The blue lady...

Full of tourists! When we arrived some girl came up to me and asked if I was American? Pointing out i was kiwi I asked if she was Canadian. Nope, she was American herself! We told her we were looking for another kiwi guy Oscar (we had quickly realised none of us knew what he looked like) and so she set off asking every person at the bar if they knew him!

Awesome! We sat down for a beer and let her go to work. Stunning too so it shouldn't be long. All the girls here look like they're out of magazines. In the end however it was Oscar who found us. And so began a night of dream shattering reality.

This is how life works in Antibes. You wake up at 6am to get to the port at 7:30am. Then you walk the docks asking each boat owner if they want some help. Cleaning, mending, whatever. 99% of the time they say no but sometimes, you get lucky. If not, you head off to the crew finding agencies to check on your contacts, update your CV and this usually keeps you busy from around 9am to midday. Then it is off to the Captain's building where you learn of what time the new boats are coming in the next day and then you do some more dock walking. Then it all starts again the next day.

When a new boat comes in, you are usually part of a group of 20 or more guys and girls bunched up at the boat's soon to be new berth with eager eyes all greedily wondering how to outdo their neighbour in geeting onto this new ship. It's like putting one beautiful girl in a room full of 20 single guys. Competition all the way. And to make it more similar, you'd have to make her having a boyfriend 90% of the time too!

And the morning dock walks, you are not alone. Oh no, there are A LOT of others doing it too. And not just in Antibes mind you, this is going on in every port in the near by region! Crazy! The whole bar we were in this night was full of people looking for work.

So what about Oscar you may be asking? Well, he is still looking for work too. Two months on! He has done a bit of deck hand work, no sailing mind, and tells us you can walk weeks up and down the docks without striking lucky. So no luck there with stealing his contacts...

So realising I have no experience, no skills and no CV and now no contacts, I am ready to face reality and stow away until we are far enough out that they have to keep me!