Hi everyone, Marc here. And welcome to The Great Sea Ahead—a podcast, an audiobook, a Substack—where I go through my memoir, chapter by chapter, so that you can see what it was like to be a directionless 23-year-old searching for answers to adulthood. Where? Well, in all the places that a small cruise ship could take me. Of course, in hindsight, I found that it was my senior citizen passengers who were showing me all that I needed to know.

We're on Chapter 14 this week in the Caribbean for a series of holiday cruises through the U.S. and British Virgin Islands. I'm about to be promoted from Assistant Cruise Director to Cruise Director aboard a new ship. Lots of new responsibility, lots of nerves, lots of excitement all mixed together.

First, I get to spend a week and two voyages shadowing an experienced Cruise Director, Kevin. That was the plan. This chapter is called “No Worries.” So will there be any worries?

Let’s listen and find out.

~ Marc

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 Hey everyone, and welcome to The Great Sea Ahead.

I'm Marc Cappelletti, and thanks for tuning in to the podcast where I share audio chapters from my memoir. If you're just finding this, we're on chapter 13. I've gone from college to becoming a new, insanely inept assistant cruise director aboard a small ship full of senior citizens.

We were in Alaska. We've explored British Columbia and San Francisco Bay, Mexico, and now Costa Rica and Panama. This chapter explores the ideas of youth, the passage of time, progress, responsibility, all in the jungle, and experiences with the Emberá in the village of La Chunga. If you need to catch up, you can find all 12 previous audio chapters on Apple Podcasts and Substack. I'll link to both.

But for now, here's Chapter 13: The Kids in the Jungle, and thanks so much for listening!

Welcome to chapter 12 of The Great Sea Ahead. We’ve moved on from Mexico, and are exploring Costa Rica and Panama. But, really, we’re getting into so much more thanks to the intimacy of these ships and crew/passenger interactions that they foster.

This chapter gets into some real life lessons, and shares the story of what happened when a passenger suffered a heart attack on board. I don’t know what I would have done without the crew and advice from a wise passenger.

Thanks for listening.

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Finally, this chapter answers questions like “What do you tell a hungry man who forgot his teeth?” and “What if a metalhead guitarist had to play for a frustrated group of senior citizens?”

You know, the basics.

We’re still in the Sea of Cortez, a place I immediately fell in love with, and got to revisit many times. But this chapter, like the memoir itself, is about so much more than the destinations’ affect on me. What did I learn from the passengers?

What did they do and say to influence me in that first year after college, and how has it changed my course ever since?

Chapter 11 will show you why I haven’t looked at dentures, missing forks, and my own ego the same way since. (Order of importance? You be the judge.)

Thanks for listening!

(You can also listen on Apple Podcasts! )

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Welcome to the audio version of Chapter 10 from The Great Sea Ahead: A Memoir About A Young Man, A Small Ship, And The Old Souls Who Set His Course.

Don’t forget to like and subscribe in order to support my work, and this channel. Every little bit helps!

Thanks,

Marc

The following is from my memoir, The Great Sea Ahead: A Young Man’s Journey to Find His Course, and the Retired Passengers Who Set Him Straight. I release a new chapter every other Wednesday.

Welcome to Mexico. In this chapter, you'll see what it's like to bring 96 senior citizens through Copper Canyon, across Mexico, and flying over the Sea of Cortez to La Paz.

“…Our hotel in Chihuahua City is a 1970s-designed block of concrete and cost-cutting, far from the adobe-style hacienda I envisioned. Instead of abuela-made tortillas and fire-roasted tomatillos for dinner, we line up at banquet tables where Sterno-lit vats of steak and fish and rice and beans grow drier by the second. Erica and I eat with Francisco and Arturo. Both men are brilliant storytellers and historians. Granted, some of their stories are about broken-down buses and strange passengers, and I could probably do without hearing those.

“This all seems pretty complicated,” I say.

Francisco flashes a cocky, Indiana Jones smile. “Not with us leading the way!”

Morning has come too quickly when I answer an impatient knock at my door. Mrs. Wilson stands in the hallway, flush and sweaty, her arms wrapped around her stomach. Anyone else would ask what’s wrong, but I already know. I spent most of the night in the bathroom, praying for the swift hand of death to end the suffering.

“We think it must have been the fish,” Mrs. Wilson says. “Donald has it too, and he’s....” Her eyes go wide. Say no more….”

Listen on Apple Podcasts

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When does going home change its meaning? When does it bring up more questions than answers? This chapter explores my first trip home after a two-month stint at sea.

Thanks for giving it a listen!

CHAPTER VIII

I’m waiting for the driveway to sway, my luggage to roll from the house, my mom to grip the car door to keep her balance. But the asphalt is solid beneath my feet, home as welcoming as ever. The November air is crisp and earthy—not a trace of seaweed or diesel.

Alaska already feels like a dream. The way the light never fully left. The killer whales that interrupted conversations. The screams into my pillow. Four cruises in the San Francisco Bay proved something more than a break from rough Pacific seas. The repetition helped me hone a routine, an act of sorts. I noted how passengers responded to speeches, stories over meals, witty lines in the hallway. Whatever worked, I kept for the next week. What didn’t, I tossed overboard. The world has started to feel round again, which is more enjoyable, knowing you won’t sail off the edge.

Stepping into my bedroom, I’m struck to find my things organized, curated. I hear the echoes of a Mount Vernon docent. “Everything is as the Washingtons left it.” As in Virginia, the messiness of daily, lived-in life has left. The person who once slept in the bed feels like someone I read about.

I have three weeks until my next stint. Until I arrived, I imagined needing every second to come down from the wildest, most exhilarating and exhausting two months of my life. So, I do nothing but sleep for two days. My parents work during the day, and my sister is away at college for her senior year, so I’m alone. It’s the first time since I left that I haven’t been within arm’s reach of another person—a pleasure I’ve been craving since disembarking.

By the third day, I’ve had enough. I don’t know what to do with myself. My joints ache, my head throbs, like I got the bends at sea level. I catch myself checking my watch for alarms that aren’t set. Nobody needs anything from me. At night, I lie awake in a stark silence, wishing for the whir of the ship’s engines and the footsteps of deckhands on the night watch to let me know I’m not alone…

Also listen on:

Previous Audio Chapters

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Here’s the audio version of the 7th chapter in The Great Sea Ahead. This one is about being true to yourself. A lifelong challenge—no doubt! But a lesson I started to learn during our food- and wine-themed cruises in the San Francisco Bay and Napa Valley.

And if you missed the last few audio chapters…

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Welcome to Chapter 6 of The Great Sea Ahead, my memoir about a directionless college graduate who gets set straight by unexpected groups of cruising senior citizens.

Here’s what in store for you:

“The explosion rings through the crew deck in the early morning, rocketing me from my Dramamine-fueled sleep and down the bunk ladder before I even clock that I’m awake.

“What the f**k was that?” Blake shouts from bed. He’s been there since yesterday, midway through our brutal passage through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a channel north of Seattle leading from the Salish Sea to the open Pacific, nicknamed “Juan de Puke-a” by shipmates who’ve sailed it before.”

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“The air is thick with spin cycle exhaust and a lust for pain, the laundry room crammed with a dozen or so crew members cheering on the newest deckhand, Reese, who tumbles inside the industrial clothes dryer. It’s medieval. Insane. And I can’t take my eyes off of it. I thought dryer runs were going to be a relay race, or a cruising team building activity. No, this is a front-loading clothes dryer—six feet tall by four feet wide—and a person, a real, human person, spinning inside vertically, upside down and back again, over and over and over. The loading door is open so he can breathe, but he doesn’t seem to be. His eyes and mouth are locked shut, his face growing redder with each rotation…”

This audio chapter is also available on Spotify.

The Great Sea Ahead is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.