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Sunday, July 13, 2025

They call her Captain

First female Chief Officer on the water taxis ​

by

Charles Kong Soo
2124 days ago
20190921

Chief Of­fi­cer Bernadette Pa­ponette cuts a strik­ing fig­ure in her hi­jab and crisp, black and white uni­form. Then there is her ef­fu­sive smile. She is sec­ond in com­mand on­ly to the cap­tain of the ves­sel and is the on­ly fe­male Chief Of­fi­cer serv­ing on­board Nid­co's wa­ter taxis. ​

While pass­ing the Break­fast Shed on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, pa­trons and passers­by hail Pa­ponette out as 'Cap­tain', she is not of­fi­cial­ly one as yet, but some­times per­forms the du­ties as a cap­tain in his ab­sence. ​

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at the ad­ja­cent Fer­ry Ter­mi­nal Build­ing, Pa­ponette said "Every­where I go peo­ple are amazed see­ing what I do be­ing a fe­male Chief Of­fi­cer op­er­at­ing a ves­sel. For me, it's so nor­mal be­cause I love what I do.​

"I've al­ways been fas­ci­nat­ed by the sea, I feel that I'm in my el­e­ment and com­fort zone, see­ing all the wa­ter it's like a home away from home for me. ​

"I spent my child­hood in Cumaca, Va­len­cia and Tu­na­puna and now live in St Au­gus­tine. I start­ed with the com­pa­ny in Jan­u­ary 2012, I al­so spent some time on the Galleons Pas­sage.​

"I told my­self let me try it, not know­ing ful­ly what it was about. I wouldn't change my ca­reer for any­thing. The on­ly thing, if I could do dif­fer­ent­ly, is to start soon­er."​

She stud­ied Mar­itime Op­er­a­tions at the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T's (UTT) mar­itime cam­pus in Ch­aguara­mas, sailed and trained on oil and gas tankers on our con­ti­nents, North Amer­i­ca, South Amer­i­ca, Eu­rope, and Asia, reach­ing as far as South Ko­rea. ​

Af­ter Pa­ponette's train­ing as a deck cadet, she sailed am­mo­nia tankers for a while be­fore mov­ing on to her first pas­sen­ger ship, the Bour­bon Off­shore.​

She said she would love to see a lot more women work­ing on­board ships in T&T—in­ter­na­tion­al­ly women on board ves­sels was a more com­mon sight, but lo­cal­ly she doesn't know if they find it too chal­leng­ing, with the ra­tio of women in the lo­cal mar­itime in­dus­try at just two per cent. ​

Pa­ponette, 36, said her shift be­gins at 4:30 am with the first sail­ing. As safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer, some of her du­ties in­clude en­sur­ing the safe­ty of the more than 400 pas­sen­gers dur­ing the voy­age, the crew and board­ing and dis­em­bark­ing op­er­a­tions.​

She is al­so re­spon­si­ble for what oc­curs on board the deck, the Mas­ter or Cap­tain is in charge over­all, and she as­sists him with berthing and un­berthing of the ves­sel. ​

Pa­ponette said some­times she acts as cap­tain on­board ves­sels since cap­tains may not come out for var­i­ous rea­sons, such as emer­gen­cies, ill­ness or va­ca­tion.​

She said dur­ing down­time while not sail­ing in Port-of-Spain, she over­sees the needs of the ves­sels' main­te­nance un­til they are ready to sail for San Fer­nan­do, the ves­sels' home base where they overnight.​

Pa­ponette said she had en­coun­tered a storm be­fore, but now more of­ten than not the wa­ter taxis may en­counter fish­ing ves­sels with their nets spread out in the wa­ter.​

She said some­times the wa­ter taxis had to al­ter course and go around them to avoid dam­ag­ing the fish­ing ves­sels' nets, which caus­es some de­lay.​

Pa­ponette said rough wa­ters did not oc­cur too of­ten, it oc­curred once a year like in Au­gust, and the wa­ter taxis had to de­lay sail­ing be­cause it was dif­fi­cult to berth.​

She said they tried to keep the crews to­geth­er as­signed to a ves­sel, one week the crew will ro­tate shifts be­tween the Paria Bul­let and Ca­lyp­so Sprint­er.​

Pa­ponette said she could car­ry out her Is­lam­ic re­li­gious prac­tices such as fast­ing dur­ing Ra­madan while work­ing be­cause of the prayer times and sail­ing times, they were not a prob­lem as she re­ceived her pri­va­cy to fast and say prayers. ​

She said, how­ev­er, it was chal­leng­ing be­ing a sin­gle ca­reer-dri­ven moth­er of a five-year-old daugh­ter, who start­ed pri­ma­ry school just over a year ago.​

Pa­ponette said af­ter she fin­ished her sail­ing job, she had two more jobs at home be­ing a moth­er and a teacher help­ing her daugh­ter with her home­work, but she wouldn't change it for the world.​

She said her daugh­ter un­der­stood what her job en­tailed—un­born ba­bies are aware of their sur­round­ings while in the womb and she sailed with her for a full nine months.​

Pa­ponette said her daugh­ter was used to her work time, she doesn't ques­tion or feel left out and grew in­to it. ​

She said she would al­low her daugh­ter to fol­low in her foot­steps if she choos­es—she al­ready told her she was go­ing to be steer­ing ships just like her.​

Pa­ponette said she would en­cour­age her daugh­ter be­cause many times she was the on­ly fe­male work­ing on­board a ship.​

She said there were chal­lenges in the mar­itime in­dus­try, but she had nev­er en­coun­tered any dis­crim­i­na­tion in any form or bias. ​

Pa­ponette said she tries to bring up her daugh­ter as best as she can so that she can con­fi­dent­ly go out in the world to make a liv­ing. She feels asured that her daugh­ter will be fine.


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