Working for a passage to Europe

[alenitti]

Hi guys,

Do you know if it is possible to go from Colombia to Europe via cargo ship (or similar)?

I would like to work on a cargo ship in order to gain my passage to Europe (any country works fine) or in the worst case pay only a small amount of money.

Do you know if it doable and which documents are required? Also, from where is it best to look for this option?

Thank you all
Alessandro

[jordan325ic]

After having done some research on this, it appears that this is almost impossible these days... at least not in the classic short term "work your passage" kind of deal. What you want to search for is 'ordinary seaman' (OS) jobs, which require no specialization or licencing. Where to find these jobs? I would try contacting the major freight companies via their websites (EX Maersk) and seeing what advice they can give you for 'starting your career' (I wouldn't mention the fact that you're just looking for a few months).

Another option is working on a cruise ship, which have a much greater need for personnel and need a much wider skill set.

The problems with both of those options:
-Contracts are typically a minimum of 8 months and return to the 'home' port, so if you want to start somewhere and get somewhere else it means breaking contract.
-You generally sign on with a company, not a ship. You don't get to choose your ship or destinations. Maybe Europe is on the schedule, maybe it isn't.

The last option would be volunteering on a sailboat going that direction. However, West-East transatlantic crossings are much less common than East/West crossings. Maybe you'll get lucky? There are websites for this sort of thing... crewfinder.com or something like that. Start digging.