CHRISTMAS WITHOUT YOU

Behold !!! the typical butter wash machine's always typically used on almost all tankers in the world 

Although Tank cleaning operations in a chemical tanker are common and usually done on a regular basis, Product tankers however are much different even though their also part of the "Tanker class" commercial ships. On my previous two ships both Stolt Strength and Bow Ophelia, it is so common that there is no need to conduct a "special kind of work" and all working schedules are unchanged , Unfortunately i couldn't say much the same on Cape Tallin (my current ship), tank cleaning here is very rare given that this is a full fledge bonafide crude oil product tanker. Unfortunately as soon as this ship left Lebanese port , this ship drifted somewhere near in Cyprus and started tank cleaning ops and that's when all hell broke loose on working schedules . Here's what happened

On December 18, 2013 Wednesday. I started work at about 6am given that BOSUN AMICAN ordered me to do a job to clean my designated cleaning station, the reason why was that this ship is expecting V.I.P. Personnel from CSM visiting at 10am. At 9am This ship dropped anchor near Cyprus (CSM has a main office here) and at about 10:30 , a small boat went alongside and boarded this ship, as the usual procedure we set our "props" (complete ISPS enchilada and costumes etc..) to make the VIP's think that everything in this ship is doing well (even though on the reality it is not), from what i recall there are 5 personnel who boarded this vessel and they are two office trainee's , one ships agent and 2 superintendents . There's also a female who should have boarded this ship however she got sea sick and decided to stay on the

An hour later,  a small ship went alongside on the starboard side of this ship to conduct bunkering operations (refuelling). At about 2pm the VIP's disembark and this ship was left doing bunkering ops until at about 7 or 8 pm. During that time I was off doing either maintenance work or some sort of "Special work" like mooring ship to ship at the same time. It was difficult on the sense that BOSUN AMICAN doesn't have the ability to handle the crew. Me , A.B. Homer Mallorca , A.B. Jay Briones and O.S. Del Monte have been going to a lot of work on the mooring ropes like changing the rope tails and such , down to the filing and arranging them on the winches - enough to make us tired. The whole day was a total chaos on which "Specific" work are we actually doing, We have no idea if it was just only maintenance work for today or were in operations like handling of the VIP's and Bunkering Ops.

At 3:45 pm I was surprised to hear from Amican , that my working schedule will be retained until 6pm. I didn't bother to ask him why I'd be extended , all that registered in my brain was I'd still be on work till night. During the few hours "Retain" i found out from A.B. Homer that starting today there will be a special tank cleaning ops and all of us will be working on 24 hours in a six hour shift. (my shift will be 12 in the midnight till 6 in the morning , then be back again 12 noon till 6pm) , rumor from homer says that the "new chief mate" has a deadlock time of 5 days to finish the job. Found out from homer that Saturdays and Sundays off are cancelled as well. 

After 6pm I went to see O.S. Del Monte to notify him of his working shift , and heard from him that tank cleaning ops was going to start until 9pm upwards.

"BLOODY FUCKING HELL !!!! " I shouted out of astonishment and said again

"You meant all that blabber BOSUN Amican told me about me earlier extending till 6pm was all horse shit ???" , O.S Del Monte replied "Apparently so , and you've been overworked unnecessarily and your actual working shift will not start till it's midnight"

Upon hearing what O.S. Del Monte said , I felt that i was ripped off again by Mr. Frog Face. That son of a bitch never told me that tanks cleaning ops for me was still far out by midnight , from what i heard to him earlier it was as if it was like i had to do it immediately.

Went to rest and did some writing on this blog to update my journal.

December 19, 2013 Thursday 1am.

So much for a six hour rest and I'm back again doing work. Tank cleaning on a crude product tanker was boring to begin with and i had nothing to do but watch and see if the butter wash machines are working or not, the rest of the hour was just sitting around doing nothing at all. For the moment tank cleaning is currently being worked on 1st wings (meaning both port and star board side of cargo tank  number 1).

At around 4am in the morning i overheard A.B. Bryan's conversation and A.B. Homer Mallorca , something about criticism on BOSUN AMICAN's laziness. Apparently from what i heard is that he just overslept and hid in his cabin to avoid work, Strange and very ironic that he does exactly the opposite on what comes out on his mouth , look at him now - the bastard is pretty much lazy doing his work.

For some reason, the chemicals that was brought in during Houston USA will not be used at all and the tank cleaning procedure here will just only use hot water . For some reason i don't understand why they're just going to use hot water , and all the efforts of hauling off the 32 plus drums of chemicals and the trouble of ordering them in Houston were only just put to waste.

December 20th 2013 Friday.

Same old tank cleaning schedule and not much action compared to a chemical tanker, and very same old job in watching those butter wash machines spin over and over again.  By the way the weather was a bit rainy with occasional strong winds but nothing serious to impede work.

Well there's one thing that might have been a bit interesting, me , A.B. Homer and O.S. Del Monte opened up a cargo tank hatch this morning. Unfortunately homer forgot to open up the tank hatch slowly and let it rest for a while to gradually release the pressure of the steam inside, instead he opened it up a bit quick resulting to a strong gush of steam coming out , and guess who got all the bloody heat coming from the steam ? - yeah i took all that steam that came out, good thing i was wearing coveralls and i didn't sustained any burn marks from it and this isn't a chemical tanker carrying acid's otherwise both of my legs could have been burned off in an instant.

Another thing aside from opening the tank hatch is that the laundry room is now finally open after two weeks being closed , Immediately I didn't waste any time in putting laundry on that damn laundry machine. Thank god that the washing machine is open.

December 21st 2013 Saturday

Went to work a bit late for this day, This time it was intentional that i arrived late (well part intentional) after i mistook that the tank cleaning schedule was all over. Now why did i mistook ? Well blame it all when i saw that the ship moved early in the morning.

Anyway it was an honest mistake , apparently i found out on the latter that the main reason why the ship moved was  on the fact that this ship drifted very far from the current location yesterday. So to correct the exact position of the ship it had moved its engines again to the designated "drifting location"

For now the work we did was just drop off the two portable butter wash machines into the residue tank and let those machine clean the tank with hot water .

December 22nd 2013 Sunday

So much for the weekends off , i could just write it in fat air and as expected its cancelled.

We did a lot of work on this day , mostly just inspecting what was the results of the tank cleaning procedure of using only hot water. There was one funny thing that happened during that time and it was when A.B. Jay and Pumpman Liscano entered cargo tank number 4 , as soon as they entered the said cargo tank . A very loud and strong sound came inside it (enough to hurt their ears) and incidentally their hand held oxygen detector / hydro carbon device flashed wildly and then accompanied by a gushing water leak inside one of the pipes.

Both of them wildly went to get outside the cargo tank , as in running wildly like hell was at in their feet .

Later they found out that the cause of the loud sound was the new chief mate pressed the wrong button alarms - WHILE THEY WERE INSIDE . Anyway it was the chief mates blunder.

Late hour on work, there was an oil spill at the bottom of the pump room and all of us went there to cleaned it. I was going up and down on the stairs of the pump room, delivering the equipment used for the cleaning - tedious and tiring. 

NOTING ELSE I COULD SAY

Winter since is already visible here in the middle east as weather drastically gets colder each day. Though its not that cold as some places in Europe, and snow is still not visible here. winter season in Lebanon is still quiet cold - for Filipino standards. (By the way as for general information here the sunset is as early as 4:30pm in Europe during winter time. )

Presently , to adjust on these temperature drops. I had to wear a few more clothes inside on my coveralls to keep myself warm (thanks to some winter clothes left to me by my friend "Pat" before he left the ship). The challenge for me now is how to keep my hands still warm while working given that winter equipment here is somewhat being "Restricted" . Fortunately for me I found a used winter gloves several months ago during summer season (while working here) , i cleaned it and repaired it and voila !! A usable winter gloves - problem is that its only a single piece and for my left hand only and not a pair. For my right hand usage i found a leather gloves then layer it with two cotton gloves as a remedy.  (it took a pictures of what i did on the gloves just to give description of what i made, pictures will be posted as soon as i get back on land and have internet connection).

For now , I'm currently doing the usual routine maintenance work . Sweeping the deck area with a broom.  Paint stuff here and there. Usual routine.

On what's going on onboard well I could say things are pretty much generally peaceful though a few troublemakers like "bull frog" Amican starting up trouble every now and then. One instance is that when the superintendent came by and asked how is the food going , "Bull Frog" Amican says that Chief Cook Olan is not doing his job correctly. I did not exactly heard every word he said to the superintendent but the general idea saying that Chief cook doesn't do his job well is a big question mark to the superintendents' head and probably (and most likely) would stir up trouble later on.

At the morning coffee break i was hell right and apparently from what i heard there was a short meeting that came up , i don't know the details but what came up was that Chief Cook and even the Captain was chewed out by the superintendent and apparently the captain voiced out his disgust over it and even his fury about which one in the crew accused and reported him to the CSM office. ( according to the report , he was accused of manipulation of provisions and "stealing" money from CSM)

Of course i wasn't there when it happened , because I am still technically imposing the "lock down policy" and had been staying on my cabin every coffee break to avoid any further hostilities and harassment from the crew (Specifically from BOSUN "Frog Face" Amican and 2nd officer "Bastard-O" a.k.a. Renan Olis , see journal entry "To Pacify the monster" dated september 2013). I only got to know the details from Mess man Ferdinand Penera.

Honestly I don't think Captain Valeriy Krasikov would do such a thing, He may not be the perfect Ship captain around but I'm most certainly sure he's not a bad captain as what they accuse him of. As far as i know these "reports" CSM gets from the crew (whoever he is , onboard here) are just plain old baseless accusations and if the accuser is man enough and has the balls ( i hope two of them and very large) , He should have shown himself. Since the captain is being accused of such things , he has his right as accused to demand the identity of the person accusing him - its part of any labour laws elsewhere around the world.

Speaking of which , This case of manipulation of provisions and pilferage (stealing) reminds me of the former captain i had way back in Stolt Strength, I think his name was Alfredo Pascual if I'm correct. That I'm sure that i witnessed it first hand on what kind of burglar he is , Stealing and manipulating provisions onboard. Glad I'd never get to see that bastards face ever again.

At night.. While playing the Game Far Cry 2 on the multiplayer along with the other crew members, Chief Mate Sergey Nagornyy came to us at the CCR and shook our hands one by one , to bid good bye for his vacation leave. Obviously He is disembarking along with the superintendent (much to the delight of the other crew members that the superintendent will be disposed now ) on that minute. Frankly and to be honest , he is one soviet guy that I'm looking forward to see again on any ship that I'd be working by in the future. For a soviet guy i do really like this one, I knew that he's a good person , fair and equal treating on other people even to his subordinates ( compared to my own kind ) . In other news related to the disembark of the superintendent , the ban on rest days have already been lifted and we can now relax and enjoy the rest days on Saturday (half day work) and Sunday (whole day no work)

Speaking of the video game "Far Cry 2" , I think i prefer playing that game in multiplayer inside my cabin for privacy rather than on all of us are gathered up in the same room (in CCR). The Wifi connection might be weak when playing in the cabin due to metal barriers on the signal but at least there is some privacy and comfort, aside from that 4th Engineer is getting too personal over this game and saying a lot of offensive rude comments. Honestly I'm getting sick and tired of it hearing those annoying mockery and scorn from his mouth, I'm starting to think that I shouldn't play the game anymore and came up with excuses so they wont notice my disdain.

When this game is being played in the cabin at least I'm spared from his rude mouth and i got some privacy. Tactically in playing the game, i could get a good position and placement as a sniper without the other player snooping around on my computer screen just to determine my location at the map. Being a Sniper would be useless if every other player knows which position I'm located at.

Presently , I read via Ship's email client that another berthing schedule for Lebanon had been put up. Based on the email the berthing schedule will be on December 15, 2013. Unfortunately the schedule lands on Sundays which meant rest day for the whole day will be interrupted. For the moment there is no announcement if the schedule will change, So it could only draw a conclusion that berthing is on schedule. Aside from that the weather is beautiful for the moment (although a bit cold due to upcoming winter season) , So i couldn't see any reason why berthing schedule will be cancelled.

Anyway whether or not there will be changes on the schedule, It is prudent that I remain on "Standby" in case of short notice (which i definitely hate)  and put up some drinks and mineral water on the CCR and the bridge as part of my work on the bond store.

The place in CCR were we play "Far cry 2" video game , showed on the picture are our laptos as well

December 15, 2013 Sunday

Was playing "Far Cry 2" video game in the morning thinking that berthing might be somehow in the 3pm schedule then A.B. Jay came knocking to my cabin door at 9:30 am and when I opened he said that a one hour notice has already been given to crew to be ready for mooring.

As expected i immediately get dress and waited till someone again will knock thru my door (which is obviously BOSUN AMICAN). 30 minutes later , I wasn't mistaken and BOSUN came knocking informing me that were going to heave anchor. Me and O.S. Del Monte hurriedly went to the forward part of the ship to heave up anchor. A few minutes later We heaved up anchor and immediately followed by mooring operations.

Mooring operations were not that problem in mooring with a buoy compared to a standard berthing on a port facility, from what I recall we only used 2 mooring lines (loose ropes) and 1small mooring rope in the winch . Since Oiler Rogel was missing in the winches during mooring , I'm the one who took over in operating the winches for the time being. The remaining two loose ropes where secured on the starboard side by A.B. Jay, A.B. Homer and O.S. Del Monte.

After securing the mooring ops at 10:30am, I quickly lunch and took a rest for barely an hour and a half before finally going back again to work. I wore my usual gear, clean coveralls , helmet and my "sidearm". When A.B. Homer Mallorca saw me on my outfit, he said that i look like I'm competing on Bosun Amican's outfit. I replied that I'm not competing and I'm the first one to wear this kind of outfit.

It was the same old cargo deck operations and i had to report every now and then to the CCR what was the manifold pressure- nothing more, frankly mooring with a buoy is so much easier compared to mooring operations on a berthing facility - less work on the sense that i don't have to worry about the gangway and visitors coming in. As usual 2nd officer Renan Olis is an asshole when it comes to the radio and even A.B. Mallorca and A.B. Bryan is complaining about it. Once instance (and example)on his bitchy attitude was when he still refuses and orders us to ask what was "Johnny the boatman" purpose on why he wants to board the vessel . Good Thing "Johnny the boatman" said that he's here because the Pilot ordered him to come around.

 In other news...

On a brief monkey talk during work with A.B. Bryan , He describes and tells that our former Chief Officer Sergey Nagornyy , was a lazy russian - something close to that kind of bullshit. He even added that some nasty comments like he "can't speak english very well and acts like some ill educated sailor," and shit stuff like that. Have no idea why A.B. Perceives Sergey negatively and I seriously disagree on his comments, For me I viewed Sergey Nagornyy Positively, and he's a good person and has compassion towards his fellow sailors (both soviet or not) compared to our own kind.

December 16, 2013 Monday

Work shift wasn't really that fun this time, and i got to blame "Bastard - O" for ruining it. It all started again when "Johnny the boatman" boatman is boarding this vessel yet again, Of course as the usual I radioed in and asked if we would let him in. "Bastard - O" was hesitant and would not let him in. A few seconds later the Pilot on the bridge said on the radio that "Johnny" should be allowed on the vessel to board because he's ferrying the ships agent.

"Bastard - O" Radioed in and said i should let "Johnny" board and added an unnecessary remark " di mo kasi tinitignan" (translation in english: you didn't even bother to look). Seriously I wanted slice off "Bastard - O" tongue and throw it for fish food when i heard it , Totally no manners at all on radio etiquette , does he think my eye is sharp enough to see who's inside "Johnny's" small boat ? Bastard didn't even bother to say thank you for at least asking on radio whether Johnny should be let in or not.

Anyway i should not be troubled on fury about this and write on what happened today.

I heard from A.B. Mallorca , that while i was away resting yesterday . Chief engineer brought in some few items from "Johnny" , mostly some provisions and food stuff's for himself and was delivered on the poop deck. Well couldn't blame chief engineer that he had to brought all these items for himself, as supplies both on the provision and on the bond store have already dwindled. Problem on chief engineer is that Johnny obviously ripped him off on the money and cost him around 700 U.S. Dollars.

At 2pm cargo discharging was finally over and was immediately followed by unmooring operations. Wasn't really doing the unmooring even though it was only me and BOSUN "Bull Frog" Amican was around on the forward part of the ship. It took quiet a while for O.S. Del Monte to arrive given that he wasn't given an early notice and as  expected BOSUN "Bull Frog" (given on his asshole manners) bitching him for coming in late.

We secured lashing in the anchors both on the port side and star board side at around 3pm and went to the accommodation block to stand by and wait for two hours for the next port.

At around 5 to 6pm we (Me , O.S. Del Monte and "Mr. Bull frog" ) were called to go outside and go to the forward part of the ship to prepare for the winches and standby for anchorage. Seriously it was such a chore lashing and unlashing the anchors , knowing that it was only 2 hours away from the next port and why the hell do we have to lash it in the first place ??? Me and O.S. Del Monte should have kept it unlashed.

Anchored at around 7pm at night, Since there was no mooring operations in these part of Lebanon during at night. We had to wait for another 12 to 11 hours , until morning for the mooring resumed.

December 17, 2013 Tuesday

As expected mooring ops resumed at 5am and we heaved anchor a few minutes later.  Mooring wasn't difficult in the forward side and that we just have to drop two anchors (port and starboard side) via "gravity drop" (meaning no aid of machine to drop it off) , from what i recall we dropped about 8 shackles in the water. The mooring arrangement on this port also is called "spider mooring" which meant mooring ropes on both  portside and starboard side of the aft, well good thing for me i don't have to worry about it since my mooring station is always (and permanently) in the forward part of the ship. Let the A.B.'s sweat it out.

During my working shift (12pm to 6pm) , I received a rumour from A.B. Mallorca that there's a possibility that we might disembark on this ship by January 20. I was thrilled on hearing the news given that , i myself needed to go back home as soon as possible on personal reasons. I asked homer if there is some sort of paper notice , to my surprise he said that it came from the computer and no paper notice yet.  Of course i have my reasons to doubt homer's claims and i wanted it to see on my very eyes proof on paper the specific date and time we are scheduled to disembark on this ship, here onboard its very difficult to trust people words and most of the time - are just totally bullshit.

On my work , weather has gone ill again and rain is falling very hard. I don't mind the rain at all , the problem is that its winter time and chances are rain water is frozenly  cold. The winter jacket isn't really that much of a help since for some reason the material issued by CSM gets wet easily.

At 6pm i was off on my work and went back to my cabin , 3 hours later O.S. Del Monte was banging thru my cabin door , like he's going to crash it down. I was deep asleep and was in the middle of my "dreams" and when i heard in my head the sound of banging the cabin door , i immediately jumped out of bed (literary) and opened the door. It was so sudden that O.S. Del Monte even saw me wiping off the drool on my face.

"What's up ??" that's what i said to him , while wiping my face.

"Cargo Ops is finish, wipe off the drool and haul off your ass then get ready for unmooring ops" O.S. Del Monte replied.

"SERIOUSLY !!!! NO SHIT " i said ...

"Yes no shit at all now move and, I'd be waking A.B. Bryan next" O.S. Del Monte said.

Hurriedly got dressed up and putted on my coverall's and went to the forward part, Immediately soon afterward the anchor was heaved, O.S. Del Monte arrived in late and Old Frog face Amican said another insulting words to him  saying "where the hell have you been ?! This is your mooring station and you should be here first !! "

Del Monte wasn't very happy on what came out on his mouth and i could see in his eyes the annoyance over the insulting remark.

Ship to bouy Mooring in lebanon

The lebanese power plant thats going to recieved this ships crude oil

THE SOUND OF YOU

Much to my dismay and disappointment , Saturdays and Sundays work off (rest day) have been cancelled meaning that everyday is work day here - to make it even worse overtime working hours pay has been reduced yet again from 85.5 hours to 54 hours. To simply say it situations onboard this ship have escalated further and has gotten worse. Imagine more work and less pay, ( Anyway what do i expect from a ship run by soviets eh ? No democracy and more of a dictatorship ) in addition to the worse situation , Provision here are running very low - both on equipment and on food. The bond store has been high and dry now, while on the deck area the equipment there is insufficient , the stocks of paint have been so low that only a few cans of paint are left. There is no paint thinner left on the paint room as well.

December 07, 2013 Saturday

For the moment half of my day on work was spent cleaning my cleaning station, wasn't an easy job and wasn't easy at all now that there's no rest days available (for now i hope) . The other half of the day was spent me painting some black stripes over ramps ,  unfortunately it suddenly rained and wasn't able to finish it , so instead i went to the workshop room to grind some plastic bottles using the trash compactor.

Another thing i might add for this day is that a new chief mate has just arrived to replace our currently one who would be going home (for a vacation ), I don't know his exact name yet but I'd get to look on that in the crew list on the latter. All I could say for now is that the new chief mate is fairly young , as in 29 years old (based on what i heard from mess man Ferdinand saying he's date of birth is 1984). Hope that this chief mate is not an asshole.

Aside from the new chief mate , a superintendent came along as well. As usual when an upcoming vetting inspection is expected on this ship (and to any other ship's , CSM or not) a superintendent board this vessel to assist people (or at least give tips) . Unfortunately Superintendents' are not good news , and usually brings more burdens on any ship it visits , like for example my previous ship and this one where Saturday and Sunday rest days are cancelled.

December 08, 2013 Sunday

As much as i hate going to work on Sunday's , i have no other choice but to go along on the flow of things. This morning I was surprised to see Electrician "koba" to be in coveralls , puzzled i still went ahead in eating break fast at the crew mess. A few minutes later when Pump man Liscano came, it became clear to me what was it all about. Apparently from what i heard for him (pump man) berthing will be this morning and this ship is just waiting for the weather to clear up (weather this morning was rainy). It was bad news for me to hear that berthing will come unannounced and only learned from it on the last hour. Another bad news came when BOSUN Amican arrived and said to us in the crew mess that there will be a cabin inspection today by the superintendent.

Double bad news this morning, Upon hearing the two bad news. I hurriedly finished up my breakfast and quickly went to my cabin to clean up, I hurried cleaned it up and made sure that they wont discover anything on my cabin. After which  then i went back again on the kitchen to take soft drinks and mineral water and put some of it to the CCR and Bridge (as part of my job description in handling the bond store)

When i came out on work , weather wasn't really good and according to what i heard from A.B. Homer that the weather is still being waited to clear up before commencing to berth. We waited for an hour or two , then came in the announcement that berthing is cancelled - For now.  So in the mean time were off again doing maintenance works, like processing garbage and stuff like that . Food waste garbage as what i know is currently being burned , as me and A.B. Homer are the one's who are taking it to the incinerator machine, down at the engine room.

Aside from that , rest of the day i was busy hiding from the superintendent and other senior officers (Captain and two chief mate's ) as they conduct inspections on the deck area. If they're in the port side area , i simply go away and do my work on the opposite direction.  I kept moving a lot around the deck area just to simply not get caught up with the ship officers, like a cat and mouse tactic.  Seriously I think hiding from them will do me no good and the superintendent is here to at least help us up (or to the very least give us tips) on the upcoming Vetting inspections, In other words it wont matter if i crap up now rather than right in front of the vetting inspector.

Surprisingly the work schedule for Sunday is only half day ( I expect it was whole day given that the superintendent was around hovering like a helicopter ).  At 3pm there was a meeting supposedly at the CCR room but since a lot of people are hanging out on the crew mess, they decided that a meeting should be held there rather than in the CCR.  Anyway the meeting was all about what to do in case of a vetting inspection, The practical Do's and Don'ts , like ISPS thing etc. Nothing special really. Afterwards the meeting i asked O.S. Del Monte if there was seriously a "cabin search" after this, he replied that don't ever believe what BOSUN Amican says - its just all a  big fat lie and he's just dickin around with us.

Pretty much relieved it was just a bad joke , otherwise i has to figure out better where i had to hid all my stuff from prying eyes of this ship's crew and officers.

December 10, 2013 Tuesday

The power plant in Zouk Lebanon

Despite numerous delays and setbacks , Finally berthing to Zouk, Lebanon has already proceeded. Bosun Amican knocked to my door at around 5am early in the morning, it took me quite while to open it since i was at "The John"  at that time taking a dump. When i opened the door , there it was Bosun Amican and said to me that its already "standby" and were going to heave up anchor very soon. I hurried got dress , and i dressed an extra clothes underneath my coveralls as an insulation from the cold winter season here at Lebanon.

Heaving up the anchor was no bid deal at all and was finished very quickly, we went back to the accommodation to take a breakfast. Not exactly a full fledge break but a quick meal knowing that mooring ops will soon follow and that the location of the berthing port is very near - as so near that i can visually see it.

The trick in being ready for work and at the same time having a meal is not to eat a huge volume of food. small enough to keep me going in a few hours and not big enough to restrict my movement.

I was correct, a few minutes later. We were immediately put on a standby for mooring operations. I hurriedly went to my mooring station (forward bow part of the ship) and waited further instructions. It was unexpected that Chief mate was the one who is leading this mooring operations on the forward part (usually its 3rd mate byron) but nevertheless I don't mind at all , i have been to too many mooring operations already ever since i was a deck cadet - I'm used to that kind of idea.

Mooring ops was a bit different and somewhat similar to the mooring operations i had during my stay in Bow Ophelia in iskendur , Turkey. Mooring Ops was about this ship being moored on a Cargo Buoy floating in the sea. Anyway i now understand what is the bow chain stopper used for, (located on the forward part of the ship).  The purpose of it was to hold the chain of a large buoy which acts like some sort of function similar to a mooring dolphin appliance commonly seen in any port facility.

Mooring ops on a buoy is much more easier and less workload compared to being moored on a typical port.

After the mooring ops, I went ahead on the usual SOP procedures like preparing the SOPEP equipment near the manifold area , arranging the foam monitors pointing them to which direction the unloading of cargo is, putting up the fire hoses and such etc. One thing happened though when i was putting up the SOPEP equipment, The superintendent saw me wearing a badly tattered coveralls (which I typically use on "day work" times) and asked me a few question. He asked how many coveralls were issued to me by Career Ship management and i replied that they only gave me 2 sets of boilers suits. Latter he took a picture of me in those dirty coveralls , not exactly sure of what the pictures were all about.

It was at about 9 am when i went to my cabin to take a small rest and prepare my stuff. Vetting inspection will come soon, so my equipment and gear to be used on work should be clean and tidy for ship inspections , for obvious reason since this ship is expecting a vetting inspector , I didn't wore my "side arm" tool pouch to avoid any unnecessary discussions on the vetting inspector . Three hours later i went outside for my cargo operations work, When i talked to A.B. Jay - he said that the vetting inspector had already arrived and is now at the ship captains office. He added also that at maybe around 3 or 4 pm the inspector would do some rounds and check everything from deck to the engine department. 

Before i took over , O.S. Jermonick told me that i should focus my attention on the manifold for now rather than on the gangway for obvious reasons.

There was a bad weather brooding up and there's occasional rain showers ever hour or so, Worst was that i don't have any functioning rain coat and had to borrow Pump man Liscano Winter jacket just to keep myself dry. When the inspector came he just passed by , most likely because of the bad weather that was happening and he can't make a comprehensive check around - which is good for me though.

During the watch "Johnny" the boat man came by along side on his boat and wishes to lower our gangway ladder to board our vessel. For some reason "Bastard - O" Renan Oveda Olis says on the radio that he's not authorized to board this ship, Unfortunately A.B. Bryan didn't heard what 2nd officer "Bastardo" said on the radio and by the time he knew what "Bastardo" was saying , He had already lowered the gangway ladder and "Johnny" the boatman had already boarded on deck.  Obviously A.B. Bryan got scolded by "Bastardo" for it and a few minutes later I could hear A.B. Bryan grumbling about it.

30 minutes later "Johnny" the boatman disembarked on the ship on his boat and cast off, 2 hours later he came back again and i radioed in if "Johnny" would be let in or not. 2nd officer "Bastard-O" said that he can board the vessel.  Upon hearing this A.B. Bryan grumbled again on the reason's why he got scolded saying "Eh papasukin naman pala eh bakit pa ako pinagalitan" (translation in english : Then why the hell did i get scolded for if he's just going to let him in ). I just gave A.B. Bryan simple smile and played innocent , a body gesture meaning " i don't know , beats me ?" . Seriously i don't really cared about it whether "Johnny" is authorized or not , as long as I stay out of trouble and remain neutral to these rowdy sailors then I'd be fine. Glad that I'm not the only one who see's 2nd officer Renan Olis as an asshole.

At around 5:30pm. I heard the sound on the radio that , discharging on the manifold area will be stopped and cargo hoses will be disconnected , then followed by unmooring operations. I was in disbelief that the cargo operations was very short, nearly only just 8 hours (started at around 11am).

Unmooring ops started at around 6:00pm and was a very short and brief one , lasted only at least 10 minutes to 5 minutes. Just simply disconnect the bow chain stopper and the two other loose ropes and that's it. After the Unmooring ops , the chief mate Sergey told us that by tomorrow we can take a rest till 1pm and work will only be done on a half day. 15 minutes after unmooring ropes , anchor on the starboard side was dropped . There was a very minor problem when we dropped the anchor, as the some of the chains get twisted . We resolved it by dropping the anchor very slowly.

For the moment this ship is going to stay here in the anchorage area for a week , then go back again to discharge the 2nd parcel of this cargo. In the mean time we may be doing the normal maintenance work for awhile.

POINTING FINGERS

Again there's another shortage of provisions and had been sick and tired ever now and then that this is always been a problem for CSM / Career Ship management that i have to deal with often. Free mineral water here is near depletion and it may not be long that all of the crew might be starting to drink again on the rust riddled water fountain. Furthermore is that the goods in the bond store are already depleted , as in ZERO - there are no more soft drinks to drink with , the beer and wine are gone as well and heck even the chocolates are no more. The only thing that's left is toiletries supply and a lot of boxes of cigarettes. I don't want to have an idea that this ship is near starvation but that is the current picture I am viewing on a CSM / Career Ship management Company is that they're so stiff that they're starving their crew on the most basic of all needs and supplies.

December 03, 2013

On the afternoon of December 3rd, 2013 Byron knocked thru my door informing me about some matters in the bond store regarding some expired items. Mainly on the Pop Corn and the Centrum Tablets.

On other matters regarding to work .... Due to poor weather conditions normal deck maintenance work was set aside to do some indoor related work. For now instead of putting the final coat of paint on some areas in the deck , I was put on to another job of  wash paint in the forecastle area entrance (entrance area leading to the bosun store) for the time being until the weather improves. Unfortunately It rained the whole day so I'm pretty much stuck doing the same job for the whole day.

Another thing is that I'm very much relieved that I received a confirmation email coming from Career Ship Management that my Special allotment request has been granted, I was worried sick lately that my request might have not reached the shipping and even suspected that my captain haven't sent the request at all - I'm glad I was wrong on that suspicion. 

In other news ......

Playing "Far Cry" is getting tedious now and again 4th engineer is grumbling about him accusing us of cheating the game. I have no idea why he accuses us of "cheating" , in fact the multiplayer LAN mode has no cheats at all, Its bullshit that he complains every now. This time the gaming session was annoying, 4th engineer has gone to far and even accuses all of us in cheating in the game. Honestly it would be better that we play the game without him around. WHAT A SORE LOSER !!!!

Honestly he shouldn't have came back in playing this game again and we have no plans at all in inviting him back in playing this game. As a matter of fact the only reason why he played this game was Chief mate invited him go tag along, but if we were to choose , it would be better for him not to join us - its better that way.

December 04, 2013 Wednesday Starbuck's Philippines 16th Anniversary

Due to another persistent bad weather, work on the deck area is hindered so i ended up just plucking out nails from a wooden crate and just bringing trash to the engineer room (for them to incinerate) for most of the day, Aside from that i was also assigned in crushing and grinding some bottles and glass. Wasn't that difficult but i find it weird that this ship has to crush and process glass and bottles trash rather than directly throwing them at sea, I think its much more convenient if glass was to be disposed on that kind of manner - It would be very convenient for me if that would be the case.

Late afternoon i went again to playing "Far Cry" videogame with Messman Ferdi, O.S. Del Monte and Chief Cook Olan. For obvious reason we didn't invite 4th engineer and frankly it was much fun playing that game without him around, No more grumbles and Unnecessary rule's that would hinder fun in playing video games .

While we were busy playing video games , 3rd Mate "Byron" came in and asked if i had already disposed of the Centrum Vitamin's cause Chief Engineer wants them . I relied to him that its already been disposed of and it's now in the bottom of the sea. Byron says that its no problem on it

At night, since i haven't made preparations yet of my departure and don't know exactly were to put my stuff yet. I decided to prepare one cardboard box and paint it, (which of course i took from the bond store ), i went to the paint room and asked A.B. Jay to lend me the keys to the paint room for a few minutes. When i entered i painted the cardboard box with colour blue, afterwards i returned the key to jay and put the cardboard box in the engine casing to dry off.

December 05, 2013 Thursday

Most of the crew were astonished to find out that they're number of hours in overtime work pay was reduced from 120 hours to 85.5 hours. Its not a good news on their part knowing that the reduced overtime pay would be less than before. Some of them were even on an uproar and didn't even bothered to know why it was reduced, Instead they immediately blamed 3rd mate "byron" without knowing the full story and was spreading rumours that he was a greedy asshole that sabotages other people's pay. Worst part is that they even ridicule him. Oiler Donald Rogel said at the crew mess that ever since he became 3rd mate, all paper related matter's have gone "bonkers" . Even Engine Fitter Sano said some nasty remarks like "Byron is getting cocky now that he's third mate"

Personally I'm on "byron's" side and i don't think they should have said inappropriate remarks without knowing the full story, Its very unfair that "Byron" was being judged like that.  Problem with us Filipino's is that we let our mouths do the thinking instead of using our rational brain - Damn fucking Compatriots , mouth is used for talking and the brain is used for thinking.

Late at night, it was found out via Microsoft email client that the reduction of overtime working hours came from Career / CSM ship management (see previous journal entry titled "THE DETAILS" ) and Byron has got nothing to do with it.

In other related matters.......

Haven't noticed until recently that i had only at least one and a half months of stay here at Cape Tallin, Couldn't imagine that I had been writing for so long now , as in 7 months - Maybe I haven't noticed the time that passed because i was so busy and caught up going toe to toe against them and it was really an arduous task. I can't imagine that i had been thru a blabber mouth O.S. And chief cook  (O.S. Xerxes Hall and Chief Cook Roberto Peneranda) , a lordliness 3rd mate, 2nd mate and Bosun ( 3rd mate corales , 2nd officer Renan Olis , Bosun Zacarias Amican ) , a cocky A.B. ( A.B. Ronald Caldona) , and an ill mannered rude Pump man ( Pump man Nilo Pastrana ). Handling those bastards was really a good time killer and it certainly feels like just yesterday that i got here Onboard - guess i really got my hands full with them. Anyway its over now and most of this sons of a bitches crew mates have already been disposed of , Now its only a small time of waiting and I'd be home soon again seeing mom and dad , along with sis and my pet cats - I'm very anxious to get home and see how are they doing. 

THAT IS THE FILIPINO WAY

Apparently from what i heard, This ship is going to be in Lebanon for a little while longer. There are rumours circulating onboard that this ship might go berth here on two different places. Obvious the first one is Zouk, lebanon and the other is still undetermined yet, the first discharge from what i heard on the rumour will be just discharging the first four cargo tanks , then go at anchorage again then go berth to a nearby buoy like the first one and discharge the remaining cargo. After Lebanon , this ship might be probably be heading off to Piraeus, Greece to do some Tank cleaning scenario (and might as well clean the remaining ballast tanks) after that i guess its headed for the dry docks then that big plane home - Of course this is just the rumours circulating around here and these so called plans are subjected to change at moments notice, no concrete plans at all.

For work.....

Currently the deck crew are doing deck maintenance as usual, Chipping off rust with a jet chisel then brushing it with a pneumatic steel brush before painting it with a primer epoxy paint coat first , etc.

O.S. Del Monte operates the jet chisel and chips off rust while the other AB's paints them. As for me , I'm currently hanging out with pump man liscano about some work regarding the Non-return Valves on the manifold area common line. What we had to do was basically pull them out , check and see if there's anything wrong with them , makes some repairs like replacing their rubber (or plastic) gaskets and put them back on. Simple and straight forward, yet it took us two whole days to accomplish, it took me and pump man a whole lot of time to remove all those nuts and bolts which unfortunately had already been badly corroded and fused to the metals near it.

In other news not related to work....

As of the moment (while writing this) 4th engineer Nino Lamsen, refused to join us in playing Far Cry 2 on the PC for suspicion that he chief cook was using a cheat code while in a Multiplayer LAN game, As of the moment he is still in "protest" over it. Apparently 4th engineers accusations are seriously bogus and absurd , and just hates other people winning on this first person shooter game.

This all started when Mess man Ferdinand keeps making joke comments about Chief Cook pressing some buttons, unfortunately 4th engineer started having idea's about it and that's when it all started

He says a lot of unnecessary things whenever he gets killed in the game, He says "how that happened???", "How come you didn't die yet ? I shot you in point blank range ??? " etc .  Bottom line , he has issues accepting the fact that there are other video game players out there that play better than him - 4th engineer is more serious in winning rather than having fun in playing video games. Speaking of which, there was also one incident were he was so furious in always losing (being shot , killed, burned to death, ran over by a car, being hack to pieces etc.)  that he smashed his computer mouse and the batteries just flew out of it (poor equipment). Obviously the computer mouse was totally broken because of it, Anyway 4th engineer has serious issues with anger management.

In other news...

Thanks to the free internet connection given a few days ago , I was now able to register my windows 8 laptop computer, Therefore since its now registered I don't have to worry being interrupted every now and then on some pesky message that says I'd have to register my Laptop. Aside from the registration , I can now fully customize this laptop in appearance and have integrated it (connected it) on online accounts and email (from my Microsoft live email account). So what can i say about my new windows 8 laptop now that its fully integrated and registered ? Well just one thing its looks and feels like a tablet rather than a PC device.

In other news again....

Received lately a news on my email from my sister informing me that my mom recently got sick due to complications of diabetes. Apparently her creatinine levels (something with the kidneys) was very high recently , according to my sister , our mom is in pretty bad shape and vomits every now and then, another thing is that my mom is taking some medications for her liver which i haven't found out what's the reason for. If my mom's creatinine level goes too high, then there's the possibility that she might be put on to dialysis , just like Aunt Milen

My sister says in the email that Mom is on painkiller's for now, i do know very well that pain killers pills are just only a remedy and doesn't get us anywhere in making mom better. My sister and I haven't disclosed to my mom about the medication she's taking , for now she only knows that its just something for her "stomach ulcer".

I do understand my sisters situation and I'm very thankful that she takes care of our mom while I'm away on this god forsaken job (feels more like I'm in prison really). I had already sent a request on career ship management informing them a special allottement money of 500 U.S.D. Be given to my sister immediately, problem is I'm not exactly sure if my ship captain here did sent my request at all to career shipping office. Sad to say Captain Valeriy Kraskov (Ukrainian) has a nasty habit of not sending request papers to the shipping office - which is of course definitely bad on emergencies especially on my case. This has already happened on the case of my friend here A.B. Patrick Dondonilla months before , were Captain Valeriy Kraskov didn't sent the allotement letter on the office. I do hope that this bloody captain will not repeat to me on what he did to A.B. Patrick , Cause if he does I'm going to make sure everyone in the world will know how bad and terrible people are here - especially to Valeriy Kraskov.

Just to add. It was really difficult for me get the paper work for the "Special allotment" here onboard, probably on the fact is that most people here a bunch of asshole's like for example 2nd officer Renan A. Olis , where of course i had to ask information about the "Special allotment" earlier before I went to the captain and its part of his job description to assist any crew about financial matters, he did part of his job however he didn't do it in the right way as i got from him a nasty snarl and totally unhelpful information. Bastard didn't even assisted me on the paper work and just simply said i should go to the captain about this, Asshole just simply dodged his work , anyway i don't expect much from him though.

That's the problem with Filipino's here, even though they're my compatriots - they'd never help their own country men. They're just going to leave you there to rot, basically you have to relay on yourself and look out only for yourself . They preach and lecture that no man is an island kind of bull shit and yet look at them on how the way they practice it - totally opposite on what comes out of their mouths.

Here onboard Cape Tallin (and probably any ship that has a Filipino out there) , its basically just one rule : "Everybody fights for himself and by himself, that is the Filipino way" (translation in Tagalog: Kanya - Kanya")

AMONGST THE LOWER CASTE

Nearly three weeks have passed since this ship took off from Louisiana U.S.A. and now finally this ship will be reaching soon to its destination, the country named MALTA. The first stop before hitting the dry docks , after MALTA if I'm correct will be Lebanon then the dry docks somewhere in Bulgaria, then probably (or most likely ) that big plane home. This may sound simple enough but it takes a lot of time before this actually could happen - the only thing I'm certain is that after the dry dock repairs , I'd be finishing my contract and be going home soon. 

For now I guess I'd just be happening to describe what went on in MALTA…..

Currently I know very little about MALTA. All I know is that this is some island nation in the middle of the Mediterranean sea south of Italy, very small and has only roughly a population of half a million. Aside from that I know nothing else, anyway it doesn't really matter.

For the moment most of the mooring ropes are put up and transferred to the aft part, eight mooring ropes were put up. Probably because the mooring will be done on the SBS procedure (ship, buoy to ship mooring), meaning this ship will tie itself first on a buoy then another ship will be coming along to get the cargo. From what I heard most of the mooring is on the aft and the forward will be just left being anchored.

During the work of hauling up the mooring ropes from the steer gear room. BOSUN AMICAN was a bit bitchy and was shouting out a few guys on the deck area, anyway it was none of my business then suddenly his attention suddenly shifted towards me pestering me about some rope i was coiling near the portside spring line winches. Out of my annoyance i shouted at him saying in tagalog "eto na nga hinihila nah ! " (translation in English : "Yeah I'm already dragging it ! " ) , I'm not exactly sure if he was surprised or definitely pissed off but I do know he looked at me straight for a few seconds before resuming his usual bossy behavior. Later in the afternoon, A.B. Homer asked if i had an exchange of heated words with the BOSUN, I said yes and added that he got what he deserved.

November 19, 2013 Tuesday

On early morning this ship arrived at Malta, at about 1am. I stayed awake for the whole night knowing that soon after our arrival this ship will be dropping anchor , As expected. Dropping the anchor took us only a few minutes to accomplish with no problems at all.

A few minutes came by and the three of us (O.S. Del Monte, Bosun Amican and myself) there in the forward part of the ship noticed that a small boat is approaching at a very fast speed, I was ordered by the BOSUN to go to the starboard side accommodation ladder and see who's inside the pilot boat that will be boarding this ship. When i came there I saw A.B. Bryan struggling to lower the accommodation ladder , Helped him out and saw that there was still a "Pin" attach one of its safety locks, I pointed it to him and he removed. The accommodation was lowered immediately.

Without delay four people boarded the vessel, they were in camouflage uniforms and having semi automatic rifles, I approached them and asked what are their names, as procedure to the ISPS regulation in IMO. One of the men said that they are the Lebanese Navy and that they are conducting "Pest Control" search and no names are needed to be asked , He asked if he could speak with the chief mate and have the all crew proceed to the starboard side accommodation ladder area. I replied that the chief mate is in the CCR, one of the men directly went to the accommodation area to speak with him.

 To my surprise these ship skipped out Malta and went straight ahead to Lebanon, i thought earlier that this ship would make a stop over in Malta first

While one of the uniform guys went to the accommodation to speak with the chief mate, Our BOSUN Amican quickly took off from his location in the accommodation ladder and went to the accommodation block. Well didn't know a rude bastard like him could ran away like that,  - probably scared the shit out him seeing a bunch of camouflage guys with semi-automatic rifles, i could just laugh on how he reacted.

A minute or two came by and there was a P.A. (public address) on the whole ship announcing that all crew should proceed in the starboard side accommodation ladder and soon afterwards all the crew went in line single file at the accommodation ladder. 2nd mate Renan Olis Oveda , brought along with him passports for  the whole crew and gave them to one of the guys in camouflage uniforms. They checked our identities one by one via these passports.

It was over after half an hour, after the identity checks, the guy earlier that went inside the accommodation (the guy who wishes to speak with the chief mate) Conducted a cabin search one by one (with the captain of this ship) before leaving the accommodation block, after that these four Lebanese Navy Soldiers disembarked our vessel and said "thank you for your cooperation" . All of us went to the accommodation block afterwards and took a rest

A few hours later at about 7 in the morning i was awaken by A.B. Homer and said that The Chief mate ordered me to bring some coca-cola cans and a few mineral waters at the CCR, apparently there were a few visitors that came while i was asleep. I went in a hurry to get those cans and bottles from the dry store of the galley up to the CCR. Messman Ferdinand Penera saw me and said that he had already put coca cola and some mineral water earlier. Bastard blames me that I should had put it before this ship arrived in Lebanon and scolds me for it, Honestly i don't give a crap on what he says - he lectures me on something that he himself can't practice at all. Compared to him , he's much worse.

At 8 am in the morning i went out on the accommodation block to work and do my usual routine, I was at the upper deck area when i saw familiar figure wearing blue long sleeves. It was Mr. Ards !!!  Really glad to see him that he returned on this ship again , For a soviet this person is pretty nice to other people - as in really nice guy, a bonafide gentleman .  Somehow it gives me comfort to see him again onboard this ship, I went to him and shake his hand.

When i went back to the entrance , i was surprised to see that A.B. Homer and A.B. Jay are the only people around which I later found out from them that my work scheduled was not 8am this time and it was 10:30 , worst part was that nobody even bothered to inform me of this sudden change of work schedule - I only learned it from A.B. Homer and A.B. Jay on the last minute. Anyway its not really surprising that this happened at all and as a matter of fact , this has happened to me several times already in this ship - No thanks to our very thoughtful and considerate BOSUN AMICAN who doesn't give a shit about his co- workers (being sarcastic here). Upon finding out that my work schedule was on the latter, i hurriedly went back to my cabin and played "Far Cry 2" video game instead just to kill the few hours i had to wait.

At noon time i was informed in a short notice that this ship have to heave up anchor again and look for another spot in this anchorage area. I did the usual routine in heaving and paying out the anchor when there was already a good spot. As for the work after the anchorage procedure, there isn't anything much to talk about it since I just only chipped some "rust marks" and painted them with a Primer coat of paint.

November 20, 2013 Wednesday

Was a big surprise for me yet again, when this time it was not only 2nd Engineer Ard's that came back, "Koba" the previous electrician came back as well to replace Andriy. "Koba" is a nice and good person as well - same as 2nd engineer Ard's.

The rest of the day was pretty normal, did the usual work in deck. Painting and all the rust marks of the deck. At noon time Pump man Liscano told me that there will be two batches of people who will be going on a shore leave and asked in I'm interested in coming along , He joked that if i don't tag along I'd be doing work in weekends. I replied "Sure thing , an offer i couldn't refuse"

Late at night I went to the bridge to give "Bryon" a few order slips that came in on the bond store, he said that the shore leave is scheduled to be 7 in the morning . So i have to prepare early. Aside from news on the planned shore leave , "Byron" informed me that the water rations is now reduced from 1 case per week to 1 case per two weeks (bi-monthly).

November 23, 2013 Saturday

Took a bath quiet early in preparation , and charged my tablet and cell phone.( The tablet is used as a portable internet device in case i get to locate a nearby WIFI Hotspot, while the cell phone is just plainly used as a camera) and waited at the crew mess at around 7am in the morning, The Folks who would be going on for a shore leave  aside from me will be , Mess man Ferdinand Penera, Pump man Teodolfo Liscano, Oiler Donald R. Rogel, Oiler Mark S, Aquino, 4th Engineer Nino R. Lamsen, Chief Engineer Igor Voytenko, Electrician Koba Tsiskaradze and 3rd mate Byron Peter Fourie. At around 8am the service boat went along side on the starboard side, we boarded the service boat which took us to the other side of Lebanon (Christian side). During the transit I heard from the boatman that Lebanon uses a "dual" monetary system and that the whole country uses and accepts U.S. Dollars aside from their local currency (by the way its called Lebanese pound) , According to the boatman "Jhonny" (Armenian national) the currency exchange is about 1500 Lebanese pound to a 1 U.S. Dollar. For convenience on our side , Its much better we use U.S. Dollars in buying things here. Aside from that he handed us out our shore passes, which is just basically a Photocopied front page of our seaman's book stamped with some sort of Lebanese stamp from immigration. When we unloaded in his boat on some small fishing area, we went directly to some guard post and showed our shore passes and waited for some cab to fetch us

we were divided into two groups , one was 4th engineer , 3rd mate Byron, Chief Engineer and Electrical engineers on the first group and the second was me, two oilers, pump man and mess man. The first group went to the doctor's office first (about 4th engineers condition) while our group went in to the local city mall to shop and rendezvous with the first group on the latter, during the wait we took some time off in eating at the McDonald's store inside the mall. On the Supermarket inside I took the time to buy myself a Sony Digital still camera. At about 1pm, we saw chief engineers party together with "Jhonny" the boatman at the local city mall. They waited nearby the entrance.

Out of my annoyance Mess man Ferdinard Penera was talking to "Jhonny" the boatman about some filipina girls (A.k.a filipino prostitues based in lebanon) and said if they could come along and have some "good time" with them. I'm annoyed in the sense that it wasn't part of my plan to go ashore and hangout with some Filipina girls (if i would i could have done in back home) and it was Mess man who summoned these girls, and I'm getting dragged along on their mistakes, Worst part the girls that "Jhonny" mentioned (and mess man ferdinand ordered) were very Ugly - Ugh !! Plain and simple. Those girls that came were very short as in around 5'3 feet only and had the similar looks of a typical Filipina maid located commonly in the middle east (and else were around the world), not the upper class girls that i always and typically saw in makati . Anyway My original objective on this shore leave is to find a travelling bag , buy some electronic stuff namely the camera i mentioned earlier and go sight seeing on tourist destinations within Lebanon.

It was a good thing that "Byron" offered me earlier to join their group and go sight seeing, So I decided to go and went on "Byron's" plan. During the time when our group is splitting up and doing their objectives. For some reason "Jhonny" the boat man doesn't want me to join Chief Engineer's group (consisting of chief engineer, chief electrician, 3rd mate) and kept insisting that I should be left with my "own kind" , he even made poor excuses that there's not enough space on his car for me (how come 4th engineer lamsen, who joined them previously got to fit into his car ??). I'm not as big as 4th engineer and surely i don't take up that much leg room , so why the hell should i be left out ? Its obvious that "jhonny" the boatman didn't want me to come along and if it were not for the insistence of "Byron" and the Chief Engineer , I could have been left out among my Filipino lower classes along with those whore's.

When i was in the car together with chief engineers party. I was asked by "Jhonny the boatman" why i prefer to be with other nationals rather than "My own kind" , why did i ditched them out ? I replied in a calm but challenging voice "Its true I'm Filipino, but that doesn't necessarily meant that I share the same ideologies with my own kind" .

Our group visited a lot of places in Lebanon, mostly churches both in roman catholic and orthodox Christian , we also saw a few mosque as well. On what i can say on the surroundings in Lebanon is that the whole entire country i think has a lot of military checkpoints and the soldiers are more visible than the local police here. As expected to any military presence in the area , there were a lot of concrete road blocks , wired fences and tanks scattered everywhere. In spite of the very visible military presence , social life in Lebanon is very lively,  We dined on a few restaurants as well and visited a few shopping area's , along with a tour on the business districts. Its hard to believe that despite the bombing's by Israel and other enemy nations of Lebanon , they still managed to maintain a good social civil order. Heck the whole country seems to be like "under construction" seeing all those metal frames and construction equipment (along with those heavy machineries). I took a lot a pictures of the surroundings - after all its only once in a life time opportunity and that i may not be in Lebanon ever again and if it did , it may take quiet a few years. "byron" , chief engineer and "koba" took pictures as well.

After the sight seeing, we went to the boatman's house (or more like apartment) , there we had an astonishment that his apartment had a luxurious appearance despite having a profession of being just a boatman, hard to believe that a boatman had such a wonderful and nice apartment (we pictured that a boatman lives on a shack maybe somewhere in the outskirts of the city, anyway we misjudge him) . We stayed on his place for a few minutes and introduced us to his neighbors. The funny thing about having a neighbors in the middle east (and Europe) in particular is that they're very warm and friendly and openly walk on other peoples house without any restrictions at all. In "Jhonny" the boatman's case in particular, i saw his neighbors just walk in inside the house and make coffee in his kitchen and "Jhonny" never minded at all on what his neighbors are doing. In the Philippines things are a bit different when having a neighbor around , try to cross at least on your neighbors fence and you'd end up being chased out by their dogs. I guess here its all about trust here in Europe - something that Asian countries lack of .

After the few minutes stay, we were off again out in "Jhonny's" apartment and visited a popular land mark in Lebanon, its more like a statue of virgin Mary on top of some mountain (or hill ) in Lebanon (Christian side) after that we were planning on hanging out on some bar called "Sky Bar" unfortunately we had problems locating this so called bar and we hesitate to chat and ask "Jhonny" to bring us on any bar as the bar he has in mind has "filipina" girls in it. Definitely a big No-No for us. The chief engineer decided to visit the other group and see how are they doing.

"jhonny" the boatman lead us to an dilapidated apartment in the middle of the district, which when we went upstairs and came into a small run down room and we saw the other group. As expected they were heavily drunk and the room was foggy from the cigarette smokes, as usual also we saw "Jhonny's"  Filipina whore's along with them. Mess man Ferdinand was badly drunk , irrational and totally fucked up, same goes also to Oiler Aquino and 4th engineer lamsen though I'm not exactly sure if they banged one of "Jhonny's" girls , Oiler Donald Rogel is unaccounted and missing which is probably off somewhere around and banging one of "Jhonny's" Filipina whore's. The Chief Engineer asked them on what time exactly are they going to go back on the ship,  the other group replied that they might go back in the ship in early morning probably 5am. Chief Engineer says that it would be difficult go back in the morning as they will have to pay separately to "jhonny" the boatman in the service boat fare. The conversation was very long , In the end they convinced the other group that it will be by midnight that were going to return to Cape Tallin.

After the conversation, our group went out and headed to some restaurant nearby and had dinner. My order was mixed cheese and some Mexican beer (which apparently is very similar to tequila, that you put salt and some lime on a beer) , Its was a heavy meal despite the menu looks like a light one. "Byron" told me after the meal that my own "Kabayan" would be definitely hate me for ditching them out in the mall earlier , he said that i made the right choice in choosing and hanging out with them rather than the "Lower Classes" .

Hard to admit to myself but "byron" is right - every single letter on that word is right, I didn't travelled more than a thousand miles away from home just to bang someone. If my reasons to travel is just only to have sex , then its a very poor and unwise decision (and as a matter of fact really lower's my dignity). My reasons to travel are not like that, never was and never will. Us sailor are always branded as "every girl in every port" , some close to a philandering womanizer. Sailors hate being called that, but never asked the question, "Why are we branded like that ?"

"Sir, Its not my style to be hanging out with whore and obviously there's no reason to hang out with them even though they're my fellow kabayan's, I didn't travel away from home just to bang someone" That was my reply to Byron .  He agreed on what i said and i knew i said the right thing and never bothered whether or not my own kind will hate me for it, Never lower myself to them even for the sake of just getting along. I have to make a stand on my principles in life.