JUNE 9th, 2013, SUNDAY
En route to Morocco.
After weeks of figuring out on how I can communicate to the outside world , or at the very least have an entry on my blog - I had now finally solved the problem and found out that there was an onboard email here in CAPE Tallin, I just simply have to register on the computer at the C.O.C. office on this ship and viola - I have now an email address and can do emails. Plus it's a good thing that I had managed to program my blog to publish blog entries via email. Another thing that I could add about is the Status update of my official FB account, good thing that face book has an email status update feature ( face book mobile option I think) which of course I also program when I was still back on land. I cant wait to get my hands on the ships C.O.C. computer and start emailing there !!!
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| The PC here that A.B. Patrick is using is the PC used for crew email, Before using it, a sailor needs to inform 3rd officer first , so he can register it |
On the crew mess for some reason every Friday , beans are served on the menu. I'm not exactly sure on how this started but what I'm definite about is that almost every ship that has a Filipino cook onboard serves beans every Friday. Weird right ??? Another thing weird is that if there's a birthday of a crew member (or ship official) there is a cola or some beverage served along during lunch - not exactly sure on the specific explanation to this. In relation to what I'm saying earlier its was Chief cooks birthday this Friday and incidentally beans and a beverage (cola or beer) was served on lunch.
Aside from that there was a drinking session that night and the crew along with me was blasting the crew mess karaoke with songs. I'm not a good singer , but I did sing and Pump man Nilo Pastrana did joked about it saying that he couldn't tell the difference if I was singing or reading a poem. Oh well my social skills are really poor , so I do admit I'm not a good singer :D .
The following day after Half day Work (Saturday)
Another scheduled barbecue get together was held , The whole "Ratings" crew was busy setting up the table and preparing the food. I along with BOSUN AMICAN, O.S. Xerxes Hall, Oiler "Gian" , A.B. "Mallorca" and A.B. "Patrick" was also busy roasting the pig on the aft side of the ship, wasn't an easy business roasting a dead pig and aside from that even though this ship is now technically in Europe which has a much cooler climate than America , the sun here is still unforgiving and roasting a pig without a shade is not comfortable at all.
One difference in barbecue party having a mixed crew from a full Filipino crew is that you have to dress decent clothes (compared to having a full crew dressing anything your comfortable with even with only working clothes). Food was great and I loved the sushi that the chief cook made, The menu wasn't that extensive but chief cook Roberto Cervantes Penerada is a master when it comes to cooking.
The next day……
Morning was briefly interrupted for a few hours, when I took a look on the window of my cabin I noticed that the ship circled twice on some object floating at sea. Curious on what it was I hurriedly went to my cabin to get my monocular (mini version of a binocular telescope) and viewed the said object it's a bow of a capsized ship , most likely a fishing vessel. Looked upon it thoroughly and looks like nothing is alive(or dead floating) on that ship.
When I went out of my cabin , it was coincidence that I saw BOSUN AMICAN having a radio with him and said that I should knock O.S. Hall's cabin. He added that there's a floating capsized ship and there's a possibility that we might do a "Rescue" , BOSUN knocked O.S. Hall's cabin and Hall came out. After telling us BOSUN hurriedly went wont stairs to the main deck to check it out personally while me and hall went to the locker room to get dressed up on cover alls. We met BOSUN on the starboard side of the ship, aft area and he told us to keep our eyes peeled to any objects or people that might be still floating around. After a few minutes we saw nothing and even though Cape Tallin circled twice , the said small ship had no life.
Since there wasn't any action at all , BOSUN AMICAN said that we should clean up the litter that was left behind the barbecue party yesterday. ME, O.S. Hall, A.B. "Patrick" and A.B. Mallorca cleaned up the place and put the huge barbecue grill (made up of cut up Oil Drum) on the steering room, along with the 2 sacks charcoal for later use. Nearly got myself in an accident in the steering room when I mistakenly thought that the bulkwark beam was a letter "T", with that mistake my left hand slip while climbing up the ledge , good thing that my balance and pulling force was not centered on my left hand or could have fell 6 meters to the steering room platform. Chinese made ships are really dangerous compared to Japanese one's , Hope I don't ever get assigned to a Chinese made ship ever again. Clean up took only at least half an hour and BOSUN AMICAN saw four spare unused sprite cola cans out of the pile of litter, He said we could have the spare cans as refreshment.
In the afternoon A.B. Ronald Caldona was cleaning up his cabin probably preparing for his near departure from cape tallin and return to the Philippines. He decided to give away some of his stuff used on other crew members, I received from him some spare working clothes and a Dumbbells, yeah believe it of not that's what I had received. Honestly I thank "Ronald" for being generous and giving me those spare working clothes, and I badly need those things since I was given a wrong by career office in bringing only 23 Kilograms of luggage rather than 40 Kilograms, resulting to many of my equipment being left out in the Philippines.
