Ever wondered what its like to be a woman working at sea? In our latest blog maritime archaeologist Rebecca Ferreira explains how her pre-conceived perceptions and the reality were quite different on a recent offshore job for MSDS Marine.
For the last few weeks I have been living aboard a cable laying vessel (or “floating hotel” as the captain affectionately refers to it) in the North Sea. My role on board was to monitor the seabed during cable laying operations to ensure that no archaeology was encountered or impacted by the works. Before I was contracted by MSDS Marine to be the archaeology consultant for the job, I had a lot of preconceptions about what my experience would be as a woman working in a heavily male-dominated environment. I was concerned that I would be the only woman on board the ship and as a result I would not be treated seriously or as an equal, or that I would feel isolated from the officers and crew. I fully expected to get on the ship, work in my cabin, eat alone in the dining room, and sit in silence in the bridge during my late-night monitoring shifts. Effectively, just grin and bear it until it was time to get off again. My lived experience, however, could not have been further away from this.
The first day that I arrived on the ship I was warmly greeted by several members of the crew and was shown to my cabin. I was given the safety briefing and a tour of the ship’s upper decks by the two Third Officer’s on board, one of which I was (naively) surprised to find was a woman. Following my first dinner that night I was invited to join the officers to hang out in the officers’ lounge, where I met a lot of the team that I would be working alongside. From that point on, my guard was down, and I began to adapt to life at sea with my new colleagues.
I enjoyed learning more about the lives of the officers and crew members on board, hearing their stories about working away at sea and the journey that had brought them to the place they are now. During my late-night monitoring sessions, those on shift with me kept me awake and entertained enough to concentrate on the job at hand and took great interest in my role, asking numerous questions about archaeology (jokingly winding me up about when I was expecting to see the submerged dinosaur fossils). They also showed an interest in getting to know me away from the job and I soon found that rather than feeling isolated, I was feeling very much part of the team. During down time I found comradery with the officers, watching football matches together and celebrating or commiserating goals depending on which team you supported (Howay the Toon!). The engineers even made the time to take me on a tour of the engine rooms, and the cable joining and optic testing areas, so I could learn more about the processes of how the ship operates during a commercial project.
At every point of my experience, I felt respected and rather than seeing me as the nuisance archaeologist who could delay operations at any given moment, the officers and crew members ensured I was taken seriously and kept up to date with the progress of the job. Although I am aware that my next job as an archaeology consultant on board a ship may be different, I feel prepared for the challenge with new found confidence in myself and my role.
