CAPTAIN.

I was talking to a crew agent yesterday who told me I needed to put my name as Captain Maiwenn Beadle on my resume. It wasn't something I had really considered necessary until that point.

While I was on Nansen Explorer I wore my stripes everyday, not so much to remind the crew who I am but to remind myself that I needed to be their leader at all times. To always be the person they knew they could trust to take them through the heavy ice, beyond the end of the charts and more importantly to get them home, all the way home, safely. In my office, in the crew mess, in the tender. Always.

I still feel odd to call myself Captain, even though I earned the stripes over many years and many many hard miles. It doesn't matter how much of an expert I am in my field. It doesnt matter how much ice, how many polar bears, how few incidents. The responsibility of the Command has become more normal, the stripes a part of my life but the honorific title still sits oddly.

All my life I have considered Captains to be without doubt, unquestioning in their authority. God's among men.

It's a big word to put infront of your name, but I guess others are making the decision for me.