THINGS ABOUT SENEGAL

Weather isn't exactly friendly at Senegal this time of year it and feels very much like summer in the Philippines (to be specific like in the month of April or May) ,  I had been doing all the precautions and Do's and Don'ts in a hot climate such as these. Always bringing my water canteen around with me to keep my hydrated and keep myself cool as much as possible , to the point which I wear my coveralls wet.

Senegal as I describe is pretty much calmer and quieter than it west African neighbours . Locals around here are friendly and mostly do "Small boat" business selling internet sim cards and top up loads, I myself bought an internet sim card load in one of these (unfortunately I didn’t bought a top up load and later found out that they accept Euro's as well). In the extent merchants here on these small boats are fairly honest enough to do business with and there's little need to be watchful over them, they simply just do business in selling and not steal or rip off a helpless sailor.

Two days ago people here on board hesitate a lot on whether we should contact the locals or not , they have doubts that these people might be robber's (or pirate's) of some sort but now things are a bit different and they now sought to contact each small boat that pass through here as much as possible to buy internet sim cards and top up's. Mostly these small boats pass around in the anchorage area every morning or so, to sell stuff and if interested you can contact them. THEY ACCEPT US DOLLARS AND EUROPEAN EURO'S which is very convenient.

For  general public information the communications company here is called "ORANGE" (equivalent to "Smart Communications" in the Philippines). Internet sim cards are sold separately here and you have to buy a top up load in order to use internet, (they don’t come along on the sim card). By the way all the manuals and language here is in French, and internet is charged via bandwidth usage (20MB, 150MB , 500MB, 1GB, 2GB, 3GB)

To Top-up a sim card (or "reload" term in the Philippines)

Press *123* code recharge # (then press call button on your cell phone)

To Check balance

Press #123# (press call button on your cell phone)

To Sign up for internet service

Press #1234# (press call button on your cell phone)

(official website by the company is www.passorange.sn)

Customer service hotline

Press 1441 (press call button on your cell phone)

(Information given by 3rd mate Vergel Acebo Abalos)

As for the news on work

Mooring operations were difficult. Apparently Captain Kolev has poor work decisions and had us bring out mooring ropes in just an hour before we go to berth. As an obvious result , me , O.S. Ronnie Macalawa and BOSUN Payopay are all dead beat tired before even the mooring work to start. To make it worst the weather on that day wasn't pleasant and was terribly hot, it a surprise that I even finished the job without being sick of fever from heat exhaustion and fatigue. (it’s a good thing I drank another cocktail of my meds , to at least lessen chances of being sick).

At berth , people on board here are being so discriminative about African Senegal's . Fellow Filipino's and Europeans alike, in some instances even refuse to let them in inside the crew mess for a cup of coffee and shun them - labelling them as "EBOLA" , I'm not saying that we should fraternize or be "buddy-buddy" with them, what I'm saying is that we could at least treat them humanely after all despite their colour and appearance they are  human beings WITH FEELINGS. Filipino's hate being discriminate but on the way my fellow Filipino's are acting right now , they're showing off a very poor impression.

One instance , is this watchman whom was just simply asking for a cup of coffee. Out of pity I decided to let him follow me at least to the entrance of the accommodation entrance on the portside to give him a cup of coffee . By bad luck it turns out that Messman Montoya saw me and he said "people like them are not allowed here, only the agent and loading master are allowed to enter" , he looked at the poor Senegalese with total disgust, plus he's lecturing me like some sort of self-righteous bastard. I told the Senegalese to go to the suez cabin room outside and wait for me there for the coffee, I went back to Mess man Montoya and asked if there is a specific designated coffee cup for the watch men to drink . He rudely said no and said with disgust that we don’t give them coffee cups , annoyed with so much discrimination against them , I decided to get whatever coffee cup I can find on the coffee area and get coffee for the watchmen by myself . Before I even get to finish the coffee I saw Mess man Montoya , talking to Captain kolev and saying (or more like impressing him) that he foiled an attempt of a nigger to enter the accommodation space then he went back to the galley and told the cook about it as like he was broadcasting the whole wide world that no niggers are allowed on-board.

I feel very sorry for the watchman about the treatment and this kind of behaviour of my own kind , yet I couldn't do anything about it but just simply give him the coffee that he ask. I often wonder why we Filipino's get discriminated most of the time and yet I ask myself that sometimes maybe this is the judgement we get because we discriminated other people about their colour and race.  

The following day I recent bought a top up card from one of the agents. (good thing 3rd mate Vergel Acebo Abalos is a smooth talker and talked his way in convincing the agent to buy the top up loads for us and bring it here)and immediately hooked up my computer for the internet. Here's what I found out on what is happening on the sailing community in the Philippines

• First off , it looks like MARINA will be handling and taking over the show on all maritime related interest of Filipino sailors - as in everything. Aside from issuing seaman's book, and now COP's, Marina will now be absorbing functions in regards to issuance of licenses to sailors . Before it was PRC (Professional regulations commission) who issues this blue plastic license cards by late quarter of 2014.  To summarize MARINA will be expanding its influence(to some extent power) and will be the "head honcho" on all matters about Filipino sailors. Big question now is whether or not this will be another bigger tyrant replacing previous tyrants who govern Filipinos sailor's or their dealings will be fair and just ? - stay tuned !!!. For us ordinary common sailors , it means were not going to visit PRC anytime soon (or none at all) for our license related affairs which includes examinations and such. Another big question is I wonder how much will they charge us for examination fees ?? I hope they're not going to rob  some poor  young helpless deck cadet on those fee's like what they just did on veteran sailors about COP's

• The political party "ANGKLA" seemed to made it out after all on the latest political elections and has managed to get a seat on politics, unfortunately like all other political parties, this sailor themed political party ended up just siphoning government funds for their own personal gain and basically just don’t really give a shit about sailors , heck they even ignored a recent seafarers day parade on luneta - really bad impression on them since thier political party is sailor themed . Hmmm I wonder since PTC company formally backed this political party a few years back or in some ways connected , I asked myself were does the government supplied money for political party goes to ??? (Please  don’t tell me it all went to PTC ) oh well follow the trail of the money - well uhm government money that is :D . Oh yeah by the way from what I heard , this political party is run by cold blooded people from "Elite" maritime probably those PMMA (or MAAP)  sons of bitches - Hmpf !!! no wonder they don’t give a shit on us.

• Now news about us deck cadets (or at least those who feel like deck cadets), there is a recent rumour that implemented by marina that aside from your usual record training book (the blue one that looks like an oversized notepad) , deck cadets have another notepad size booklet to fill up to according to what I heard it another "Journal" or "Diary" of some sort, uhm if that was a case then can they count this blog as well ? maybe I could update it out online every now and then :D - nah I don’t think any MARINA official wouldn't be happy about what I'm writing  . Anyway if being a sailor in the Filipino maritime community is bad , then deck cadets gets the worse treatment of all.

TREASURE HUNT

Even though it gives me comfort to know that Senegalese people are not cannibals, it doesn't necessarily mean that they won't steal our stuff. As a precaution to these scenario, Captain Ivaylo Dimitriv Kolev told us that our job work currently is part hiding good from the bond store to somewhere else. He ordered us to hid the stuff on the bond store to three separate locations. One location was inside the one of the cofferdams in inside the Emergency steering gear, the other is placed inside the "cable trunk" space at the back of the kitchen, and the rest that remains is sealed off on the bond store at the bottom of the galley.

Captains Kolev's intention why he had to conceal most of this stuff is based on the incident on what happened last year where Senegalese authorities ransack almost everything on the ship's supplies. Anyway it's not a big surprise that this always typical happens on any commercial ship going into Africa as authorities there have a bad habit of making each ship their own personal shopping store.

On my end it's not exactly my concern, the only thing I had was that it's another extra work for us hiding all those stuff on the cofferdam and after Africa putting all these merchandise back to the bond store.

Aside from that, some of the folks here think that hiding most of the bond store to  the cofferdams is a bad idea and might even bring trouble and get the attention of port authorities on why the hell is our bond store almost empty. They suspect that port authorities might conduct a quasi-random drug search (or cabin search of some kind) on this ship to bring out the said merchandise. Anyway this won't be exactly known until we arrived in Senegal water territories on September 29th 2014 and docked on a Senegal port.

In the meantime , Captain Kolev conducted a safety meeting last Saturday September 27th and debriefed us on the Do's and Don'ts as well as the "what to do" while were in Africa. Meeting just basically told us some common problems that plague Africa like malaria, stowaways, rude and violent people, and most recently the Ebola outbreak. Right after the safety meeting, barbecue party started. Had a lot of drinks there and had me waking up in the morning with a nasty hangover, Good thing that this Sundays was a rest day and a breather from all the hard work going on around.

Monday, September 29, 2014 …..

This is the day where this ship arrived in Senegal waters, first off weather here isn't really that great and comfortable like in Europe. Climate is much similar to a tropical country with temperatures of 29 degrees Celsius in the morning and roughly about 30 plus something on mid-day. As usual same tactics apply on a tropical hot climate, always keep hydrated (bring water canteen) , dress light or if the heat is unbearable make my coveralls moist (not wet) and stay out of the sun as much as possible, and change to dry clothes often if there's time.

PICTURED HERE ARE ACTUAL HEAVING AND DROPPING ANCHOR OPERATIONS

PROPAGANDA BLUES

During my spare time and browsing thru webpages when I had come across a "filipino sailor" community themed website. Specifically luswelf website (luneta seafarers welfare - uhm something like that more or less) , the website is basically mediocre at best and nothing interesting at all except the "sailor" song that was being played. I find myself amused to it and yet somewhat bothered by what the song content. Here are the facts on this propaganda material. Website address is ww.seafarerdirectoryph.com

• Song heavily refers that in order to be a sailor , a so called "backer" (layman term is "sponsor") is needed in order to be employed, regardless of what educational background, credentials and previous job experience a person has. In other words even a lowly janitor with an educational background of grade school can be a sailor provided that he / she has a political connection or contact that would sponsor him to a company and school credentials are rendered obsolete and worthless. This is heavily implied on the April boy regino's rip off song titled "pano ang puso ko"

• Ship captains and Ship officer's here are worshipped as "pseudo gods" and needs to be venerated (if not mandatory). Hinting that there is too much office politics in this environment. A schmoozer will fit well here or a boot licker as well.

• Lone some cowboy rip off song tells the working conditions and the general status of how deplorable condition are when working as a sailor , specifically in the "Domestic" shipping. Mentions as well that in order to get the "job" you have to do a little sexual favour to an old hag inside a shipping office, aside from that mentions as well that sailors are economically dependent on this job and no skills beyond this line of work.

• Luneta being a "Hub" iconic to the Philippine sailing community, and a symbol of how things are doing on this profession. Overcrowded , little opportunities, exploitation and inequality. For short it’s a haven and hang out place for huge numbers of unemployed sailors

• Lots of heavy propaganda and heavy brainwashing, telling stuff of how wonderful a sailor's life is blah and blah, entirely skipping out the reality check . 

WE WENT THAT -A- AWAY

Early morning of September 19, 2014 Friday was greeted with a lot of heavy Fog. It was so thick that I couldn't see anything infront of me beyond 10 metres, at first I mistook that piloting and mooring will be cancelled from the bad weather, in fact Chief Mate Anatoliy Bayez even gave a work order for us to wash the deck area. We started our usually deck maintenance schedule then all of a sudden in the middle of work somewhere between 9am, I saw A.B. Marlon Layos rushing towards BOSUN Payopay and told him to prepare "Combination Ladder" (a mix of pilot ladder and gangway ladder being lowered) on the starboard side. I asked A.B. Marlon on what's going on and he replied that Pilotage and mooring operation will begin soon and I had to hurry up and change coverall's.

Did change my coveralls immediately and by the time I went back the whole combination ladder had been finished rigging. Soon after I proceeded to the forward anchor winch to prepare and heave up anchor. O.S. "Ronnie" was the one who actually operated the machinery and heaved it up, while me was basically stuck in removing the anchor ball. While no one was looking I secretly put a digital camera on top the ETA appliance to film the actual heaving of anchor. It only took a couple of minutes for me to record the work and was immediately cut off because Bosun Payopay ordered me to wash the 2nd deck level with a fire hose, I can't leave the camera behind so I took it with me.

While getting the equipment for deck wash was being ready, I became absent minded whether this hose was to be taken on which floor. By the time Bosun Payopay arrived, he was surprised that I haven't even started yet on the work. He was definitely upset about it. At noon we finished washing the deck in a rush manner.  Seriously I think it was a bad idea to go working on deck maintenance while underway, I'm not certain why we did that but obviously its not a good idea.

Mooring was easy given that we just have to drop our mooring wires and the mooring arrangement for Rotterdam was 3:2 (three headlines, 2 spring lines) , to make it more easy there's a mooring boat to assist us.

Loading cargo didn't resume until 9pm on my shift. During my watch most of the crew here were anxiously to await the Sunny Euro agent, obviously to buy a lot stuff. A lot of crew have already prepared their shopping list for it and mine as well. During the wait I showed off my best talent in being fluent in English communications on talking into the walkie talkie, apparently it was a big mistake to do that and as a result I got suspected as a former call centre agent. Obviously out of fear and horror I tried to deny my former association with the BPO industry as much as possible, given that former call centre agents here are always being targeted by jealousy and singled out for persecution. I can't risk my safety here no matter what and don't what to repeat the mistake for the third time. It's a good thing that I just set an alibi that I got my English from watching too much television when I was a kid (poor excuse, but hey it work and they bought the idea). Besides they don’t have any hard evidence or witnesses to pin me down on my association with the BPO folk's (technical term for call centre community)

Being a former call centre agent in a seaman environment is a very bad idea, more bad if your crew mates knew about it. Unless I want be an unwilling target of discrimination, I suggest I keep my mouth shut for my safety and tone down my English to the social degenerate level. Don’t get me wrong, I'm always proud of my association with the BPO and being a former call centre agent , the English skills they impart on me is the lasting legacy - a part of me that will never fade.

On the second day of Loading Cargo, the agent from sunny euro visited our ship and took orders of the stuff we want to buy on their store, from the looks of it "Sunny Euro" got a good income from us , from what I heard the biggest spender was chief engineer Revaz Chavchanide, A.B. Marlon Layos (which both of them bought a laptop computer) and O.S. Ronnie Macalawa (which bought a Sound system component). On my end I just only bought a headset for my computer , I needed to buy one since my previous headset got broken when I accidentally got it crush under my bed.

Late on the evening, the replacement for 2nd office Olan arrived…

Unmooring operations went on without any problems and this ships next stop will be Senegal africa

I FORGOT TO REMEMBER TO FORGET

Haven't had any decent sleep lately , but it's my fault anyway - I had been hooked up playing PC games , specifically Fallout: New Vegas video game. It's really a good game and what I like about it is that it’s has a nonlinear ending. I could either choose to side with the NCR government , "Caesars legion" , Mr. House faction or an independent Las Vegas state.

Apart from playing that game, I had been playing as well its predecessor game Fallout 3 . This time I had finally figured out on how to install its DLC expansion game , frankly I'm not really that much interested in this game anymore - well at least I'm not playing this as often as before I saw the "canon" ending. 

Anyway I had been hooked upon these games for a while that I forgot what I'm supposed to do on other work related agenda's like adding extra pockets on my coveralls and such, heck I even forgot to go to the gym right now. Maybe if I got some extra time I could come up to finish this priorities.

On the other hand, this "isolationist" experiment is really working wonders, I had been here for almost 3 months now and I could rarely be seen in the crew mess and mingling over the crew. In fact the only thing I get to be seen on the crew mess is during official hours like work and some papers that need to be signed - nothing more. I take pride in being an isolationist , it’s the part of being safe and having a secure environment on board a ship. The trick in being an isolationist is very simple , not that hard to figure out - just prepare a lot of multimedia stuff stored around on your personal computer (or any multimedia device) , and not just store but really hoard a lot of it. I made sure that the stockpile I had here is enough to last for at least 9 to 10 months.

Sure I might get a lot of negative feedback about this but sometimes , I had to weigh which will be the best of my interest. They say a stuff  "No man's an island" but I say I'd rather be a "City State" than mingle with these savages. Don’t get me wrong , I'm not saying that my stay here in Conti Greenland is unpleasant , in fact it contrary and people here are ok and way better than the one's I encountered in Cape Tallin (or Stolt Strength - the worst by the way). I had good working relations here and just happens that I'm test driving these tactics for defensive purposes.

In other news….

A lot of people are asking me on why I haven't "extended" my contract yet, well for a good reason - I HATE SPENDING A LOT OF TIME IN A GILDED CAGE !!! . Sure they maybe a lot of money here if I spend a little time longer but at what price ? Seriously I'm not really meant to spend a lot of time in a closed environment and I find it very suffocating and mentally stressful, if I would find myself trapped here longer than the intended 6 months contract.

A lot of sailors might find what I'm saying to be a bit betraying on the sailing job , but on my personal view of things a person is not really meant to be confined on prolonged periods nor spent his entire life at sea. Sooner or later a person confined under these circumstances will find themselves to be having mental (and social ) problems in the long run. I had only been a sailor for quite some time now and I had seen what it does on people (especially Filipino's) confined in such an extended period and my observations confirmed that a majority of Filipino sailors are "mentally" unstable and lack the so called social skill in coping up on the real world and fail to understand other people around him / her.

From what I had seen on my time, being a sailor is a mentally debilitating  job. Sooner or later Filipino's exposed to these condition in years will eventually succumb to having antisocial personality disorder on one way or the other. Other people are resistant but not totally immune to these stress. I'd be damned if I ended up like these and that's the main reason why as much as possible I stay out of long working contracts - ABSOLUTELY NO CONTRACT EXTENSIONS ! Period and I'm going to stick with that.

In other news related to work

A few days ago , we celebrated O.S. "Ronnie's" birthday - actually there were two birthdays at that time, aside from "Ronnie" , electrician ferdinand curso ybanez was also celebrating his birthday on the same day.

As expected A.B. Marlon Depallo Layos got badly drunk again and started doing his tribal dance . Me like everyone else got a few drinks or so but not enough to make me feel woozy and such , after four bottles - I just stealthy hid and left the crew mess to enjoy a nice nap - and before the nap play "Fallout new vegas" PC game. After two days the drinking session I was awaken up in midnight to be notified that we will be dropping anchor at 1am early in the morning, I was caught off surprise given that  no further details were given yet on this ships arrival at St. Petersburg Russia and I only found it out on the that very same time. To make it more annoying aside from being woken up in the midnight to drop anchor was we get to heave it again after only five hours. Anyway Sleep deprivation is a norm here and I had already accepted that fact, expect as a sailor that you'd get called to work in the middle of the night in short notice - like it or not !

I didn’t had any good sleep after the anchors were dropped and just spent my time waiting on my cabin. After 5 hours, we were out again heaving the anchor and this time headed for berthing and mooring.

During the loading operations in St. Petersburg, the heater was switched on prematurely and as a result , a lot of people are complaining that it's too hot inside. To why it was switched on , I had no idea .. But some say that Captain Gorge Potirniche was the one who ordered and insisted that it should be turned on even though it's not winter yet. Problem with this captain is that he has an anxiety issue which impairs his rational thinking, he's  too exaggerated and too paranoid on even normal routine work. he thinks russia is too damn cold (when in reality is its still summer season here). so he turns on the heater like a blast furnace and ends up a lot of people getting pissed over the temperature.

By the way mooring operation in St. Petersburg was a change of pace, because there were no mooring boats around to assist in the mooring and we had to use a heaving line connected to a messenger line to bring out those heavy mooring wires. Took us a long time in mooring to get it properly moored.

After the loading operations this ship casted off and headed to Netherlands to discharge its Oil cargo.

The rest of the week was just spent doing maintenance work like chipping rust, polishing those rust marks, and putting primer paint on it.

Rest day on Sundays was broken off in the middle of the night as I was notified that anchor will be dropped by around 9pm, at about 10pm to 11pm we finished dropping it off and as usual we dropped it via gravity type. After that we received a notice from the new captain , Ivaylo Dimitrov Kolev that we will be heaving it off at around 3am in the morning and will await the pilot. In other words we only have roughly 5 hours rest before mooring operations begin.

Mooring operations in Netherlands was 3 : 3 : 2 , three heads lines (or stern line in my case) , three breast lines "Loose" ropes and 2 spring lines. Mooring operations was finished 10am in the morning.

During cargo operations while I was in the crew mess eating lunch, I had heard that most people here have submitted their intentions in extending their working contracts , some of the people who submitted their extensions were chief mate Anatoliy bayev, chief engineer revaz chavchanidze and wiper Anthony cruzat evangelista.

Aside from extension contracts , another rumour came in that this ship might be bound to the African country Senegal after the discharging / loading operations  in Netherlands. I had never been into Africa ever before and not exactly sure on how will I react about it probably because I do know very well that place is backward and that people there lack modesty and proper manners, plus on top of that  the first thing that comes out on my mind when I think about Africa is plagues , malaria , AIDS and "god-knows-what-kind-of-epidemic". 

In other news , a memo came in that O.S. "Ronnie" , 2nd Mate "Olan" and A.B. "Ruben" will be disembarking on our next port (rotterdam) since they already had finished their contracts of six months - so it means that we will be receiving in new replacements by the next port , specifically two new O.S. and a second mate. O.S. Joseph will be promoted to A.B. and will be filing in on the vacancy that will be left behind by "Ruben" , so instead of a new A.B. , an O.S. will be sent as a replacement.

Me on the other hand will be transferred back to my previous working schedule , and will be transferred back to forward mooring station, also there's speculation that I might be promoted to O.S. - O.T. rank here which is some sort of quasi A.B. position, technically I'm still an O.S. but the work description will be now similar to a regular A.B. than an O.S. , Well being promoted is fine by me and has its perks but the trade-off is that weekends off will be cancelled PERMANENTLY and they'd just add only a 100 U.S. dollars on my pay for the trouble.

Seriously just between me and this blog, an O.S. - O.T. rank is a big joke and not exactly a job promotion but rather just a change of job description, or on some extent just an additional job burden. 

DRIFTING TO THE BALTIC

An NSB propaganda material

Work in La, Havre France has been finished after a 72 hour long operation. Basically this is just another one of those typical discharge operations made by any commercial oil tanker ship going in out of the port. No tank cleaning operation followed since this is a product tanker ship and not a standalone chemical tanker.

During the discharge operation, the reliever of 2nd engineer Andrejs Aronietis and Captain George Potirniche arrived. I haven't identified their names yet and will be knowing it on the latter once a new crew list.

Also during the discharge operation , it was fortunate that a French businessman (sells retail items) arrived and sold some of his stuff at the crewmess. One of the business he sells was Internet phone cards which I took the opportunity in buying one as I need it to update my computer and download stuff from the internet, plus drop by on my social media website. The cost of the Sim card was about 20 U.S. Dollar , a small expense for the necessity of communication.

As soon as I got the access in the internet, I quickly updated my blog and corrected a few misplaced entries plus uploaded a few pictures.

Aside from the French businessman, 3rd mate Vergel Acebo Abalos and O.S. Joseph Quinal Dinglasa had some *monkey business* selling cigarettes to the jettyman personnel on the shore side. They bagged a couple of few extra Euro's in the process which isn't bad at all given that income here is reduced (Overtime pay issue). Jetty man personnel were so eager on their cigarettes that they keep clamouring for more , and inadvertently bothering me every hour or so by asking if we had anymore cigarettes to sell. I myself got an extra 20 euro's when I gave my Marlboro cigarette to 3rd mate for him to sell. Seriously doing monkey business is really tempting and considering that monetary used here is in euros (which has more value than a U.S. Dollar) , It would mean a lot of extra income for us sailors - of course , the only problem here is that cigarette dealing is done in secret for some reason.

During unmooring, 2nd officer Olan got furious over what he heard on the radio, apparently Captain Portirniche is complaining about a lot carbon dust accumulation on the bridge wing and worst he scolded A.B. Marlon and 2nd officer over the radio,blaming them that they don't have enough time to clean the bridge (enough for everyone to hear).

Few hours later after we got past the bridge locks of La Havre , this ship anchored of just a few miles from land, close enough to get an internet signal for at least a day.

Dropping the anchor via gravity wasn't that hard this time around and I'm now able to control (in some extent) the rate of anchor chains being paid out.

On Monday maintenance work was cancelled for two reasons , either its chief mate's birthday and reduction of workings hours (overtime pay limit) good for me in the sense that I need to take a load off on work and needed a good sleep after the discharge operation.

Late in the afternoon, Captain Portirniche called the mess room and said over the phone that we will be heaving anchor in a few minutes and we should get reason. The call was a mood killer and everyone in the crew mess is having a drink and celebrating chief mate's birthday, it was really sudden and no one expected that this ship would be sailing off this soon.

Going to work drunk  (or had a few drinks) isn't really a good idea , but what the hell can I do ? The announcement came in very late and now I'm stuck going to the forward part of the ship to operate the anchor winch machinery. Fortunately , I'm not the one who operated the machinery and it was O.S. "Ronnie" , I just stayed put and prepared a water hose for anchor washing and lowered the anchor ball.

From what I heard the next destination of this ship will either St. Petersburg Russia or some Russian territory in the middle of Lithuania and Poland (believe it or not Kaliningrad , is a  piece of land that’s Russian - check the map) 

Video of actual rust chipping work , a bit grainy due to bandwidth limitations on internet connection. but then again i hope this give's a people an idea on what sailors do onboard a ship. an old filipino saying called "Tiktik Kalawang"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!!

ALL GEARED UP AND IN FULL EQUIPMENT

NEGATIVE VALUES 101

Yet another Tedious and boring drill, Seriously this is just a big <YAWN> 

Finally it's about damn time, that I saw something wrong here on board this ship, as expected on my theory of "observing people for two months" to check for anything wrong really paid off. My "buffer period" yielded to discovering some people here actually think of me as "inferior" and "lacking intellectually" . It may not be much compared to what I had experienced in Cape Tallin or Stolt Strength, but only proves my theory (and rule) of the "two month buffer period" in checking out the environment for any threats. For now my observations include that people here have so far "benign" ego problems, - I'd continue my observations further to see any more threats.

Anyway aside from proving that theory, on the bigger picture. I could assume that at least two thirds of the entire Filipino sailors have behavioural issues - as in serious anti-social behavioural issues !!! , Main reasons why new comers (and deck cadets in particular) should watch their backs.

On my case, it’s a good thing that thru experience, observation and careful analysis that I had develop anti-personnel tactics. People reading this blog would really know the value of "Never talk to strangers" and protection of being anonymous. The only thing they know about me here is that I came from CSM principal and I had been a sailor for quiet sometime - nothing more, they don’t known my previous work done before being a sailor or my background. I am thankful that I had practiced all the precaution rules on this ship and I'm living comfortably that the bigotry here is checked.

Working relations tend to get sour as time goes by , though I'm not exactly involve here but other people around me. The latest from what I heard was that extra working hours done by the mess man and chief cook , will not be paid at all. Technically although work was done on a normal schedule, the Captain wanted them to write on their "weekly job done form" to be less than the actual hours of work done. To make it simple some working hours will be regarding as somewhat "free" - really bad news for them in the sense that no workforce in the world will definitely agree on working for free, and who the hell would want that ? (except slave labour). Really bizarre on how these soviets handle their work force like that.

In relation to the reduced workforce labour. It seems as well that the deck department is having its own share of reduced hours, and to my surprise during the transit going out in the black sea via Istanbul. The captain said that we should take a day off after anchoring early in the morning, probably on the fact that regular working hours will be shifted temporarily on night time because of some sort of provisioning thing (resupply , as a layman's term put it). At first I wasn’t exactly sure if I heard correct on the radio that the whole day work is off and we will be called back in night time, I confirmed it to my co-worker O.S. Ronnie and said indeed there won't be any work on the daytime temporarily.

Later on the evening on that day, we heaved anchor. I had plans to record the heaving of anchor work but I hesitated and decided that I'd do it maybe next time. Soon after the anchor was heaved, The three of us (me, BOSUN Payopay, and O.S. Ronnie) when on standby to await the pilot while channelling and await as well the coming provisions. Based on what I heard from them - provision boat will be arriving by somewhere midnight or past it.

11pm at that day I was waken up from a quick nap by the phone. I quickly wore my coveralls and headed outside, it was pitch dark and I could see a thing outside. Took me quite a while for my eyes to adjust , Good thing that I could hear the sound of the cargo crane machinery being switched on so I had an idea were I'm headed. At about 30 minutes later, almost everybody from the deck and engine department were awake.

Provision boat came close to midnight , and we quickly carried all the stuff to the  provision chamber as soon as the crates were loaded up on the deck area. It only took us a short time to finish the task.

Over the next two days, we were busy doing the usual maintenance work on board. Myself for now was assigned on the work in the garbage, really smelly job and dirty work but that's my assignment for now on segregation of these materials. Both NSB and CSM is very critical about the garbage related issue - given that CSM has been caught in a number of times throwing garbage at sea, latest I heard from them was the U.S. Coast Guard got them red handed and they paid a huge fine plus got them into some sort of probation up to now.

In other matters

To my surprise and astonishment, Friday's work schedule turned out to be half day and Saturday's to be whole day rest. From what I heard there might be a huge work on Sunday and they moved the rest days to a bit earlier just to compensate for the rest hours in a week.

We had a routine drill this Saturday which was an abandon drill and fire fighting scenario plus some boring familiarization about how to operate an emergency generator , emergency breathing apparatus etc.

During the abandon ship , I came into a close call from being bitched out by captain gorge potirniche (the guy has a nasty habit of blaming other people on his mistakes) . Fortunately Bosun Payopay told me to quickly get the pyrotechnic flares and bring it to the lifeboat station. By the time I got there , the captain was making a check on the equipment on each crew member and turns out it was my turn be checked on the equipment part.

As for the fire drill, I had difficulty attaching the fire hose to the nozzle , attaching the hose to the hydrant was easy but on the nozzle it was a totally bitch and wouldn't connect. As a result my whole time on the fire drill was wasted in trying to attach the nozzle.

After a brief boring discussion on the crew mess after the drills, I hurried got out of the room and to my surprise, mess man Montoya followed me and rudely ranted something about me not putting back the chair I sat at on its proper place plus he mention that whenever I would eat beyond the normal "eating" hours, I would have to wash my own dishes and glasses because they have a thing called a working hours cap. Fine by me if that’s the case, but I don't think it’s a big deal about the chair thing being away only for three feet from its original location, plus do I have to really get to know his working hour limitations ? - it's not my problem if he's too damn lazy to wash the dishes or hates going to work , and I never said anything about him working beyond his working hours - nobody is forcing him to do shit ! . If he hates washing those fucking glasses and dishes beyond his working hours, then don’t wash them , you moron ! - simple as that ! I don’t need lectures ! Especially from self-proclaimed righteous people.  I had been doing mess man task a few years back and I know what kind of shit he's talking about and during my time I didn't complain because It's my job as a mess man to clean other peoples crap which includes the job description of washing the dishes and putting all the stuff in any mess room back to its proper place !

Fucking bigots !!!!

From now on I'm starting to distance myself away from him as humanly possible , that bastard thinks he can push people around ….. Well he's screwing the wrong guy.

In work….

Filling out this so called work time sheet, is very chore some and to make it more chore some is I have to write all the jobs I had done in detail for whole week. I don't see any point why I had to write done my work in detail as it clearly understood that 90 percent of my work here is on the deck maintenance. Apparently this NSB work form is much more tedious than the one made by CSM, why the hell do I have to write it in full detail ? Would It be a lot easier for me just to write done "Deck Maintenance" or like in a CSM form that I just only put an "X" mark on the specific time I made work.

Probably NSB think's that its crew is cheating on their work, well not as much as what NSB ( Niederelbe Schiffahrtsgesellschaft buxtehude )does on its worker's. Damn fucking Soviets ! Ever since they took charge on running the show on the principal , all they do is haggle on other peoples salary and think that we work for free, shit !!! no workforce labour on this planet would like to work for free ! . It was better before when the western European's were in charge. Damn Soviets they still have their communism attitude of forced labour (people working without getting paid) with them even though communism already fell on its ass more than 20 years ago !

On Monday August 18, 2014

It was expected that this ship will arrive at Barcelona Spain by around 10am in the morning and it will be berthing upon arrival but unexpectedly it turned out to be going to anchor first and we dropped anchor at about 10 am, after the successful dropping of anchor, Me , O.S. "Ronnie" and BOSUN Payopay went to the crew to have the routine coffee break.

Exactly after the coffee, We heard on BOSUN's Radio that captain Potirniche is now ordering us to heave anchor and prepare the pilot ladder on both sides. We immediately went to the forward and heaved the anchor, while I was busy lowering the anchor ball and we got only two shackles left on the chain for the anchor to be recovered. We received another order from the radio that we should stop heaving up anchor and prepare again to drop it at sea.

What drop it off anchor again !! You got to be kidding me ?? (that's what I said to myself) . Apparently from what I heard, Captain Potirniche made a mistake on what he heard on the pilot station and had to wait for another for further notice before going into port.

The following morning..

I was busy segregating trash when I heard it over the radio that the anchor will heaved soon, O.S. "Ronnie" came to the trash compartment where I was working and said that we better hurry up.

August 16, 2014….

In a few days' time will be my birthday, that means I'd be adding another year again on my age - it's nothing special I'd be just a bit older than the previous year.

For the moment, things are not really looking good to me financially. I just recently received my payroll form and it turns out that this will be the second month that I had negative values on my salary. To be specific I now had a - 101.49 USD salary. I'm not absolutely happy about this and what on earth is Columbia Ship Management doing on its payroll system ?!!! Last month I was charged for the so called "Overpaid" salary of 300 U.S.D. , so which pretty much explains why I had a -52.53 $ , Now not only that I won't receive a salary for this month ( my salary by the way per month is $ 1262 ) but I'd have to payback 101.49 US dollars to CSM , - WHAT THE HELL !!!! What the fuck is going on with this company ?!! , I'm not very good at numbers but I'm not definitely stupid on what the hell is going in my salary, and I seriously think that CSM is pretty much ripping me off.

If they keep doing this fiasco next month , then expect that I'd be leaving Career  Ship Management for good. What kind of company doesn’t keep accurate tabs   on their employee's huh ? Surely if they keep doing this up expect that retention on their sailor's will be very poor.

Anyway I had already scheduled to be leaving this company by around 2016, the time where all my documents will be fully updated in preparation for the totally renewal of Seminar training of all sailors by 2017. I think I can still shift to another company given that my U.S. visa will still be valid at around April 18, 2018 which that will put me in plenty of time regardless of what rank I'd be and whether or not I got a license. As long as I got a U.S. Visa valid and updated transition from another company won't be that hard.

(Rule of the thumb in labour workforce is that if a company has issues with salary payoff, it would be best advice to leave the job and find another company that doesn't have issues with the payroll. This rule applies to both overseas or local employment , either seabased or landbased)

In other matters…

Last August 26, This ship has finally arrived in la Havre France, and we had to drop anchor. It was thought earlier that this ship might go "berthing upon" arrival scenario but eventually two days before this ship arrived it was announced by Second mate Olan that this ship will be anchoring first. Good for us that this will be the case and were getting some slack over the hard work around here.

During the anchor drop via gravity, I could say that my performance in dropping the anchor gets better and better (on my personal perception) I could now at least "control" the rate of the chain paid out when it drops. Now the only thing I have to get used to is how to quickly put on the brakes without scaring BOSUN Payopay and O.S. "Ronnie" .

The rest of the week was doing the typical routine maintenance such as painting , chipping and polishing and removing rust from the hull, typical sailor stuff of work if were in the middle of nowhere. The only thing different for now is that I had some sort of injury on my point finger, can't exactly say what kind of injury it is but my joints on the point finger is badly inflamed and I can't hardly bend my finger at all, whenever I bend my finger it hurts like hell. Guess I had to use now my middle finger temporarily whenever I'm clicking something on the mouse. This has been going on for more than a week now.  

TRIDENT HOPE

Upon opening up my email on the ship's computer , I finally read some news about what's happening back home at the house. It's a good thing that the email here works and as an extra feature it even receives pictures. A few days ago I was puzzled on why
my emails were not sent and a message appearing "MB limit exceeded" , making me think earlier that this email service isn't free.
 
Anyway the email sent by my sister contains a mostly bad news, and a picture of her dogs. She informs me that Bhut Bhut (my Siamese cat) can be set loose outside the cage from time to time without supervision, and for some reason my cat doesn't go
outside the fence and just roams around the house front yard. Personally I don't think it's a bright idea having my pet run around without any supervision, My neighbourhood isn't exactly the safe one and cat friendly, and on top of that there's a cat
killer person here running loose. I had already learned from time and time again that some of my previous cats were killed in cold bold by this anonymous cat killer.
 
Frankly the letter my sister's email makes me think about our mom's near future situation, it's very bleak and grim and I'm not going to discuss this problem openly.
 
In other news ..
 
Over the past 3 days, this ship was here in Ukraine, I was doing the usual deck maintenance job orders like greasing the whole mooring wires from forward to aft. On Thursday , this ship resumed its business and pulled out of anchor to a certain area
and waited for the Ukrainian port authorities. I waited for the whole night in my cabin for them to arrive (my work there would apparently be rigging the gangway ladder)but no call was made. At midnight much to my annoyance Captain Gorge Portirniche,
woke everyone in this ship announcing that the Ukrainian officials have arrived and we must go to the CCR to get our Seaman's book and show them some sort of immigration card. Unfortunately Ukrainian officials said it was no longer necessary and
instead told us to stay on our cabins for some sort of cabin inspection.
 
Wasn't exactly happy when they said that and I figured that my cabin has so many secrets that , I'm not very comfortable someone taking a peek at it. It was a good thing that when the pest control inspector knocked thru my cabin , she only bothered to
check what's inside the bathroom for a few seconds then finally collected my seaman's book (along with the Immigration card) and went off.
 
After that I waited in my cabin again for a few hours until, it was announced on my call that ship to ship berthing will commence and I had to be in standby on my mooring station. Mooring wasn't difficult and it was all wires that will be used , no
soft ropes whatsoever. Mooring arrangement with the ship MT trident hope is 3:2 (3 stern lines or headlines and 2 spring lines). After the mooring, loading operations didn't started until a day after because of some issue with the Ukrainian surveyors
saying that cargo tanks are unsuitable to load cargo and have to wait for further announcement for the charterer. At about 6 in the morning , about a few cubic metres of cargo were received by this ship in order for residues of its cargo tank cleaned
up. After again another six hours , tank washing didn't proceed any further until It was on my shift again. Apparently from what I heard the pressure of the steam wasn't high enough. Loading of the cargo commenced at during my night time shift (6pm to
12 midnight) and was finished at my morning shift of work (6am till 12 noon, a 12 hour long loading operations).
 
During cargo operations on my night shift last Friday. Me and A.B. Ruben Lawagon Ganub, were busy along with the cargo surveyor collecting cargo samples. Based on what the cargo surveyor told us, after 2 , 3, and 8 minutes after loading cargo samples
would be taken , then next would be every after an hour, three bottle samples will be taken. As a result after the loading operations was finished, we were literary littered with lots of cargo bottle samples, all of these are just for the surveyor and
the ship's own samples.
 
On the afternoon of Saturday. The ship finally casted off and proceeded to an anchorage area where it waited for another day, before heading off to Istanbul again for the transit.
 
 



Received: from MPD at Globe Wireless;
Wed, 20 Aug 2014 23:55 UTC
Message-id: 197460521

BEING OVERPAID

Got a memo this morning, specifically addressed to me at the crew mess. It says that I would have salary deduction of 300 U.S.D. for this month. Apparently based on the memo , it says that I had been overpaid by CSM last January 2014 during my time in
CAPE Tallin and that I need to return the "Overpaid" salary back to them. Obviously I wasn?t happy to hear the news , not on the fact about being overpaid but by the fact that I wasn?t given any knowledge about this issue during my time in CAPE TALLIN and it took CSM / Career Ship management nearly half a year to inform me. I was still working in CAPE TALLIN in January up until my departure on that ship in March 2014 and nobody even bothered to inform me , and to add at I had a whole lot of time (and a bagful of money to pay it back) on that nearly 10 month stay on that ship. Really frustrating (not sure on the exact word here) that it took them a very long time in settling my accounts and I'm already working here on board Conti Greenland when they informed me. They had a whole luxury of time and options to put deduction either on my on-board pay in Cape Tallin or even at my leave pay in back in the Philippines but they never made any efforts to do so. Now as a result of their laziness , I had a negative salary for this month - really bad timing to be bringing this up on the time that I need the money badly for my mom's medical expenses.

In other matters in work.

On the night of August 02, 2014 Saturday, 7pm, this ship has transited Istanbul channelling area. Weather wasn?t really good and had a rain shower for a few hours and had to put on a raincoat. For some reason the view in Istanbul, turkey isn't really
as vibrant as the first time I saw it - maybe on the fact that I had been in and out of this place a lot, well yeah in the sense that I was here last January 2014 and it was pretty cold back then.
?
While in transit, BOSUN PAYOPAY gave me a short briefing on how to operate emergency steering device here in CONTI Greenland. The emergency steering apparatus on this ship is not much different to the one I saw in Cape Tallin, even down to the look of
the device and the feel of how to operate it. It?s a good thing that BOSUN Payopay gave me a quick browse of the said device, because when I got here on this ship last month , there was no familiarization drill given and had to figure things out for
myself. Normally each ship conducts a some sort of familiarization drill on each new crew member, but given that NSB has short contracts - management here never bothers to give's us any hints on how to operate some machinery and we just basically read
what the manual says (manuals here are not exactly the typical "booklet" type and looks more like a placard sticker sticking next to the device). It?s a good thing that this ship is permanently station here in Europe and will not be going (if ever) in
the USA , or else were going to be so screwed by the U.S. coast guard about the safety management practices.
?
Anyway based on the info I got , this ship will be arriving in Kerch, Ukraine by Monday in the afternoon and proceed on an STS loading the following early morning.
?
Due to the reduction of working hours (specifically the overtime work limiting only to less than 103 hours), the management here on this ship has been giving us a lot on rest hours. For example this Saturday instead of the usual work schedule of a
normal maintenance work (8am till 12 noon), it is to my surprise that we were actually given an early rest and moved to 7pm till 12 midnight just to get the working quota of no more than 4 hours in Saturdays for the Istanbul channelling. This was a big
difference during my time hanging out in CSM, which normally aside from working the usual 8am till 12 noon schedule , we will have another extra hours of work on the Istanbul transit - totalling up to 8 working hours, (4 hours regular and another 4
hours of extra overtime pay)
?
It is very obvious that NSB is really cutting corners on the cost of their labour workforce in any way they can. Most likely they try to haggle our salaries as much as they can, in the expense of having a "scape goat" such as reduced working hours.
?
But come to think of it, CSM on the other hand has normal working hours and have a much stable pay of 120 fix "Overtime" pay. Unfortunately there's too much work being done there that Saturdays and Sundays are also work days. Career Ship Management is
ok but CSM (Columbia Ship Management) is not.
?
In other news related to work
?
Had received recently a new pair of coveralls from BOSUN Payopay, it?s a standard issue red NSB coverall. I'm amazed on that ship supply to crew are bountiful here on an NSB ship , and in particular the coveralls and other working equipment. Rest
assured that I'd take good care of this equipment ( and grateful to add this to my collection of coveralls I had) .

The standard company issue coverall (the yellow one) and the NSB standard issue coverall (red one)

Received: from MPD at Globe Wireless;
Sat, 16 Aug 2014 11:00 UTC
Message-id: 195546349