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| Actual Ship to ship Mooring operations of Conti Greenland and NAVI Ceilo |
After
Hamburg Germany, This ship cancelled out united kingdom destination and headed
somewhere close - Netherlands. Based on what the captain told us about in the
safety meeting, that berthing will take place twice, namely each one for the
two parcels. First parcel will be done via STS (ship to ship) discharge in
Netherlands.
During the
travel, O.S. Bilbao tested out his newly purchased Hair clippers and hair
grooming set he got on sunny euro to me. I was fortunate that I had a decent
hair cut after so many months , in fact this is the first time I got a haircut
after six months and during the time I got here till O.S. Bilbao arrived there
was no one here on this ship that have a hair dressing skills. So as a result I
had a very long hair , enough to make a girly pony tail. Good thing that soviet
ship officer's here are not very particular or meddle with personal things on
crew like haircuts - it's no big deal to them if you have a long hair or not ,
A ship with a Filipino ship officers on the other hand are exactly the opposite
- always intruding in other peoples affairs and to some extent coerce their own
kind (to pressure and blackmail people , by physical , moral or intellectual
means) like the maltreatment I had in STOLT Strength were I was pressured (to
the point blackmailed) to shave my hair and go bald by coercion by that bastard
CHIEF MATE mark joy tacgos. Believe me Filipino sailors love every form of
cruelty they can inflict on their own kind, this includes trampling on basic
human rights as an individual and Filipino citizen
Anyway
simple grooming like a haircut can be simple and taken for granted on land, but
on board a ship with no proper and formal barber, this is a huge problem. Can
you imagine a situation not getting a haircut for half a year or in worse case
a whole year and if ever you had a haircut it has only one style - SKINNY BALD
like some sort of Jewish prisoner in a Nazi death camp in world war 2.
Seriously it’s a torment for everyone being shaved bald , or having a no
haircut at all, but what can we do as a sailor ? It's just part of the reality
and a fact !
Going back
- Lasting only a day's travel at sea , the following night we left Hamburg this
ship had arrived in Netherlands. At about 9pm we dropped anchor, It was the
same old usual routine work that I had been doing for the past 6 months now.
The only thing different now is that BOSUN Payopay is starting now to get into
my nerve's with all his ranting and yelling. Never liked the idea of him
lecturing and preaching like some sort of holy pastor when it comes to little
petty details about work, especially on the following day at about 4am in the
morning when we heaved up anchor, he said some bullshit that I should look at
the anchor chain at all times - seriously I had been doing my work that after 2
shackles are left , the part where I go
to the anchor ball and hoist it down , why the fuck lecture me now after 5
months ?! . Anyway I'm glad I don’t have to endure more than 6 months of nasty
ranting and preaching - same thing goes also on A.B. Joseph Dinglasa , that Mr
know-it-all ! Hmpf what a show off !!! He orders me around and contradicts ever
work i make thinking he knows better ! He may not tell it directly but I can
sense in his eyes that he's jealous on me - probably because I'm better than
him.
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| Can you believe in this shit ? a ship without a bond store ? Thats not all it gets even more better ! |
Ship to
ship mooring was very tedious and took us three whole hours just to moor to the
other ship properly. The ship we moored at is called 'Nave Cielo" .
Fortunately ratings working on that ship are Filipino so there's no problem in
communicating with them - at least on work. From what I found out from them ,
they belong to another maritime shipping agency in the Philippines called
"Epsilon Maritime Services" , familiar company in the sense that it’s
a Greek principal and they gave very low salaries to their workers. The salary
I earn from Career ship management as an O.S. is just the same as the one they
give as an A.B. (one rank higher than mine). And as any foreign principal ,
they do have their wont domestic problems as well - specifically Overtime
payment on their work. From what I learned it seems that their work on Sundays
was totally free and doesn’t get put up on their pay (WHAT THE HELL ?!!!), and
that’s not only the thing - it gets even more interesting ! . From what I learned
this ship doesn't even have a bond store - yes a BOND STORE ! , Oh man ! How
the fuck does the crew even get the basic necessities like shampoo, Soap, clean
water and toothpaste ? - beats me ? but I could picture that the crews life on
that ship is a living hell without a bond store, to add more insult to the
already injured and badly pissed off crew there's no internet email or even any
form of communication to get from the outside world . Basically a crew there is
Imprisoned and do not have any idea on what's going on in the lives of their
love one's. Funny that its already an international law that ships should be
provided with internet connection for the welfare of the crew and yet the
Greeks seems to haven't heard a thing from the U.N. (or even from the European
union).
Bottom line
is there's nothing much to say positive about Philippine shipping companies
that have a Greek principal - not even impressive to begin with .so word of
advice if you're looking for a "habitable" working environment, DO
NOT LOOK FOR WORK THERE IN EPSILON MARITIME SERVICES !!! STAY AWAY FROM THAT
PLACE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE !!!
If I
thought that my company (and principal sucks) - well turns out that another
shipping company out there in the Philippines sucks even more !!!
For the
moment this ship to ship discharging operations will be very brief, and from
what I heard it will be just roughly around 12 or so hours , then after that
were going to head off to an anchorage area somewhere in Netherlands till about
the 21st , then proceed to berth again and discharge the 2nd parcel of its
cargo. During that , it's expected that I'd disembark and be going back home in
the Philippines, according to rough estimates - my arrival will be very close
to Christmas (or probably be Christmas eve) .
December
18, 2014 Thursday , 0000 HRS.
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| Release P/V pressure by hand , just grab the lever !! |
Was heavily
busy on all the social networking stuff and updating my blog and haven’t got a
chance to have a decent sleep. I started out my work and saw that A.B. Marlon
Layos and O.S. Tan are very much busy doing something and immediately I
recognized that discharge operations was near its finish. Within a few hours
"Stripping" will start. I ignored my duties being the "guard
dog" at the gangway for this time and helped out on the work in the
manifold, besides I'm already bored being a "Guard dog" and there not
much guarding the gangway since this is a ship to ship operations , no walk way
platforms of any kind connected to
shore. Aside from helping out in the manifold , i was also helping out delivering mail from my ship to the other ship , 2nd mate always radioed into me the word "PHILPOST!!!" which i definitely meant i had to delivery mail (documents) to the other ship
We finished
discharging the cargo at about 2am in the morning and cargo hoses was
disconnected at about 3am , and wake up the crew over the phone at about 5am,
this time to avoid any problems and confusion I decided to notify both Oiler
Lague and Wiper Evangelista that Ship pilot will arrive at 5:30am
pilot then
arrives at about 5:30am and we immediately sailed off, but instead of going
outside (a few miles away Rotterdam) to an anchorage area. Us aft mooring team
got surprised when we were ordered to arrange again the mooring ropes and
"park" this ship on a nearby berthing platform. Mooring arrangement
on the platform was 2:2:3 .
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| Ship is parked so close , it make me want to think to strap on a life jacket and swim to the shore just to get a "Shore Leave' |
