About
The Merchant Marine Express is a collection of personal journals about the life and times of my voyages as a Merchant Mariner. Allow me to enrich your mind with some expressive thoughts and first hand accounts of my journeys upon the seas.
I’m a Second Mate,commanding and navigating huge ships to various ports including rare regions within the world. Most of my journals are written in the first person, yet originally, these journals were intended for an audience of just a few. Not too many of you, land based humans or “landlubbers” as we call you ,are familiar with the travels of a mariner such as me, yet, after you have left this website, you will certainly have learned quite a bit.
I’m married to my wife, Michelle, of over three years and live an hour’s drive north of Detroit, Michigan, and along the Great Lake of Lake Huron.
I started writing back in my pre-teen days in the form of journals as my first writings started as I took a Summer vacation back to my birth place of Algeria. While I was visiting with family, I wrote nearly every day of my experiences and observations back in 1983 and kept a book where I kept track of events and unique happenings. Believe me, every day in Algeria was a “unique happening” for me.
Then for my next writing experience, I wrote every day while I was in Alaska in 1995, while a deck hand and a cook aboard a fishing tender, helping with the Sockeye Salmon season aboard a vessel used to transport fish back and forth to the processing plant!
And while attending Cal Maritime from 1997 thru 2000, I kept record of my travels via a journal/diary for personal gain, and even submitted my journal in an essay contest, which I won, during the first “training cruise” and as a Freshman Cadet, aboard the TRAINING SHIP GOLDEN BEAR.
But most recently, I’ve kept journals as a Licensed officer while working aboard various ships in the past years, as Third Mate. I wanted to describe, what events were unfolding within my day to day life, to my friends and family, in the form of emails. And some time in 2003, I started up the “Merchant Marine Express”.
My cousin, Shane has worked with members of the family (special thanks to my Uncle Clay) and some of his associates (Mike and Craig - thank you!) in developing this website as a Christmas gift to me and to all of you, my readers. I look forward in continuing a tradition in sharing my adventures, activities, and thoughts during my cruises and personal events. You may actually learn something new with each issue!
I also look forward in having all of you contributing to this blog and discussion forum and become an active member in my little part of the world.
Oh and by the way..if you happen to wonder why you see me as ‘Nate’, this was a nickname I happened to be given by a Chief Mate as I worked aboard my second ship and the ‘Mate’ thought my name sounded like “Nate-deer” so he called me “Nate” for short. So the name stuck and also “nate-the-mate” or “nate-mate” has been used over time..
So-sit back and enjoy my past or present trips and the experiences that have unfolded.
-Nadir “Nate” Bousseloub
