From the MM&P Hiring Hall
Seine Kapsiak, Third Mate. 3 years on the water as a mate
MM&P Hiring Hall. Oakland, California
My name is Sen Kapsiak. I am currently a third mate with Masters, Mates, and Pilots. I graduated Maritime Academy about three years ago, and I've been sailing ever since, about three years.
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Originally, I really had no plans for myself after high school. I grew up in Oakland my whole life. So, when I was looking around for colleges, I saw California Maritime Academy, and I was curious. I went over and saw this giant training ship, the Golden Bear, docked in Vallejo. And I just fell in love. I talked to the students, and some of the professors. Their experiences sailing, teaching, just talking about their love for the water, really convinced me to go.
I'd never been on a boat before. It's my first time. First time on a boat was my first time on the TSGB [the Golden Bear]. Yeah, I grew up really landlocked, you know. My dad was a janitor, my mom was a copywriter. I never did anything with the water. Just kind of grew up, you know, inner-city Oakland.
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I've been out about six months. It was my first contract. I went all over the place. We were in Iceland for a while. We were in Greece, Egypt, delivering military cargo on the Ocean Giant [General Cargo Ship]. And it was a great time. It really convinced me that I made the right decision.
To me being on the water is meditative. I'm a deck officer, so I spend the majority of my time standing bridge watch. When you're out in traffic situations it's somewhat stressful. But when you're in the middle of the ocean you're crossing, it's really just you, you're unlicensed (sailor), and the water.
You sit out there at nighttime; you can look at the stars and you know peace of mind.
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(Stress,) yeah. Some parts of the job are very stressful. You're going through high traffic situations, or you're doing cargo in some places,
it's high stress. And a big compounding factor is the lack of sleep. It used to be a lot worse before STCW hours [Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping] were really implemented. But even now, the Coast Guard doesn't take them too seriously. But the compounding of lack of sleep, and a stressful work environment really leads to stress. But then, in my mind, it's evened out by the long stretches of nothing going on.
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My favorite port I’ve been too? Oh, man, Alexandroupoli in Greece. It's really kind of in the middle of nowhere. It's near the Turkish border in Greece, kind of up at the top of the Aegean Sea. Part of my love for it is the process of going there because you're going through all the Greek islands. They're coming over the horizon like mountains.
But then you get to this place, and, you know, it was an old fishing village that has this small little U.S. military presence. Not a base, just a little offload port.
The people there were just great. They have this little vineyard area and I would take the ship bike, and bike around the area. It was peaceful, and we had a few days free there. It was really, really idyllic.
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(But) oh, man, Alexandria, Egypt! If you talk to anybody going through the Suez Canal, or even just going to Egypt, it's hard to work with. A lot of corruption. A lot of stuff going on. Mainly, you know, on the deck side, mooring and unmooring the ship.
You have a lot of boats that will come alongside you, so you always have to check. There's people trying to come on board a lot. Just generally, really high stress. It's not my favorite.
(The Canal though), it was fun. Maybe not as exciting, it’s a desert on both sides. But the pilots are there, and again it's kind of difficult trying to navigate the corruption, and people asking you for stuff all the time. But people were nice. It was fairly pleasant.
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I've kind of been all over the place. Heavy lift was my first ship. I've been on a lot of car carriers. Those were mainly going to Japan and the West Coast. But I've also been on some military ships, namely my last ship, the USNS Pomeroy. We were bringing cargo, prepositioning ship from Korea to the east coast.
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When I was on the military ship we had a lot of port time. I was in Korea for a month, just at anchor. Then, after that we did the crossing through Panama Canal. And then after that, we were on the East Coast. We were just sitting there for about two months. It was fun, but you know after a while I get kind of bored.
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I've been here (a union member) for three years, but still considering the length that most people here been here, I'm a pretty junior member [the hiring hall operates on a strict seniority system within the members present at job call], so, I will take whatever job comes my way. But you know in a perfect world I'd love to make destination decisions, but generally I take whatever comes.
I would much prefer to be in the Mediterranean, but the Pacific's pretty nice. (There’s) more traffic in a lot of places, if you go into the South China Sea, or you're coming into China at all, it's kind of hectic.
Just generally, I love Japan. Japan's great. But yeah, if I had to choose one place, the Mediterranean. Gorgeous and just the best place to sail, in my opinion.
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I’m on vacation. Whenever I get off a ship, I'm not like trying to avoid the water, but nobody in my family does any boating or anything like that. So, I spend most of my time just being at home.
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A lot of people talk about the stress and, being away for so long. But for me, it's almost a similar problem being home for so long. While you're home you can't take another maritime job because you're part of a union.* You know, for everyone else life is still moving, everyone's still working. Everyone's still doing their stuff. So really, you're kind of in this little bubble of nothing going on.
Bu yeah, I do get antsy, especially ‘cause I my last job was five months (long), so I have a little over four months of vacation. It gets a little too long.
It's called channel fever when you’re getting close to port and you're really close to getting off, and you get really antsy. But I've never been in a place where I really feel the need to get off a ship. Really, I've only gotten off a ship because, you know, it’s the end of my contract, I’d stay for a lot longer. But comes a time when you get close to getting off, and you kind of realize it, and you're like, oh yeah, I'm getting close. It’s at that point that I'm kind of like,
excited to go home.
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I have a girlfriend. We started dating when I was in school, and I was still going away for months at a time doing that, and she went to University of California, Berkeley. She's very independent.
It just, you know, works for us. It really works. But I know it's hard for a lot of people.
For me, it's a big thing getting out of the mindset of being on a ship when you get back home.
On a ship you only really work like 11, 12 hours, but you're on call the whole time. You can always get a phone call. There can always be a fire alarm. And it's the sleep schedule. A lot of the time you'll be put on the midnight to 4 a.m. watch. And trying to get off that when you come back home is a little funny.
All your time is filled with work. On a ship every waking moment you're either working, or sleeping. So, coming out of that, going to the complete opposite end, and just not have anything to do, it's an adjustment. It's a little difficult, but you get used to it.
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It's funny. A lot of people say the steward's department is the easiest job. I completely disagree. I think being the head steward sounds to me like the most nightmarish job on the ship. Most other people’s jobs on the ship, I don't want to say they're in the background, but they're not as front facing as the stewards department. Stewards department, you're performing three times a day, to everybody. And if you mess up, the whole ship gets food poisoning, it shuts it down. Stewards department, yeah, definitely not my cup of tea.
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(Power relationships), it depends on the ship, the captain, and the chief mate. Some ships have more of a separation between the junior and senior officers, versus some ships, like my previous ship was very interconnected, and the chief mate was always mingling.
It just depends on how the captain and the chief mate want to run the ship. The chief engineer, in the same way. Like, we had a first engineer who really wanted to run the show, the engine department. There's definitely power there.
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I feel like you'll hear from everybody, tankers. Kind of definitely not the ship to be on. It's a lot more work compared to a lot of other ships. You have a lot more government oversight, a
lot more documents to fill out, and also doing the cargo tankers you mess up you're going to jail. So definitely not my preferred ship.
Between ships of the same class there are differences. Does each ship have its own personality? Oh, absolutely, but it depends. The last class I was on was the Watson-class vessels. It's a fleet of, I believe, six. If you have a ship that was built 20 years ago, eventually they're going to differ. Things break, things change, things get rebuilt in different ways.
And also just the crew. Ships are mostly a permanent cruise, so those kind of shape the environment of the ship.
Like, there'll be paintings all over the ship. My last ship, you have paintings everywhere. All the elevators are painted. There's paintings in the engine room. I mean murals. I mean beautiful... On the elevator doors you'll see these gorgeous murals. And it's mostly crew that do it. They don't hire outside contractors. It's crew that have free time, and they’ll go out there for overtime. They'll just paint them, like on my last ship just gorgeous murals of Diego Garcia. I mean, it was great.
There'll be somebody who's artistically inclined, and somebody will notice it. And there's a lot of empty space on the ships.
So I've seen it on two ships I've been on. One of them was the USNS Pomeroy. You ask anybody. There's paintings everywhere. You always get some overtime, just go paint, you know.
When I was in the Ocean Giant, because that ship goes to Antarctica, they have a big mural when you're going down to the engine room.
You walk down a little ladder well, you have this bulkhead in front of you, and it's just massive, huge mural. And this guy that I know, Josh Barless, he painted it. You know, it's amazing. I mean it's art. It's of the ship in Antarctica and penguins. I don't even know how to describe it. Just, yeah, it's very Antarctica, with the Ocean Giant.
A lot of ships, a lot of newer built ships, especially a lot of container ships like APL, definitely kind of soulless. It's a lot of emotional support paintings that are just random hanging in the stairwell or ladder well.
You know, ships get reputations. And those reputations will kind of adjust people's emotions coming out of the ship.
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Oh, man. I know a lot of people would see it [a relationship between being on a ship and being in jail] that way. I’ve met a lot of people that view it as a jail sentence whenever you go on a ship.
I wouldn't say so. especially now that there's internet connection on ships, you can talk to people a lot more. But I'm sure back in the day, when there was no internet, no nothing - you’re gone the other side of the world for months and months and months - and you can't talk to
anybody, I can see how somebody would view it that way.
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You know, funnily enough, I've never had a crazy incident. I know a lot of people would probably say a fire on a ship, or something like that. Nothing like that. And everyone I've sailed with has been pretty great. I don't think I've ever had a terrible experience on a ship, because anything that happens is just …, you know, I don't really view it as terrible.
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I mean, you go into some ports and it's annoying or something like that. But, it's all part of the experience. I really like it.
I want to be a captain someday. I'm going to be a captain. I know a lot of people, it’s their end goal to become captain because most people's goal is to not be sailing forever. They want to go ashore, and they want to spend much more time ashore.
For me, I don't really view that as a goal of mine. I just want to stay on the water. I love being out there. Captain is definitely the highest position you can have while still being out on the water.
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*The union contract calls for roughly a day of vacation for every day worked on a cruise, allowing members with less seniority to get sailing time.
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Seine Kapsiak, Third Mate
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Photo: Robert Gumpert 17 November 2025
Transciption: Michele Colyer