NoFap @ Sea: a seafarer's experiment

Hey everybody!

First something short about my PMO challenge. I'm now on day 19 of a 30-day PMO-challenge. I first started with only dropping the P. I'm 23 and still a virgin, and started realizing that my porn habit might be the thing that was in the way of meeting somebody in real life. I started realizing that with the use of Porn, there was no urge for me to find a real gf. Furthermore I started to get disgusted with what I saw, and started hating myself because I would just sit behind my pc and the names of these pornstars and website just flew out of my mind like they were in the front drawer, ready to be taken out whenever I had an urge. (Actually, one of the small improvements that I hope I will get out of this reboot is that I start forgetting these names in time). When I found NoFap however I decided to take the harder PMO-challenge, because I noticed that masturbating at that time wasn't really worth something without the P, and my mind would just be thinking about porn. After reading more on the nofap website and forum, I saw that the fastest way out of it was taking up the hard mode.

I'm also a seafarer. I work in a schedule of 3 months working/2 months holiday. Sunday, I will be leaving again to join a ship in China for 3 months. There is a very big chance that I will stay with the ship in China for at least 2 months lying at anchor as we don't have cargo. This means that I will have very little opportunity to go ashore.

Now for my challenge, I want to do a 90-day PMO-challenge on board! Not so special, will you say... In the next post I want to elaborate on this challenge and why I want to see it as an experiment. I will elaborate about the challenges at sea, my fears, and questions that I have and hopefully will get an answer to after the challenge. I'm not going to reset the counter after 30 days, but will increase to a 90-day challenge. This means that if I succeed and get back home, I will be between 100 and 120 days into the challenge. I see to it as a 90 day challenge as that is more or less 3 months. I have confidence in my ability to achieve this challenge, but there will be pitfalls...

 

Advantages of PMO@Sea

• Limited temptations: Internet connection onboard will be weak, If I can open a whatsapp message on my phone that's already an achievement. This means that I won't be able to surf for porn, I won't be able to see porn subs on instagram, I won't bumb into ads with naked girls and tv ads with perfect models. I won't see magazines with models on it.
• Physical barrier: In a group of seafarers, there is always a guy with a HDD full of porn. Usually high quality downloaded stuff. I could ask for it and nobody would turn his head if I asked, its quite normal on board. But the fact that I really have to ask it to that person puts up a barrier that will help me in relapsing.
• Time to think: Running watches on the bridge, your primary function is to watch outside to spot any vessels or abnormalities on the horizon. At night, there is no time for computering or anything on the bridge so that means that you just look outside and thus have a lot of time to think things through, to motivate yourself and to clear your mind.
• People: There are always people awake, Being on my own is a trigger for me to get urges, getting out of my cabin might be a good solution.

So in short, temptations are limited and to obtain real porn on board, you have to ask somebody in person to give you some, I think I will have enough power in me to force myself to not visit that person.

Disadvantages of PMO@Sea

• Limited support: Limited internet means limited support. I might not always be able to talk to a friend, parent when something happens. I will not be able to visit the Nofap forum, which has been a great support for me since day 1 of my PMO challenge. This will be one of the biggest challenges, as I really find strength in what people say here. And there is a 10h time difference with the homefront.
• I will not be at home with christmas and new year. A time that you spend with family and friends, I might get a bit sad or sentimental.
• Free time: Even though we work long hours, there is still free time, with the risk of getting bored, and you know what happens when you get bored...
• Setbacks: Shit happens, on a ship, it happens all the time. You made a mistake, costing time, you forgot something, people have arguments, somebody has a grudge against you/envies you (especially with the culture difference between the euro officers and asian ratings). Setbacks make me sad and angry with myself, creating a feeling of depression and disappointment, resulting in fapping.
• Boredom: Although I try to do as much as possible, lying at anchor is not the most exciting job.
• Limited Excersise possibilities: I train 5 times a week in my holidays. It's not always possible to do this on board.
• No 'superpowers': I've noticed that I have a lot more energy and confidence. I start getting smiles from girls during shopping and I watch people straight in the eyes. This feels good! But I won't get smiles at sea, so the super powers will go unnoticed in these 3 months away.

My biggest weakness is that I crave fapping when I get disappointed or depressed. Disappointments will 100% certain happen in these 3 months. Maybe they will tell me that I have to stay several weeks longer, that I have done something wrong, made a calculation mistake, etc. With limited support, my biggest challenge will be to find the inner strength to keep my head above the water and stay positive. That's why I write this post, so that I can commit myself to complete this challenge.

Since I started reading threads on the forum I've come to the insight that I first have to improve myself before I can get/earn a woman in my life. By being away for 3 months, I will be forced to improve myself, to rely on myself to find strength and support, eventually leading to a stronger me.

Questions that I have now:

• Will I be able to rely on my own to find the strength to resist the urges?
• What triggers urges in me when you cut out the temptations?
• Will I feel the same superpowers on board as I got at home?

 

Now some questions for you:

• Has anybody of you had the experience of being away for a long time during a nofap challenge with limited internet/support? What was your experience with it (pitfalls, setbacks, positive points).
• It's an experiment, anybody has a suggestion that they would like me to try while being on board? A mental challenge, anything?
• What are your thoughts on this? Would you be able to stick to a PMOchallenge without NoFap? Can you improve without seeing some result in the form of smiling girls and confidence boosts?

Feel free to ask/suggest anything or come up with more questions that I can try to solve.

Somewhere in March, I hope to be able to write a post with my experiences in the Succes stories feature of Nofap!