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| Photo / Michael Craig |
Ask any hard working nurse slaving away inside British a NHS hospital if they would like to swap doling out bed pans to incontinent patients for serving cappuccino to guests on board a super yacht and I am guessing you will not have to wait long for her to have packed her bags and be standing beside you with a lets go grin on her face.
But Alice Tempest until recently the Chief Stewardess aboard the 49 metre Thalia has taken the opposite course and jumped ship for a life of nursing in the wards of an Auckland hospital
She told Mahvash Ali a reporter with the New Zealand Herald she gave up a financially rewarding and adventurous career on the high seas for the intrinsic rewards of nursing.
“I was at the top of my game professionally, but it is not about the money,” she says.
“As a nurse, I feel I can smile at the end of the day knowing I have helped people,” she says.
Tempest, who is from the UK, chose nursing because she loves to travel. A worldwide nursing shortage means she can take her pick of locations.
Tempest, who trained in New Zealand, says she first thought of becoming a nurse in 2007 while working on board another yacht.
“I was looking for a change, and I heard about a friend who was a nurse and went to Dubai for a job. I thought ‘this is something I can do’,” she says.