Eddy Navigator

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As an Eddy navigator, I've been hired by more than half of the Tiderider families now sailing and a good quarter of the untethered. I could tell you I've met everyone who's stood a deck in the last ten years, and it would only be a small lie. There are certain receptions I'm used to, ranging from resentment to admiration. Sometimes families with their own navigators don't like that they have to suffer an outsider if they want to take a trip to the Eddy. They think it's unfair that we're keeping some of our techniques a secret, which tells me they haven't thought about how complicated it is. Most young sailors trail me like a wake, some shy about it and some brazen, asking me everything about what I do. When I answer them, I can tell at first breeze who's sundreaming and who has real interest.   The ones who welcome me with a smile and sad eyes are the ones I greet like equals. They know. They've tried. For whatever reason, usually for no fault, they couldn't make it all the way to the last mark. Eddy navigating takes thorough dedication and rare tolerance. True is true, I have some pride in it and I don't mind telling about it. Maybe it'll excite someone out there to start the journey. it's a worthwhile one, even if it doesn't end where you hope it will.  

Career

Qualifications

There's a lot to learn in navigation. You have to know the stars, currents, winds, clouds, birds. Anything that moves can be a clue to where you are. The most important, and the part where many drop out, is in learning everything that's in the sky. The stars, the moon, her family, the sky river. Where it's all going and when it's supposed to get there. You need to see at a glance if something's moved and gauge how far apart things are. That's how to find any spot in the ocean whether there's land there or not.   Beyond the skills, there's the fit. To be an Eddy navigator, you really have to be a friend of the ocean. Not that it's part of the testing, just that long-voyage navigating means night after night of staying up with a sullen watch that has less to say to you than the winds and swells do. If you're not already having friendly conversation with the ocean, you won't last long enough to earn your final mark unless you start to.  

Career Progression

Every Eddy navigator started out as a wetfoot who couldn't find the way from one side of a boat to the other. If you want to find the Eddy you start by following someone who can find Mraydor. You learn the basics of how to tell which way you're going. If you do well there, you've got the makings of a trade navigator, a fine and respectable position in any Tiderider family.   The next leg is to find an Eddy navigator and ask them to take you as an apprentice. That's a tough pull because we're used to hearing from excited chlidren who are looking for glory without effort. But suppose you convince me that you're serious about the work. Then you live on my boat while I teach you our specific methods of reading the sky and ocean. Eventually you'll know everything I do, but you're no navigator yet. I can give you the mark of knowledge, but the mark of practice only comes from the Master of Seas.   Who that is exactly is secret. Guess all you want to, but we won't tell even if you're right. All you need to know is that the Master of Seas will test your skills to the extreme. After that, the final challenge is to guide a small boat on your own to an isolated islet...blindfolded. If you can't find your way by what you can feel, hear, and smell, you'll be useless in a fog.   The Master of Seas has no other mark. There's no need for it; we all know who it is. It's a sadness more than an honor. If you're Master of Seas, the greatest navigator to the edge of any Gap, it's only because someone died who knows more than you.  

Other Benefits

Besides the respect and regular adventures, I have my own boat. A lot of freedom in that. Tiderider fleets own all the vessels attached to the mother ship, and it's easy for a sailor with an assigned boat to start thinking it belongs to her, but the Mother Captain can decide to trade or sell it anytime. I tether onto any ship I'm working with, but when the job is done I'm free to go.   Also the awe. Because I'm watching the stars, I notice the moon's family more than most. A few nights I've stood out on a deck and seen showers of light raining over the sky. More blood-red moons than I can remember.  

Costs

There's a deep loneliness to this work. I don't belong to any family now. There used to be maybe one or two Tiderider fleets out there who would take regular enough trips into the Gaps to have one of their own train in Eddy-finding, and even those would hire out sometimes. But now, every one of us, we're Ex Somebody In Nothing. We're a sort of fleet of our own, a family of experience because we've all been through the same trials, but it's rare we ever meet. Mostly it's the ocean and his other friends for our company.