Words from an Alum: Anna Capp TSSG '99

Hi my name is Anna Capp and I was a TSSG cadet on The Californian in 1999, the Maiden Voyage. Though I hate to be repetitive and say that TSSG ‘changed my life’, truth be told, it did. How could it not? TSSG was an amazing semester spent with amazing girls and a wonderful crew. I learned how to work as part of a team, overcome challenges, and push myself beyond my own expectations. I also had the pleasure of learning new, different, and exciting subjects. I saw my trigonometry class come to life in Navigation Mathematics and studies whales while actually seeing whales!

The semester also offered us an interesting perspective on local life. Most tourists arrive in Mexico by conventional means, a bus, plane, or small boat but very few arrive in a 145’ tallship. Everyone (and I mean everyone) wanted to come aboard and check it out. I can still remember being anchored off of a remote fishing island taking Mexican fisherman aloft into the rigging. Sitting on the deck watching these big men follow high school girls higher and higher we giggled as we overhead one say ‘these girls have cajones.’

TSSG was not an easy experience, which made it all the more valuable. Frustrations, loneliness, and many a watch with seasickness taught me how to take the good with the bad, handle difficult situations, and grin and bear it when there is work to be done. It was an amazing adventure that inspired me to continue taking the road less traveled. After college, I decided my adventures were not yet over. I wanted to continue to see the world, but having begun my adventures from the deck of a tallship somehow backpacking through Europe seemed just too normal. Instead I committed myself to two years (and then a third) with the US Peace Corps in Burkina Faso, West Africa. My memories of the eight weeks as part of TSSG were joined by three years of African landscapes, drinking tea on hot afternoons, trying to learn a local language, and all sorts of wonders that cannot be described. Like TSSG my Peace Corps experience had its ups and downs (though not nearly as literally as being at sea) full of loneliness, frustration, and a strong desire to catch the next plane home. But I knew I could handle it, that bad days are always followed by good, and that I was stronger that I could imagine. At the end of the worst of days I would look up into an African night sky filled with brilliant stars and remember seeing the same stars on the bow of The Californian and feel the frustrations of the day simply melt away.

In a few weeks I’ll be returning to California to pursue a BS in Nursing. After I become a nurse I hope to continue working abroad in out of the way places, and I have my eye on Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). Peace Corps kindled a desire to do my part to change the world but it was TSSG that fanned the fire of adventure leading me on to who knows where.