The first boat I worked on was a fishing vessel out of Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod called the Jimmy Boy.

It was 25 years ago that I met John Cruz. I was outside his house playing guitar in the Irish style of dropped tuning where you slack the strings.

Growing up in western Massachusetts, I didn’t have much exposure to the sea, or to seafarers. It was by freak chance that I met my first sea captain.

In the long fairway into the harbor of Suva City on Viti Levu, Fiji, the sharks play among the debris.

I am on an Island off the coast of Massachusetts thinking about my time as a sea cook on tall ships.

I wish I could say I went in undercover as a reporter. That’s not the case. I was a bona fide patient. Gosnold. Detox.