruise ship. He sailed all over the world. And since the casino was closed when they were in port, he was free to go ashore and enjoy himself.

Most other cruise ship employees have to stay on board and work.

Gosh Brad, sounds like you don't think very well of your son. Your comment makes it sound like all foreign women are gold diggers of some sort. It's kind of bigotted.

Not sure exactly what you have in mind, but if you have unlimited time and "free" is the deal, you might try this.

Make an in-person trip to the harbormaster's shacks in Savannah and Charleston. While there also go see the dockmasters at whatever marinas seem to have the most transient sailboats. (You can tell transients from locals by looking at "hailing ports" painted on the sterns i.e., "Mermaid, Boston" vice "Neptune, Summerville".) Do this on weekdays rather than weekends since they folks won't be so busy with day sailors and such.

In the fall a lot of boats are repositioning either to the Carib or to Europe.

What you want to do is try to establish some kind of rapport and leave your name and number. Some boats will be being moved by owners who don't have friends that can take that much time off from whatever they regularly do; others by delivery skippers who scrounge up crew at the departure port. Finding somebody who can cook is always a plus.

You can do the same thing in reverse from ports along southern Spain and Portugal or the UK ports along the English Channel.

This assumes, of course, that you're willing to spend three to four weeks (even on a "fast" boat) on a thirty to sixty foot boat bobbing along in the North Atlantic. (You might want to work up to this by trying to crew on a coastal/caribbean delivery first -- which would also add to your credentials for a longer voyage).

While it's great fun, you should also closely study the definitions of "cold", "wet", and "miserable".

Apropos of zilch, I put myself through school partly by delivering boats and later made a couple of trans-oceanic solo jaunts. Those pretty much reeked from boredom. My experience with "pick-up" crew wan't that great since the dolts kept falling asleep at the wheel, but I kept going back to the trough hoping things would improve.

Give it a try if it rings your bell. It just might work. Plus, being a boat bum for a while is not that bad of a life.

Thanks but please keep replies focused on the question origianally stated. Thanks again.