A glamorous woman has lifted the lid on her life as a submarine pilot – from her gruelling 12-hour shifts to sunbathing on the sub in the Hawaiian heat.
After swapping Melbourne, Australia, for the beautiful beaches of Honolulu, Hawaii, to follow her dream of living in a tropical location and working on a boat, Brittany Nash stumbled across the job of a lifetime.
Brittany, who finished studying a graphic design course just as the pandemic hit, said that after the world re-opened, she owed it to herself to explore her dream of moving away and applying for jobs on the sea, as she’d always wanted to work on a boat.
But she ended up bagging herself an even better job and established herself as a co-pilot pilot of the largest tourist submarine in the world, where she learned everything she knows on the job.
Brittany said: “I’d always wanted to live somewhere tropical and work on a boat, but I decided to get a degree first. I studied graphic design, which was completely unrelated to my dream.
“After COVID and everything else, I really just needed to explore that part of my dream.
“So I moved away and applied for a bunch of boat jobs. This was just the one that got back to me – being on a submarine is a lot more interesting than a boat too.
“It’s the best job in the world. I really love being under the water and seeing sea creatures every day. Sights like sea turtles just never get old.”
The 100ft long submarine holds up to 64 people, and for the last 37 years, it has been taking tourists down below to tour the deep blue depths of the sea.
Brittany said: “You do get quite tired because there are long days. They are usually between 10 to 12 hours long – sometimes longer if we get stuck in traffic.
“Things aren’t always as glamorous as they seem either. People do get seasick, and obviously we are the ones who have to clean it up. Sometimes toilets will get clogged, and we fix that as well. It can be tough.
“It’s quite a physical job too, but I guess the benefits definitely outweigh that because it’s so much fun.
“Working on a submarine does have it’s more glamorous moments too, and when I’m on my break, I sometimes sunbathe on top of the submarine.”
Not only has Brittany’s career changed dramatically but so has her body – grafting for 12-hour days has seen her muscles grow and develop to the point where she’s ten times stronger than she previously was.
She explained: “I did think about joining a gym when I moved over here, but the job is so physical that I didn’t need to.
“When my parents came to visit me, they were both like, ‘Oh my gosh, you have so much muscle!’
“It can be daunting working on a submarine when it’s such a heavily male-dominated industry, but it’s really nice when I see little girls come on and they want to take photos with me.
“You have to believe that you are as capable as a man, if not better.
“Our two lead pilots are both male, but they’re always getting the girls to do the exact same things as the guys – everything is very even.
“You’re not discriminated against or told to do less because you’re a woman – it’s a fantastic place to work because of that.”