Porthole Magazine
April 1, 2002
The Life of a Sea Captain

"See how glamorous my job is," Captain Matt Thomas mumbled from
under a thick black curly Cap't Hook wig, just after a scrawny drunk
guy dressed in a pink negligee for the weekly costume party suddenly
grabbed him around the neck and planted an unwanted beer-soaked
kiss on his face. The guy's wife and the rest of us watched with
a mixture of humor, horror and sympathy. It's just another day at
the job for Captain Matt.

As skipper of the freewheeling, 72-passenger Mandalay, a rebuilt
1923 engine- and sail-powered barkentine sailing the more remote
corners of the Caribbean, the soft-spoken 38-year-old Cap't Matt
has his hands full. He's often more like an endlessly patient camp
counselor taking care of a fun-loving, at times rambunctious, brood,
than he is the chief navigator of a ship. Of course he's a skilled
seaman who knows how to handle an eclectic bark like Mandalay, but
being the captain of a small, yacht-like ship is a bigger job than
just navigating the seas.

Unlike the master of a mega ship who has a staff to do nearly everything
for him, the captain of a small ship is everything. Your classic
jack-of-all-trades. He's there at the gangway greeting passengers
when they first board (even if it's 2 in the morning like when I
and about 40 others arrived for a recent cruise after a harrowing
day of flying) and he's on deck each morning to give a talk about
the day's events. He's the navigator, food and beverage manager,
chief executive, den mother, and on Windjammer's frisky ships, the
center of attention. Windjammer's quirky crowd of freethinking,
non-conformists hover around him like groupies at a rock concert
whenever he's manning the open-air wheel (which is most of the time).
Many think of him as their new best friend, hanging around, asking
questions and yapping his ear off whenever they get a chance. It's
the uniform thing, his good looks and calm, cool manner, and that
classic romanticized image of a life at sea that intrigues us. Like
a captain is drawn to the sea, passengers are drawn to the captain.
It's a fact of life.

Here's how a day in his life went last summer:

Up at 6am to relieve the first mate at the wheel, you'd think he'd
have a moment alone to enjoy the morning's first cup of coffee.
Well, an eccentric, and mostly endearing, old bird had been up since
5am and was waiting for him. Clenching a Bloody Mary, which she
repeatedly reminded people wasn't alcoholic (it was), 75-year-old
Joanne was raring to go. A happy-go-lucky lady wearing a red scarf
around her head and a bulky fanny pack around her waist, she came
aboard armed with a sweet, child-like wonder at nearly everything
she encountered, including Captain Matt. She had a tendency to lose
her point mid-way through any given sentence, but happily continued
chattering away on automatic pilot. Joanne hung out in Cap't Matt's
office --- remember, the ship is his office --- for the length of
the trip, and there's no door he could close when he had enough.
Aside from the privacy of his cabin (he probably pushes his dresser
in front of the door at night, just in case) and his innermost thoughts,
he's fair game day after day. A public figure. But, people skills
and diplomacy are a big part of the job, and he listened sweetly
to her most of the time, safely zoning out from time to time behind
his sunglasses. Only after an hour of it did he pretend to spot
something off in the horizon that needed his attention.

9am was "story time," the captain's half-hour talk about the day's
schedule, with some background on the culture and history of the
upcoming port of call thrown in as well as a dash of humor to keep
things interesting. It was his job to perform as much as it was
to inform. It was time to play entertainer, stand-up comic, good
sport. He began by wailing, in that traditionally Windjammer way:
"Good morning everybooodddyyy," like a ship's horn calling out in
the fog. "Good Morning Captain SIR!" the passengers obediently barked
back. It may be hokey, but the fun-loving crowd was smitten. He
ended the talk with a mildly risquÈ joke about a cat and a certain
part of a woman's anatomy. After a round of applause and a string
of laughs, it was back to work for Captain Matt.

He spent the rest of the morning busy doing things like checking
navigational charts in the bridge, bringing the ship into port and
meeting with customs officials for clearance, filling out supply
orders, and managing the 30-some-member crew.

Finally, a break was in sight just before noon. Captain Matt decided
to take that rare afternoon off to join a horseback-riding excursion
across the stunning terrain of Isla Margarita with a handful of
passengers, but not before wondering out loud if the ship would
be ok without him. Like a mother leaving a child with a babysitter,
he knew the ship would be fine in the capable hands of his mates
who remained on board, yet he couldn't help but worry that the wind
could change or the ship would drift too far, even on a sunny, calm
day. It's a 24-7 job for three months at a stretch. The weight of
the world, at least this small slice of it, is on his shoulders.
That's part of the job.

By 3pm, he had had his fun, galloping on the beach and admiring
the young, longhaired beauty in suede chaps guiding the pack, and
was back on board. Back to paperwork and maps, and, oh, combing
out his wig. That night was the weekly costume party.

The happy hour party at 5pm drew a big crowd to the sun deck, with
complimentary rum swizzles flowing and plantain chips and homemade
salsa filling hungry stomachs. The captain stopped to chat for a
minute or two, then padded back across the deck (he was always barefoot,
like most of the passengers) to the chart room, then below decks
to check on something or other in the engine room. Who needs a stair
master?

Around 7 that evening, a special buffet dinner was being set up
on deck, a local band was being ushered on board to play for a few
hours, and costumed passengers and crew began circulating. Captain
Matt, of course, came decked out in an elaborate Captain Hook get-up
he bought in Greenwich Village on vacation one year, complete with
the big hair, the hat, and that ruffly shirt. He held court, so
to speak, working the crowd, posing for pictures, and making sure
all the cross-dressers, pirates, and other characters were having
fun. They sure were. He even found himself escorting a few crocked
ones back to the safety of their cabins.

Hours later after the band had left and the party waned, he was
back in his uniform (matching Windjammer-issue shorts and shirt)
and getting Mandalay ready to depart. In came the anchor, up went
the sails, and into the night toward the next port of call she headed.
Another full day has passed; Captain Matt hit the sack just before
midnight.

He says he can't imagine doing anything else with his life. He joined
the company in 1983 as a deckhand and worked his way up to captain,
shedding, he says, his long hair and bandana collection in the process,
but obviously not his love of the sea and that eccentric Windjammer-style
of living. He's hooked.