After battling the sea for nine years, it's time to move on.That's what I told myself when I first stepped ashore to searchfor a land job. The decision was not made on the spur of amoment but after much thought and soul searching.

While I was working aboard ship, many of us talked about workingashore some day. I heard people saying they were quitting andthen much later, I would find them on another ship. My conclusion-- many have tried to quit, but very few have succeeded.

Whenever I see older seamen on my ship, I feel a bit of pity forthem. I can feel their frustrations. And I know exactly what theywill face over the coming six to nine months.

They will face the rigors of the sea and extreme climaticconditions, such as huge waves, strong winds, icy cold and hotweather, the boredom and loneliness when nothing much happens,seasickness and insomnia when encountering heavy weather for weekson end, and of course, missing the home and the family as well asmissing out on the many other things that a normal life can offer.

But it's not really a bad life at all if you are still young. It'sa life that can offer many exciting experiences and adventures, alot of traveling, and sightseeing in places that can be far offthe normal tourist routes. It can be a very satisfying experience.I still have fond memories of my experiences while working onboard ship.

When I first started sailing, I collected souvenirs from all thecountries that I visited. After a while, these started collectingdust and I had to get rid of them. Furthermore, I found that someof these souvenirs were actually made in other countries.

That made me decide to take photographs as my souvenirs. I now havealmost 3,000 colour slides of my travels.

What can I do with these? Well, some of the images have beenaccepted by a stock photo agency, but this is just a small portionof my collection.

I was seriously into photography at that time and even bought anexpensive SLR camera with a set of interchangeable lenses so that Icould take good quality photographs. I even sold a few photographsto some magazines during that time.

When I realised that my photographs were being published to supportarticles in the magazines, I started to take up writing.

After that my articles were published in the local newspapers andmagazines. But that was a very long time ago when computers werepractically unknown.

Even after I quit the sea, my experiencees on board ship made alasting impression on me. I still wanted to explore new places. Iwas fascinated by computers when they made their debut in 1987.These had the 80286 processor, I remember.

A colleague taught me how to use the Lotus 1-2-3 software and I wasdelighted with what I could do with it. I was able to created graphswith this WYSIWYG program.

But computers were expensive and not very affordable at that time. Istill had to hammer on the keys of my trusty portable typewriter toproduce any work.

I moved on to other jobs later, but my fascination with computerscontinued. Being an engineer, I was very much interested in creatingengineering piping diagrams. I learned to do AutoCAD drawings thatwere very much better than the ones I had to do during my collegedays with pencil, T-square, eraser and paper.

Later on when I was introduced to the Internet, my interestpractically shot right through the ceiling. There was so muchinformation available. At about that time, I decided to build a boatfor myself. (It was a dream that I had been keeping in my head sincethe time I took up sailing during my college days.) So I began tosearch the Internet and discovered how other people built boats. Thewhole project took about three months of research and manual labour.

The result was a custom-built kayak that was carefully crafted forspeed, manoeuvrability, portability, and durability. And speciallybuilt to suit my weight and the length of my legs.

I had experienced the power of the Internet. And I love it.

Being trained in marine engineering enables me to be flexible inusing technology or any other tools available in order to get the job done. You see, when working on board a ship, we were expected tomake do with whatever materials were available to solve problems. There were no contractors that you could call in to help, in themiddle of the ocean.

Anyway, I later decided to learn web designing. I found this quiteinteresting. And once I delved into web designing, many other subjectsalso caught my attention. Search engine optimisation, designing forfast loading, html language, marketing, affiliation, advertisements,writing effective sales copy, etc, just crept up along the way.

I even made my own website about marine engineering.

Then I stumbled into e-books and e-zines. I found some of these veryinteresting, and I started to mess around with them. Eventually, Iproduced my first e-book entitled "Sign Off -- A Guide to CareerSuccess on Shore".

Now I am into self-publishing and I can publish whatever I want. Ishall not receive piles and piles of rejection slips anymore. As anauthor-publisher, I can also design my own illustrations and layoutin whatever way I think best, and most important of all, I don'thave to spend money on printing, paper, binding and whatever else.

I can also pass around my e-book to people in the form of downloadsand e-mail attachments or even CDs. Unlike webpages, people don'teven have to be online in order to read my book. I believe that weare in this world to be a blessing to others. Whatever experiencesthat I have gone through need not be wasted but can be used to helpsomebody somewhere. That's why I wrote my e-book.

Also, being involved in a 34-week "Becoming Disciples through BibleStudy" programme for the past three years, I have come to realisethat by giving we receive.

With that in mind, I searched through the memory bank in my brain,and also my notes, and found that I have many things to share withpeople. After going through many years of working experiences onland, I think it is worthwhile to share some of the experiences Ihave with those who are contemplating switching jobs.

Just like the photographs that are gathering dust in my home, theseexperiences should not stay in my memory or storeroom and be lostforever. I should leave something behind to benefit futuregenerations. So I quickly got my stuff together and started writingthe e-book. It took me about three months of free time to complete.

Most of the visitors have an interest in life on board ship, butthe e-book I wrote is about working ashore. So that makes theinformation relevant to anyone else too.

E-books have the potential to spread marketing messages to potentialbuyers. They can also be instruction manuals for users, fordisplaying products as catalogues, for publicising services, and athousand other uses. The outcome of any tool depends on the one whowields it. It only takes a good writer with a flair for IT,marketing concepts and visual communications copywriting and designto make it work.

Below are some useful items that I have picked up in my journey onthe Internet:

Eliminating Spam
Viral Protection

Many years of working experience in Marine, Facilities,Construction has given the author material for writing e-booksand articles related to engineering, and management. Subscribe to facworld ezine