Call her captain

CALL her Captain Blake, even though she admits that the new title will take some getting used to. Born and raised in the small town of Comma Pen, St Elizabeth, Antonette Blake had set sail on ambition and big dreams.

The 32-year-old, who was trained in seafaring at Caribbean Maritime Institute (CMI), now Caribbean Maritime University (CMU), and levelled up to the rank of captain earlier this year, told All Woman she didn’t come from a wealthy family. She and her older sister were raised by their mother.

“I’m not used to the title. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s so weird. It’s possible for anyone who wants to do it. You just have to be disciplined and you have to be focused and you will have to make a lot of sacrifices,” Blake said.

As a young, impressionable girl, Blake said she looked around Comma Pen and decided that she was destined for greater things.

“I told myself that I needed to get out of Comma Pen, I don’t want to stay here. No offence to Comma Pen because it’s a lovely place. I’m actually here now… I love coming back for vacation. But back then, as a child, it just felt limited and I really wanted to see the world and see what was out there,” she recalled.

But how did her journey begin? She had always had a propensity for the military and all it encompasses. And so, the cadet programme at school could not escape her.

Originally, she wanted to go to Manchester High School where they had one. But her mother insisted that she go to Bishop Gibson High School, where her sister and cousins developed academically. And that she did.

So when Blake graduated fifth form, she went to Manchester for sixth form. There, she was finally able to join a cadet programme, feeding what she calls a “love for the discipline and focus of the army”.

As a sixth form student, Blake stood out like a sore thumb with the new, younger recruits in the programme.

“I had to do it. This was my passion. My friends were like, ‘What are you doing?’ But the marching and the training and the hierarchy of command and the levels and the respect, I loved it.”

When she learned of CMI during career day when two engineers visited and spoke with students, she realised it was the best option considering her family’s financial situation. But even at this point, she didn’t know fully what the maritime industry was really about.

“I knew when graduating high school that I had one shot at this. We were not rich so I looked at the options that were there. When I came across Caribbean Maritime Institute, I was saying maybe I could give it a try. I had no knowledge, I knew no persons working in this field. I had limited knowledge going into this, but what attracted me was the travelling… I’d get to go to different countries on a ship,” she recalled.

“And I loved the military system and I loved what the military stands for. So I tried it. The biggest attraction was the cost. It was so inexpensive compared to the other universities. So I did the math in my head and I said, ‘Okay, I’m sure I can do this’. Then I also got information that if you excel in your first year, you get a scholarship for the next year. My mind was set on that.”

She went full speed ahead. First year was not so hectic, and a few challenges popped up here and there — nothing she couldn’t conquer.

Aceing the “book work”, which was mainly what first year entailed, Blake landed the scholarship. She noted that because she did sixth form, she was able to easily manoeuvre the mathematically oriented subject areas.

But for year two, she had to leave the island at age 19, via ship, with the Belgian line EXMAR. She spent some five and a half months at sea, continuing the process to transform her into a fully fledged maritime officer, specialising in navigation.

Blake told All Woman it was not what she was expecting.

“Nothing could’ve prepared me for what I saw just approaching the ship. It was so big! And I was the only female onboard. But I had it really good because I was there with three other Jamaicans. They made the experience great. Also, it made my eyes open up because I was travelling and seeing different countries… even if we were just in passing. It was a beautiful experience coming from where I was coming from and what I wanted. So when I came back I wanted to finish. I liked it.”

She had to complete a full sailing year in order to apply for a licence. The full year, however, was a combination of the different contracted periods that she went to sea, and not one full experience.

Pointing to the fact that she went in somewhat blindly, she admitted that things would’ve probably gone differently if she and her family had truly known what the training to be a maritime officer entailed.

“We were so excited that I was doing something different. But it was probably like two years into it, being away for such long periods of time, that really made us realise. And then at that time we didn’t have fantastic Internet on board like we have now, so staying in contact with your family was extremely difficult and a very tedious process. It started to take a toll, but then we adjusted,” she related.

“We have navigated it, but it’s still a very difficult time for me when I’m leaving my family, but I’m used to it now. It’s just that, even communicating over the phone, it’s not the same as being there with your family. I have missed a lot of family events. I was never here when my niece or nephew were born, I missed a lot of birthdays, anniversaries, and I missed my sister’s wedding. Can you imagine that? My sister and I are very close, and I was not here for her wedding.”

However, even if she felt at odds with the journey, she said she would’ve stayed the course, nonetheless.

“I told myself that even if I did not like it, I will continue it. I told myself I will pursue it anyway until I make enough money to do something else.”

The Bishop Gibson High School graduate also had a penchant for medicine or aeronautical engineering — fields she thought she’d fall back on if the maritime industry didn’t pique her interest.

“That was my plan. It didn’t work out like that because I’m still here,” she laughed. “So this must have been some grand love or grand passion.”

“Whatever task was put my way I just did it to the best of my ability, and I was not going so far to fail. I adjusted my mental attitude to working with persons of different cultural backgrounds. The officers and how they react towards a lady, that was a challenge. But then going along, I learnt to grow and adapt.

“I’ve had situations where certain persons believed I should be at home, and another opinion that you need to prove yourself as a female so they give you a harder task just to see if you rise to the occasion. I’ve had that. But I’ve learnt to navigate that, so it has become the norm for me over these years.”

Sharing one of the biggest challenges she faced, Blake turned the interview into one of comic relief. Who knew that being on a ship, millions of miles away, that one of the biggest potholes a 19-year-old girl could fall into was learning the difference between a hammer and a screwdriver?

“Working with a lot of tools and equipment and stuff like that, I did not know a hammer from a screwdriver,” she said, followed by a bout of infectious laughter.

“I did not know anything about that. Back then, at Caribbean Maritime, it was mostly the schoolwork than the theoretical parts of it. But the practical part, that is also one of my shortcomings up to this day. Now I say to many of my friends that I don’t know how I reached this far,” she chuckled.

She said she developed a strategy to make a lot of friends who could teach her.

“When I go on board, I know who is good at one thing and who I need to look for when I need guidance. So I made a lot of friends to allow them to feel comfortable to teach me and impart their knowledge.”

And, as time passed, rock-size problems eroded into pebbles that she could kick away. When she finished CMI, she became an officer with various responsibilities.

“I’m not the same officer I was when I was 22 compared to now. I’ve grown, I’ve matured, and I have learnt a lot. And then I got to the point where I was teaching other cadets coming up in the system,” she said.

“It’s like a love-hate feeling. I am happy I achieved this, and this career has allowed my family to elevate, but the ugly side of it as women is that we sacrificed a lot. If I want to start a family, I would have to decide if I want to continue in this career. I’ll have to either cut back or look from the land-based side of it. It is difficult to start a family with this career. So I really salute women who are doing it and have done it.”