Duty is the great business of a sea officer; all private considerations must give way to it, however painful it may be.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Seafaring can be lucrative - the elite, such as gas-tanker captains, can earn $100,000 for six months' work - but the isolation is a heavy price to pay.
Every government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck.
I would read fishing reports on the road and then it just occurred to me: I should go to sea school and get my captain's license, see if I can get paid to be out here every day.
It's extremely difficult to get these jobs because you can't get a job on a ship unless you have seaman's paper's, and you can't get seaman's papers unless you have a job on a ship. There had to be a way to break through the circle, and he was the one who arranged it for me.
Because my father was often absent on naval duty, my mother suffered me to do much as I pleased.
Depart from discretion when it interferes with duty.
Seafarers are used to being exploited. At sea, the captain moans at chandlers who supply ships with green bananas that will never ripen; at fruit that goes moldy obscenely fast; at sub-standard meat.
I know of only one duty, and that is to love.
Duty is too often what one expects from others and not what one does.
The sea is my business.