Brutha I would like to share a story with you, (please bear with me Shawn).
Once upon a time I was invited to go to a shipyard in Alabama to complete construction on a vessel that was a year behind schedule. This for a Alaska Fishing Company. My job was to get it completed and take it out for a couple months and prove it worked. This was a boring success.
To me the story was that this 18 year old kid was brought to us by his father, while in the shipyard, and he wanted us to take him fishing. This was a good kid who's father had taken him out of school when he was 15 because he didn't think he needed to learn anymore. Now he was becoming a financial liability to the father.
The kid told me when he came back he was going to marry his girlfriend and then he'd be related to all the white people in the shipyard.
I took him and told him if he went with us his whole life would change. He would see things that would change his whole way of thinking and this little Biyou he lived in now would become only a place to visit. If he went with us he would not marry his girlfriend because he would change so much.
He went with us, down to panama and saw the culture there, a big wake up for him. I brought sport fishing gear from Hawaii and we caught some tuna on the way around. He had never seen such sharp knives that fillet fish.
When he saw the small mountains on the California coast he sat for days on the deck in amazement. In Alaska he saw huge mountains. He saw Marine Mammals that came up and swam along side the ship he could almost touch.
We had crew members with some very impressive educational backgrounds and through this contact he learned what he was missing. It was a tough growing experience for him.
With his pocket full of money, after two months he went back to the biyou, packed his belongings, said goodbye to his girlfriend,
moved to Seattle, got a GED and went to school to become a Nurse. He went fishing in the summer months for extra cash. I lost contact with him but expect that as determined as he was he succeeded.
Based my experience, I would say the same thing again to you. If you choose to go on this adventure of SFQ it will change your life and your whole way of thinking. I believe for the better. It will open up possibilities that were always there but could not be seen.
You will meet and make many friends who honestly will help you on the way.
Aloha
Jeff
