I was a cadet back then.
Early evening. A bar. One of those places where uniforms stay on a bit longer than they should.
There was an NCO at the counter, nursing a beer like he had nowhere else to be.
We recognized each other immediately. Not by face. By uniform.
He gestured me over.
“Have you been at sea already?”
I had. Six weeks on the Zinnia. I said it with a bit of pride. Long enough to feel like it meant something.
He didn’t seem impressed.
“That’s a cruise ship,”
he said, without looking up.
A short pause.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
And then:
“You’re not a seaman. Not yet. Wait until you’ve sailed the Zenobe. Or one of the coastal minesweepers.”
He was the navigation officer on the Zenobe Gramme.
I didn’t argue. There wasn’t much to argue with.
What he said sounded like experience.
I had no way of knowing otherwise.
Four weeks later, I boarded the Zenobe.
Same ship. Same man. Same uniform.
We left harbor in what looked like normal conditions.
A moderate breeze. Nothing dramatic. Just the sea being the sea.
It didn’t take long.
We had barely cleared the harbor when he got seasick.
Not just uncomfortable. Properly sick.
The kind where your body makes decisions without consulting you.
The wind picked up during the trip. Nothing exceptional. Just enough to keep things moving.
We slept in the front compartment, right in the bow.
Or tried to.
It was the worst place on the ship. Constant movement. Twisting. Unpredictable.
The air was thick. At some point it stopped smelling like fuel and started smelling like something that had been dead for days.
Most of the cadets were sick. Continuously. There’s no better word for it.
Sleeping bags. Buckets. No words.
I had an all-weather sleeping bag. At some point, I took it and went outside, up on deck.
Cold, wind, spray — but at least there was air.
I wasn’t sick.
My stomach hurt, but not for the same reason.
I was laughing.
Not out loud. Not at anyone.
Just that quiet, uncontrollable kind of laughter that shows up when something no longer matches the story you had in your head.
The sea does not care.
Not about rank.
Not about experience.
Not about what was said in a bar four weeks earlier.
He had sounded certain.
Not arrogant. Just… sure.
And then he wasn’t.
There was no drama to it.
No lesson being taught.
Just a body reacting to the sea.
Some environments allow certainty to grow.
Costumes with matching ties.
Confident voices.
Presentations.
Certifications.
Nothing pushes back.
Until something does.
A uniform does not make you a seaman.
It just makes it easier to believe you are.