The Sea Organization, or Sea Org, is a unit of the Church of Scientology, comprising the church's most dedicated members. The church refers to it as a "religious order". As of 2009 it had around 6,000 members. The Sea Org was established on 12 August 1967 by L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer and church's founder, initially on board three ships, the Diana, the Athena, and the Apollo. In 1971 it assumed responsibility for the ecclesiastical development of the church, and in particular for the upper levels of its training, known as Operating Thetan or OT levels.
It moved to land bases in 1975, though maritime customs persist, with members wearing naval-style uniforms and addressing each other, women included, as "sir." In 1988 the church purchased a 440-foot ship, the "Freewinds," which docks in Curacao in the southern Caribbean and is used as a religious retreat and training centre, staffed entirely by Sea Org members. Sea Org members sign one-billion-year contracts with the church, in exchange for which they are given free room and board, and a small weekly allowance. They are allowed to marry, but must relinquish their membership if they have or want to raise children.
Read more about Sea Org: Background, Analysis
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“... but by that time a lot of sea had rolled by and Lucette was too tired to wait. Then the night was filled with the rattle of an old but still strong helicopter. Its diligent beam could spot only the dark head of Van, who, having been propelled out of the boat when it shied from its own sudden shadow, kept bobbing and bawling the drowned girl’s name in the black, foam-veined, complicated waters.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)