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Fashioning a job as water taxi captain
Victoria Abbott Riccardi for The Boston Globe
By Victoria Abbott Riccardi
Globe correspondent

It’s 2 p.m. on a recent weekday and Captain Amy Meloski has just finished her 8-hour shift ferrying passengers along Boston’s waterfront in a Boston Harbor Cruises Water Taxi. To reach her status, the 24-year-old Quincy native had to log 360 days on a boat to obtain a US Coast Guard Charter Boat Captain’s Credential (Master, 100 Ton License, Inland), letting her command any vessel weighing less than 100 tons in Boston’s inner harbor and around the islands. She also had to pass exams in Safety Knowledge, Navigation, and Chart Plotting, as well as have a clean driving record and submit to a background check and medical exam, making her one of eight female Boston Harbor Cruises captains out of 40 to 60 men. “I only learned about boats five years ago,’’ she adds laughing. “I didn’t even know what was the bow or stern.’’

Wearing her captain’s uniform of khaki pants, a white shirt adorned with gold sleeve bars, and a black, zip-neck, jersey jacket, she talked about what led her to swap a career in fashion for life on the water, the highlights of her job, and why she’s afraid of spiders.

Q. What made you want to be a boat captain?

A. It’s a funny story. My first college was Lasell [in Newton] and I studied Fashion Merchandising my freshman year. I just woke up one morning and thought, “I don’t want to do this anymore. I miss the ocean.’’ So I applied and enrolled at UMass Boston in the Environmental Science program. When I started classes it was all about oceanography and I thought one day maybe I’ll work on boats.

Q. What was the pull of the ocean?

A. My grandparents live in Quincy, on Adams Shore, and when I was a kid I used to always explore the rocks. I remember picking up horseshoe crabs by their tails and studying them and walking through the marshes.

Q. What’s a typical day?

A. I wake up at 5 a.m. and am usually on the road around 5:30. Then we start up our boats and are usually running by 6:15.

Q. Breakfast?

A. I pack it the night before — some oatmeal with a little honey and cinnamon in a Mason jar. I eat it cold.

Q. No hot beverage?

A. Oh, I’ll get a coffee in the morning — I’ll stop at Dunks.

Q. So you’re all pepped up, then what?

A. In the winter, it’s slow. Today I only carried two people. I’ll bring a book.

Q. Do you take breaks, to use the restroom?

A. Yup. I’ll just tie up and run up to the Hyatt [Regency Boston Harbor] . I try to catch the commuter boats, I know their schedule and I know when they have 10 or 15 minutes at the dock.

Q. Do people tip you?

A. Yes, most people — 1 or 2 bucks.

Q. Greatest on-job disaster?

A. Oh, last winter it was really, really windy out — there were little rollers coming into the harbor — the boat’s going up a foot and a half and down a foot and a half — there was a ton of debris in the water too and all of a sudden one of my friends, who was working on another boat, came over the radio and said, ‘Guys, I can’t move.’ He was right off the fuel dock with a passenger and he had this big piece of wrap — the kind people use to wrap their boats in the winter — around his prop and could only go in reverse. We got his passenger onto another boat and then I towed him back to our facility.

Q. Has anyone ever fallen overboard?

A. Nope, we haven’t lost anything, not even a phone or a wallet.

Q. Gotten seasick?

A. Not on this boat. The trips are so short — everything’s about 10 minutes from point to point.

Q. Highlights of job?

A. Meeting so many different people, just hearing their stories and where they’re from and why they’re here.

Q. What do you think about when you’re driving?

A. I think about where I want to go with life. I’d love to study the ocean — coastal ecology.

Q. Favorite place you’ve visited in the world?

A. Any beach, whether it be summer or winter.

Q. Dream destination?

A. Australia. There’s so much down there — the coral reefs, beautiful, beautiful beaches, rain forests you can go explore, all different types of animals than what we have up here.

Q. Sounds like you’re an outdoors girl.

A. Yes, I am, as long as there’s no spiders. I see a spider and I’m done.

Q. Why?

A. Probably because they have more than four legs.

Q. Anything else?

A. When a lot of the passengers get on, they say, “Oh, where’s the captain?’’ And sometimes people ask if I even have my driver’s license!

Interview has been edited and condensed. Victoria Abbott Riccardi can be reached at vabbottriccardi @gmail.com.