Lon Calloway

Lon Calloway grew up in Upper Michigan, an ambitious oldest child with aspirations of living an exciting life. By the time he finished high school, he had lived in Norway as a foreign-exchange student, and touched down in Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Hawaii, American Samoa, Tahiti and New Zealand. Lon had big plans.

After three years of studies at Michigan State to become a teacher, he applied to the Maritime academy in Traverse City, Michigan. After all, he’d been drawing pictures of boats since he was a small boy. But upon learning he would have to start over from scratch, he decided on another plan. Lon joined the Coast Guard.

There he was guaranteed to receive navigation training—for free, no less—plus he would get paid. And they promised duty in Alaska. Win-win-win. Only later would he discover Alaska was considered a Coast Guard penal colony, and that a posting there wasn’t difficult to get. In the end, the price Lon paid was higher than expected, but he did get all the training he was after. All in all, he was pleased with the arrangement.

After completing his service in the Coast Guard, Lon spent a couple years on Great Lakes iron ore freighters. He was working eight hours on and then 16 hours off, with nothing to do but watch the water roll past. This, he knew, was not the life he’d envisioned for himself.

After a few semi-permanent positions, Lon became wary of taking a permanent job with a company where a dispatcher would dictate when he could get off the boat. Instead he opted to carve a career out of being a relief. He would fly in like Superman to save some poor soul’s day, who couldn’t go home until their relief showed up. Who doesn’t want to be that hero? If they liked him and he liked them, he could extend his stay another 30-days, allowing another guy to go on vacation.

Over the years, Lon had affiliations with five maritime unions, plus he had an agent. Typically, within 24-hours of making a call, he could be back on boat and geared up for his next adventure. The connections Lon made this way served him very well, allowing him to forego the more traditional path of many other shipmates, that often involved working in an office or becoming a dispatcher themselves.

In 40-plus years, Lon did relief work on over 85 boats and ships including a 40-foot wooden halibut long-liner in Alaska, a Steel shrimp dragger in Key West, a research ship in Hawaii, a Coast Guard cutter in the Gulf of Alaska, a ferry boat to Mackinac Island and various ferries on the Alaska Marine Highway System, plus a 1000-foot monster of an iron ore freighter on the Great Lakes. Lon began his career as a dishwasher and ended it holding Unlimited Captain/First Class pilot papers for Great Lakes inland waters, as well as Master of Towing papers for work on tugboats in coastal waters.

All in all, Captain Lon has had the time of his life, enjoying every colorful adventure as well as the hard work that went along with them. Lon is now retired and living in Indian River, Michigan where he and Lisa offer history tours on their charming wooden boat.