LIFE OUTSIDE

Entry log at June 01, 2015 Monday

For a couple of days while this ship is at anchorage, we basically just did the basic maintenance work. Actually most of the time we just stayed for a few minutes pretending to be busy doing something.

At about 10:30 Pm May 30. I received a call on my cabin telling me that I had to prepare the pilot ladder on the starboard side, Basically it was always the same charade again - and as expected on work, I'm back doing my same old routines  before the ship berths. The channelling towards 'KINDER MORGAN" terminal in Houston took at about 5 hours all in all, BOSUN Diosana told me that while the ship is still channelling , I could go back in the accommodation block and take a quick nap. I did went back to the accommodation block to rest but I never took a nap and instead just waited out and let the time pass by playing Metal Gear Solid 5 : Ground Zero's video game in my PC. Around 5am I was called back and it was already to be on standby on mooring.

Mooring went fine without any problems.

Crew landing permit on the U.S.

24 hours later, I decided to go on shore leave for the first time since I arrived here on this ship. Shore leaves nowadays aren't that long compared to the days of yore where it last for days, In modern times its just roughly only a few hours. I decided to go out and see the environment around America since I have never set my foot outside (had already been here before but never set foot).

Rule in going on shore leave is that always go into groups, and never wander off alone. Since this is a foreign land there is always a possibility that there might be trouble. I decided to tag along with electrician Felix Rodriguez  and Fitter Rogelio  Lorenzo and took my shore pass from third mate corales along with a Xerox copy of my passport.

Due to security policies on U.S. port, We are to remain inside the ship until picked up by a cab. It was about noon when the taxi arrived and was asked by "Rosa" if we have anything on mind, Well for a start I was thinking of some place to shop, eating and drinking or checking out the place - something like that and not in any particular order.  By the way the taxi fee in the U.S. is 30 dollars one way per ride (doesn’t matter on how many we are), and another 30 going back (total of 60 U.S.D.)

Our first stop was "Best Buy" Store. There is nothing much to say about this really and compared to other malls this one is a very small one. Probably from my estimation it's just the size of any supermarket department on any malls in the Philippines. Anyway it's understandable why malls in the U.S. are small given that it's only a place to shop and not hang out. "Best buy" store isn't really much to speak of, it only has some latest electronics to buy like laptops, camera and video games - but not the complete set. On best buy due to budget and money limitations I had on my wallet , I only bought a stylus pen for my Acer Tablet PC and a laptop cooler pad for my HP - nothing more. Second stop was to go WalMart store, The three of us decided that since it is just nearby (according to Google maps it's just a 15 minute walk) we could stretch our legs a bit. Engine Fitter Rogelio Lorenzo was hesitant at first but Electrician Felix Rodriguez was able to manage to talk him out. Midway walking we received an SMS telling that third mate corales and messman galang are currently in walmart and asked if they could join in with us on the way hope. Electrician Rodriguez said that the reason why they plan to tag along with us was because they wanted to cut the cost of their transportation fee on the way back.

Google maps was pretty accurate in telling the directions and told us exactly which direction should we go along with the walkway for pedestrians. Took us less that 15 minutes on foot going there in Walmart. In Walmart, it was pretty spacious compared to best buy - but not as spacious as Philippine super marts like I saw went I was still a kid. Walmart is impressive went it comes to size but that just basically starts and ends there.

Once we got inside the store we immediately saw and tagged along with 3rd mate and messman, actually we never see and it was them that saw us .Out of necessity I had to borrow 100 U.S.D. from Electrician Felix Rodriguez to buy a few videogames, chocolates and soap. Aside from that I couldn't think of anything else to buy . We scattered all over the place to shop and was decided that around 4pm we would meet at the entrance of the super mart in McDonald's booth. After a couple of hours we all met on the meeting spot and by the time we returned to the ship, it was already around 5pm - an hour late on my scheduled shift. Fortunately O.S. bantic isn't a hot heat and was able to talk to him about why I got late.

At 11am close to midnight, I was suddenly awaken by the P.A. system. The voice speaking was no other than "Mr. Cobra" Sorin , telling us to go to out mooring stations. At first I thought that it was already time to sail off - after all I heard before I finished my working shift that loading the cargo will be finished sometime near midnight and its only plausible that unmooring operations will soon follow. When I got out , I only found out that "Mr. Cobra" wanted only to tighten the moorings of the ship and had to call the whole crew about it - for short it was unimportant and our friendly reptile is having another anxiety attack, he thinks that moorings will snap back because of the recent ship movements caused by passing ships nearby. We finally got to adjust the moorings despite the annoyance and got back to my cabin, I thought it was over and the next thing I will wake up will be the actual unmooring. Again after an hour I was awaken again by the P.A. over the same thing.

(God Damn ! does this fucker ever get tired of disturbing people over petty matters every now and then ? - I swear sooner or later someone out there in the crew will one day will get really pissed with him when their having a bad day and throw him overboard, what the fuck does he what to do now ?! )

After again adjusting the soft rope on the bitts , with a much more tedious task than before - I went back to cabin to only realize that it was only 45 minutes away from my next shift. What the fuck ?! Hmm so much for rest - no thanks to this bastard ship captan.

At about 5am the pilot arrived , and immediately this ship went unmooring, after the unmooring ops, I had only a couple of hours left on the internet signal to download a few files for my games before the communications got silent - so I had to make the best out of downloading as much as possible despite bad internet signal. at about 12 noon this ship finally exited the Houston area and was going south to panama for the transit

Electrician Rodriguez and Engine fitter Lorenzo

Well majority of the shopping is made by electrician 

Call this cab driver whenever youre in houston area, very friendly fellow and helps out us filipino sailors in getting the destination 

Word of advice from a buyer and as a sailor , As much as possible avoid getting a T-mobile internet sim card - this sucker is terribly expensive and internet connection is slow and dropping plus as an insult it is only limited to 5 GB usage. A much cheaper version is this "Simple mobile" though it has the same speed as T-mobile , it is definately cheap and virtually unlimited connection. Simple mobile cost only 15 U.S. Dollars 

DOGMA OF BLACK LISTING

Entry log at May 24, 2015 Sunday

Internet connection in T-mobile wasn't helpful, it was definitely very slow and frustrating. worst part of this was that before I activate the sim card for internet connection, I had to call the telephone operator and give her some details about my phone and personal information. Seriously if I would compare the American service to the European one when it comes to internet connection, European internet connection is way much easier. Anyway based on the experienced I had , here is the step by step process in activating a T-mobile (internet) sim card I bought on walmart before my ship left in Charleston, South Carolina. By the way the sim card cost 30 U.S.D.

Step #1 Setup your phone

1.Insert your sim card into the back of the phone (duh !?)

2.Insert the battery and charge your phone (duh !!!!)

Step# 2 Get Ready For Activation  

Prepare to provide this information ,if an IVRS (answering machine) or telephone operator answers your call

ACTIVATION CODE (can be found on the paper attached on the sim card)

SIM Serial # (can be found on the plastic credit card size that holds the sim card)

Phone Serial # (number at the back of the phone, under the battery location)

Agent code (optional)

Area code (if unknown , just ask the operator )

Date of birth (just provide this info)

Security PIN 4digits (just provide any four digit number)

Step# 3, 4 and 5 . Just ask the operator on what to do to access the web

In other news

On last Saturday , Since being the assistant bond store manager. I had no choice but be present on the crew mess whenever there's a drinking session among the crew and attend to their liquor purchases. For the moment the news about these purchases was that Captain "Cobra" is interfering on bond store matters and said that I'm only allowed to sell "beck's"  brand beer to the crew , all other brands of beer are prohibited until further notice. Wine and smokes have no restrictions for the time being. So basically its was beck or no beer at all.

Crew wouldn't mind having a Beck's beer and seems to be suitable but the bad part was that this particular brand is a bit expensive compared to other brands of beer stored on the bond store like "ASTRA"  , San miguel or even Dutch beer. A case of becks beer cost at about 15.5 euro's on the menu and some of the crew refrain from ordering because of the price. So as a result most of the crew ended up ordering wine instead given that its way much cheaper (only 3 euro's per bottle on any brand)

During the drinking session that lasted up to 4am the following morning. I noticed that some of the folks here are still basically the same grunt sailors subconsciously afraid of authority and very critical even for people with minor mistakes, they even brought up on the topic of my recent fiasco in the gangway no thanks to 3rd mate german tan corales. Anyway I'm not bothered if it was brought up and just went along on their self-righteous lectures. Those hypocrites even warned me that I'd be send home if ever I get careless and manage to destroy the gangway. Frankly I'm not bothered at all and would even consider it a blessing that I get out of this job and start over something new, I'm not saying that I should be careless or lax on my job but what I'm saying is that I'm not afraid on NOT being a sailor anymore.

The thing here why people are so scared on making even the slightest mistakes was on the fact people will get sent back home and eventually lose their jobs and not even be rehired on other shipping companies. Their afraid of these so called reports that will come up on our shipping agencies. I guess this is one of the dark sides of being a sailor in the Philippines. "BLACK LISTING AND BACKGROUND CHECKS" , according to new international employment laws Blacklisting is already illegal and violates basic human rights (and workers' rights), sadly in the Philippines this is still in practice and as a matter of fact a normal part of employment for overseas Filipino workers

Another thing that was brought up on the drinking session that I didn’t like was my association with Captain Nick betts. I don’t deny that he's my sponsor and backer in getting a job in Career Ship management but apparently 3rd Mate German Corales simply can't get his fat mouth shut about this information, worse part is that he spreads this rumor here in Conti Agulhas. This info has already been around in Cape Tallin and unsurprisingly made its way here - no thanks to Mr. Blabber mouth. No matter how I start fresh , My past keeps catching up. Anyway I'm still lucky that this contract in NSB Conti ships just last six months and there's no guarantee that the folks I encountered here will be on the next ship - So basically that means that there's a possibility that I will start fresh again on my next ship.

In other news

By Monday May 25th. The summer heat of Texas area weather is simply unbearable and I had resort again on the same old tactics I knew (and use) to counter the hot climate problem. Through the years I had been so adapted on cold weather environments that I'm somewhat resistant to it by now, however despite my adaptability on cold weather , I have no effective tactics or methods in a hot weather environment and this becomes a problem for me especially in central American climates. Well I do still use the tactics like wetting my coveralls to keep myself cool but , it's not that effective and has a nasty side effect of temperature stress to the body.

For the moment there is nothing much that can be done about the weather and  according to rough speculation , this ship will still be on this environment for at least a month until Ecuador.

Again in other news.

Much to the dismay of crew , the anchorage position this ship is located is very much far away to get a clear internet signal. Obviously a lot of the crew are not very happy that most of their top up loads for the internet will go to waste because of this - and apparently the person to blame why this ship is put on this location was of course Mr. Captain Cobra. The crew says that he sabotages this because he's jealous that our internet connections are working while his is already gone.

Anyway it seems that much to the amusement of our "Cobra Captain" which loves people being miserable , he orders us to pull out and prepare the mooring ropes during late at noon , where the environment temperature is at the highest. Unsurprisingly we had a difficult time preparing those mooring ropes because of the hot weather, we had to finish the job as quick as possible - so that our heat exhaustion won't get any worse.

Good thing for me I had come prepared for the said work. 

ANGELS ARE ON YOUR SIDE

May 22, 2015 Friday

10.30 pm the berthing operation of this ship commenced, and much to the annoyance of BOSUN Diosana (and most of the crew). Captain Sorin is rushing people to heave up anchor A.S.A.P. thinking that starting up the hydraulic system is just as simple as like opening a water faucet.

During the transit , after the pilot has already boarded and me and O.S. Keith are at the crew mess. I heard on the radio that Bosun Diosana asked both of us to come to the aft area to help him out in clearing the soot off. When both of us came to the aft area I found out that Bosun Diosana wasn't referring to a small spot but the whole area of the aft part was covered with ash and it was an inch thick. We tried to use a broom to clear it off but with the strong winds and was totally pitch dark we made little progress , So basically it ended up to open the fire pump instead and wash the whole aft area before someone notices. We washed the whole aft area in short notice and effectively cleared off the ash.

We haven't had a 5 minute rest yet on the crew mess when again another message on the radio came in and ordered us to standby on our mooring stations. So as again I was off at the crew mess and went to the forward area (my current mooring station) and stayed there for almost an hour.

Mooring operations didn't have any problems even if we were mooring in pitch black, My headlight was pretty useful in times of mooring in night time as it provided illumination on hard to see spots. After the mooring it was pretty much the usual routine, Place the fire safety equipment near the gangway, prepare the gangway items needed etc. It was about 3am when everything was prepared and had an hours rest, eat and take a shower before my working shifts starts

When my working shift starts, first few hours was normal and had helped Pumpman Sepulveda and A.B. "Lyndon" in connecting those cargo. After that fatigue starts to kick in and I started to lose focus especially on keeping an eye in the gangway. More that distracted me was that when the operations to discharge cargo started - cargo hose number 3 started to show sign that it was leaking. The leak was huge enough that its looks more like a gash and Naphtha was flowing like water on a faucet at a pressure bar of 2.5 , A.B. Lyndon was quick enough to notice and immediately grabbed the small SOPEP drum and placed it underneath the leaking cargo hose. Immediately the new Chief mate and pump man Sepulveda was notified of the leaking cargo hose. Pump man immediately went out to determine what was the cause and later found that it was the Teflon gasket. The new chief mate asked if there are any more spare gaskets around to use but Pump man informed that there are no available new gaskets around and that NSB is stiff in issuing these needed materials, as a matter of fact he added that his predecessor didn't ordered any new gaskets at all.

The leaking of the cargo hose was solved when it was decided that two gaskets will be placed rather than just one.

Soon after the leaking cargo hose problem was solved, Pump man Sepulveda noticed that the gangway was having problems and was already being pinned on the concrete. Immediately me and A.B. Lyndon corrected the gangway position and heaved up a little bit. At first the gangway wasn't basically responding and A.B. Lyndon had to go down on the shore jetty to see on what he can do. After forcefully heaving it up via the gangway motor , it pop out with a sharp jerking upward motion and there it was , the gangway was now free from being pinned down.

It was plain luck that these problems were corrected before captain cobra noticed , and more fortunately "Cobra Captain"  was asleep went it happened, otherwise knowing his nature of hysteria and being meddlesome - He'd spin like a twister and spit venom all over us, if he would knew. As what Pumpman Sepulveda jokingly said to me after resolving the gangway problem " Looks like angels are on your side "  

After my working shift had ended , I went to the accommodation area to take a rest but I didn’t went directly to my cabin yet and stopped by first on the ship's clinic to take a piss for the random drug and alcohol test. When I got back to start my working shift, the cargo operation (discharge) was near completion. At around 9pm this ship unmoored , everything was going fine but by bad luck our neurotic captain decided to dumb us more workload and said that we should secure all mooring ropes and stow them.  We weren't happy when we heard this and asked ourselves that this work could wait in the morning and why the hell does he want it now ? It was already close to midnight when we finally finished securing all the equipment.

A GOOD MAN IN A BAD JOKE

May 20, 2015 Wednesday

Finally arrived in South Carolina, U.S.A. and the first thing that greeted me was to drop anchor at around 7 to 8 pm. Anyway turns out that this anchoring session wasn't very pleasant and our beloved "GOD Captain" yelled at the radio that I was putting a break while the anchor was dropping, bastard even mention that he was looking at us.

Whatever he meant he's not looking clearly and most probably he assumed that I was putting the break when it fact I was just adjusting the speed and pace of the drop. Anyway I'd be very glad that he will be disposed of when this ship reaches Panama canal (sign on / drop off point for sailors, In other words a convenient port), just two more ports and my problems with him will be a thing of the past.

In relation to this topic , I do admire BOSUN Mario Diosana's efforts in defending me on the screw up in dropping anchor and from our captains hysteria. He has basically no obligation to helping people and yet he does his best in defending his subordinates, Most BOSUN's wouldn't do things like that. He's a good man in this very bad joke - A good man inside this whole rotten maritime community full of wicked people. He has my respects on protecting me.

Despite the good news and to the joy of all the crew that Sorin Sageta will soon be disposed of, It appears that it will be short lived and rumored that the person who will be replacing him is far worse, From what I heard from O.S. Keith (person who replaced O.S. Ralph Crisostomo) this person doesn't have an hysteria problem but is referred to as a "Silent Killer" and came from CONTI Humbolt, and equally as deadly and fearsome as Sorin. It's possible that I'm going to have my hands full in dealing with this, Lucky for me that NSB contracts are just around 6 months and I still have a remaining four months left - so it's not going to be a long dragging problem.

In other news

I encountered a minor problem at the bond store in which the numbers do not tally, specifically on a beer item called "ASTRA" . From the count it looks like that were missing one case, but after a thorough search it was later found out that it was just in the vegetable room - no harm done, well maybe, but by bad luck  turns out that 3rd mate German Corales already spread the gossip to the whole crew that someone stole it rather than confirm it first that it was just missing. Anyway it appears that his nature hasn't changed at all since Cape Tallin days, still a blabber mouth unsurprisingly . Good thing I still remember what A.B. Patrick Dondonilla's on how to deal with him,

In other matters

It is confirmed that after this port in south Carolina, the next port will be in Houston Texas , and of course the port in Houston will be loading cargo then after that somewhere to Ecuador and will be transiting via Panama Canal. From what I heard the transit time from Houston to Panama will take at least 10 day's time.

UNLIKELY RULES

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Out of nowhere and without warning , I heard on the ship P.A. system "ALL FORWARD MOORING CREW PLEASE SECURE THE TUGBOAT LINE" . Immediately I went in such a haste from my cabin and dressing up on the locker room that I was the first to arrive on the scene in the forward area to help BOSUN Diosana in securing the tugboat line, most of other people arrived at least 5 minutes later. Never really comfortable to hear announcements on the last minute as what happened , but of course I just had to ride along on the show on the management says despite they have a nasty habit. Mooring schedule was unsurprising and expected, no thanks to the information I got on the crew mess 3 hours earlier.

For the details regarding what happened on the mooring, it was relatively smooth with only a few minor complications dealt with such as insect bites and half an hour unexpected rain. The first complication was preventable if I just only wore my face mask, but unfortunately our dip shit captain said some smart ass rule that nobody on this ship can wear these kind of outfit saying an excuse that’s it's an ISPS matter. The jealous prick is just making that up to hid his jealousy that I had better equipment.  Anyway it’s the reality as a sailor that some people will just say anything about almost anything in order just to prevent some people on doing (or using) good things , an old saying in tagalog " Ingittero, kung ano lang ang masabi na dadahilan para di magamit ng tao yung magandang gamit" . One thing I hate on a person , is the one who  meddles on what gear and equipment I use on work.

Aside from banning the use of face mask, Captain apparently bans also the use of my tools I wore on Port , WHAT THE FUCK !!!! Seriously my patience is starting to becoming really thin on this endless rules and regulations. Problem around here is that the captain always wants to be the center of attention, by the means on stepping on other peoples foot ( and business) pestering them with bogus regulations like he some sort of Mr.-KNOW-IT-ALL , fuck !! For I all know this captain doesn’t know the real shit and deal on the situation !

Lucky for me, I have was to counter this harassing and restricting set of rules, and it’s the simplest of all solutions. Ever wonder why I have sewn extra pockets on my coveralls ? Well it's there for a purpose, not because they look great on appearance but on the fact that’s its primary purpose is to hide my tools - simple solution and yet very effective. Reminds me of an old scientific saying called " auckhums razor"  - The most complex of problems can only b solve on the most simplest of solutions.

Anyway going back, as a result my head area gets bitten off by insects every now and then - and it’s a blessing that it rained and cleared off those insects during mooring, despite being wet at the very least I don’t have to worry about the annoying bites (and a blessing too that there's no malaria or any mosquito borne diseases here in north America , new York area).

For the moment the terminal where this ship is berthed at in new York is pretty boring and is in the middle of an industrial area. Honestly being in the U.S.A. isn't alluring as what is told on television, Internet connection is very slow and limited, can't watch local television (T.V's can't pick up the signal), cant wonder of and go sightseeing or shopping, the port terminal is in dilapidated condition and in some ways look very backward -  for short the place definitely sucks compared to European ports. We can't go ashore and do shopping because of tight and exaggerated security measures by homeland security and port authorities, thinking were either attempting to become illegal aliens or terrorist. Really frustrating that this ship has to do business on a militaristic xenophobic country like America and sailors such as myself are basically stuck and trapped here on this floating tin can, not exactly a warm hospitality as what American television always portrays .

In other matters revolving on this ship.

The replacement crew for the four disembarking personnel here has arrived and probably I'd be seeing new faces soon at work. The replacement crew that arrived are mostly veterans and have been sailors for NSB for some time now and  beyond doubt that they know exactly what to do on their work in NSB. What I can say is that they're friendly and no sign yet of any aggressive behavior, which is a relief. Anyway Filipino crew from NSB principal are more mentally stable compared to Filipino Crew coming from CSM principal , ( probably because of the short six months contract ) , so I guess I won't have any problems getting along with them on my remaining 5 months stay in CONTI Agulhas.

By the way, a few days ago I wrote about Captain Sorin "Cobra"  brags about his newly acquired sim and even taunts Filipino crew that we can't afford a 40 dollar unlimited internet sim service. Now things have made a different turn and turns out that the shipping agents offer was really a rip off ( no such thing as unlimited data usage service) and the outcome was that Captain Sorin was only able to use the internet sim on a very short time eventually just wasting his 40 U.S. dollar internet service. Serves him right !! And now guess what who has the last laugh :D

In other news …

Ship recently passed another vetting inspection with zero deficiencies in new york , apparently from what I heard there is some sort of "bonus pay"  that the crew will receive for their efforts - but for the money to be given away by the NSB managements is questionable on the fact that NSB itself is stiff when it comes to crew amenities and perks , If ever NSB principal will ever give one it is not certain that it will not just end up in the private pockets of the Captain , especially to Mr. Sorin Salvadore Sageta. Either way the crew shouldn't expect much in it and its plausible that the crew will not benefit on such claims and will lead eventually to poor performance and bad motivation.

After clearing off the work in new york , this ship will be heading south to charleston ,  South Carolina within the next day and a half. After that it will be another big guess on what area this ship will be loading cargo.

BIG APPLE

5/15/2015 5:25 AM

Out of my surprise, captain sorin sageta annouce on the P.A. that he will be distributing our cash advances. It was definitely a big surprise knowing that it's not like him on his nature to be giving crew salaries, Anyway probably the real motive why our beloved "God" captain is doing this was the fact that this ship is headed in the united states and he's afraid that the coast guard might find out that crew salaries haven't been paid yet. He's afraid on the fact that the united states coast guard authorities has police powers to kick out any abusive ship officers (or captains) out of their vessel and send them back home (as in fire them) - So he's playing nice on these past couple of days.

2nd engineer Alijosa Nakic claims that he's the one who convinced the Captain to give out our salaries. According to him Bosun Diosana approached him and asked if he could somehow convinced the captain in paying us our salaries (at least a little part) , but I hardly believe that he persuaded Captain Sorin. My best bet is still on the upcoming United States Coast guard inspections

In other news .

Doing an inventory for the bond store, went out quiet easy and was able to finish the task within less of an hour. So for now everything is all accounted for and accurate.

As for the deck works, there nothing unusual going on for now and I'm still doing the same old work in chipping , polishing and cleaning all the rusted areas assigned to be on the job order and the occasional of being watched over from time to time by our "god" captain during working hours (hovering like a helicopter). As expected in preparation before the arrival in the anchorage area, We pulled put and prepared the mooring ropes on the forward and aft area even thought It was after coffee break. At about later in the afternoon , United States Coast guard inspections proceeded with little problems and hassles

Anyway apparently our captain seems to prefer not letting his subordinates take rest (before and after inspections) even if were already exhausted on the so many job orders thrown at us, (as a matter of fact, majority of the work done today wasn’t coming from the US coast guard but came from Sorin), bastard had us even halved our coffee breaks and lunch break, just all because of his anxiety over USCG inspectors .

Aside from the strain of the work load, more problems I had to deal with is on my co-workers. For some reason some of my co-worker are also becoming more mentally unstable such for example O.S. Raphael Crisostomo who pesters me with sarcasm combined with his " high and mighty" lectures . Seriously this guy is really starting to get in on my nerves and on one occasion he keeps annoying me constantly during the fire drill , that I raised my voice ( in front of everyone on the muster station). During the drill , I also slammed the water tight doors just to give him a hint that I'm annoyed.

In other matters

Captain Sorin seems to be enjoying himself in taunting the crew that he bought a 40 U.S. dollar internet SIM (T-mobile, apparently from what I heard the internet SIM service offered was that it's an " Unlimited" data for a month) cause none of the rating and some for officers could afford the price tag. Personally I think that a 40 dollar price tag is a bit too steep for an internet service and way more expensive than internet services given by European countries, plus getting that sim is too impractical to use given that the whole coverage of the discharge operations in new York is just under 15 hours.

CLEANING UP DIRTY SECRETS

5/11/2015 12:40 PM

Drills, more drills and even more drills. Damn ! Already had enough on this, Fire drill, Oil pollution , Drill, Abandon ship Drill, Man over Board drill , etc. there seems to be no end on this until at least after the U.S. Coast Guard inspections. "God"  Captain Sorin takes no chances at all in any lapses, - I'm not saying that drills aren't necessary,  Its just basically getting tiresome doing the same thing every day. If there is anything good about this drill , its only for the personal information about my what role will I do.

On the first drill, which is a fire drill I made a mistake of not reporting and finding chief mate Alexey Shaley first before preparing the fire hose. On  the second drill, which is an abandon ship drill , I later found out that I was among the four people who will unlash the life boat, (the other three were , BOSUN Diosana, Pumpman Sepulveda and A.B. Ryan Osiang) . Anyway I will later cleared this up after the drill.

On May 08, 2015, in the afternoon there was a video showing after coffee break which basically is a boring one. Soon after another discussion meeting followed and wasn't really interesting, Mostly just threats and more workload for us coming from our " GOD"  Captain. Bastard even cancelled out Saturdays and Sundays work off. Aside from the cancellation of rest days , he also mentioned that if ever this ship gets caught by the coast guard about garbage disposal issue and this ship gets fined , he will deduct the said fine on our salaries . What the hell !!

On work on the bond store, Third mate corales , has told me that I should never sell anything (or dispense) anything without his permission first. Its sort of like an unwritten rule. Anyway as for the bond store handling, I could say that I'm doing basically well. I just had to keep in mind of coordinating stuff frequently to third mate corales and that all items bought by the crew should be well accounted for - not an item more or an item less.

In other news

Lately I found out via gossip on the crew mess that some people here are getting envious about the gear I wore during work . Not that I mind at all but the problem here is that some people here just couldn't keep their mouth shut in bothering people and try as the best they could to "defunct"  the equipment I use, Honestly what could they possibly gain by just saying that my equipment is not suited on this kind of work ? . For their ignorant knowledge the equipment I use in working on the ship doesn’t compromise safety of any kind at all and I had been using (and improving) the designs on those equipment's for years.

Most likely the reason why this people are so intrigued is probably because of jealousy. This jealous pricks have nothing better to do but ruin and crap on other peoples work. This kind of sailors just can't take on the reality that some people are more better equip and had better stuff than them. Surprises me a lot that they have been on this job for decades and yet their brains haven't developed any tools or equipment that would helped them on their work - More mind blowing is that they never focused their brains on improving something (or showing any signs of ingenuity ).

Honestly I can't exactly tell whether which one is more envious over the other on my equipment. 3rd mates corales or captain sorin both exhibit "marker"  behaviors on that , and since I had been around here on this job long enough to observe (and learn) marker behaviors of people , it's not that hard for me to tell and figure out on what goes inside in their minds. In any case I should be careful.

In other news

Lately I heard that coast guards (or some sort of inspectors) conduct also a random cabin to cabin search and check crews computers if anything unusual is stored on it like prohibited type of porn etc. Well bringing porn is ok if a ship is staying in European countries permanently and Europeans don’t mind having all sorts of porn on a sailors computer however  but if a ship is doing trade in the united states then it would be prudent wise for a sailor not to be storing in any kind of porn in their computers whatsoever, it would be difficult to take any chances that authorities will find something out on those files.

If it's totally unavoidable like for example in my case, that I never foresaw that this ship will be going in to United States (this ship is permanently based in Europe but once in a while it goes in the U.S.A.). Then it's best to remove them on the computer and store them on removable data like a secret hard drive or an SD card  then hid it on somewhere where people can't find it. Another thing aside from that is that if a sailor have some of sophisticated file encryption and total file destruction program ( anti- cyber forensic programs) available, then its best to use them afterwards to avoid any sensitive data from being seen. To simply put it , remove all porn from the computer and store it on an SD card or hard drive then, sanitize the computer using anti cyber forensic programs. Most sailors do not know this kind of procedure and probably a lot of them don’t have access to anti cyber forensic programs.

Fortunately on my case I do have these kind of programs and will be moving all my sensitive files and porn on a much safer location then sanitize my computer using those programs. My programs aren't updated yet I think they're sufficient enough to at the very least deter any sensitive data from being uncovered, if in case a random computer search will be conducted. Port authorities may or may not conduct these kind of searches given that this is random. I would like to discuss more on this blog the general specifics and details of how an anti-cyber forensic programs work in general, and even discuss programs that encrypt sensitive files altogether with file recovery programs, however given with the complexity of discussion and terminology - most sailors on this blog will never probably understand what I'm talking about, and even younger generations of sailors will not even fully understood it. But despite this I'm going to share my knowledge for the public and for the sake of the maritime community here in the Philippines and will be also uploading the programs to wipe my hard drive on my public storage (courtesy of Microsoft's One drive cloud storage).

We live on the 21st century and communication and sharing knowledge is now readily available thru the use of social media and public cloud storage - unlike 20 years ago were it wasn’t even thought possible - you just simply relay on bogus tales coming from other veteran sailor and listen to them on "good fate" alone. Now Sailors have now access to internet and communication , and now you see sailors like me maintaining a blog, face book and twitter account to document everything from scratch. 

Hopefully I might finish my work in surveying life in a boat before I retire from this job and I have one hell of a story to tell. I guess that will be my contribution to the maritime community here in the Philippines, AN ACTUAL (and documented) SURVEY OF LIFE ONBOARD AND LIFE AS A SAILOR.

5/12/2015 6:43 AM

After a few days of rough seas, finally the seas is getting much calmer now and much to my relief my sea sickness has subsided for now. Apparently from what I heard from A.B. Ryan Osiang is that this ship will now be stationed here in the America's PERMANENTLY , much to my dismay - it looks like that this will be the situation from that and on after the transatlantic transit and it won't be anytime soon that this ship will be back in Europe at least not until my contract expires.

Anyway in today's work. I'm kept myself pressed on grinding and compressing all the trash from the garbage compartment, and since NSB ships don’t have a "grinding machine"  for plastic related trash - I'm stuck cutting each of it manually using either a pair of scissors or a cardboard box cutter. (good thing my cutters, have sharp blades).

After the no brainer work, O.S. Bantic rang in on my phone and invited me for a drink on his cabin along with Pumpman Sepulveda, A.B. Osiang and Bosun Diosana. Well there's no issue on being social, after all folks here are more friendlier compared to the folks in Cape tallin , So I decided to went ahead. Well folks on

Folks on O.S. bantic's cabin are very nosy when it comes to other people's lives and kept asking about personal details including love life. Obviously I'm not very good at talking and made it a rule to myself to never ever talk about my personal details especially to strangers.

THE POWER TO KILL A GOD

Illustration and caricature of Captain Sorin

April 29, 2015 Wednesday

Ship has finally arrived in Spain and in preparation to this , Working schedules were only half day as it is expected that it will be berthing upon arrival situation. Good for us that at least we could get some rest before getting busy. Well apparently management here was insisting that we should still be on work till 3pm (god damn jack asses !!) but somehow it was reduced to only half days work, which is of course favourable on our terms and we won't get over fatigue. Well some crew here don't mind at all if there will be working till that time but apparently their not willing to do so because NSB will not pay for the extra efforts, In other words it will end up being just "working for free" which is a big no - no in any workforce labour.

At about 8pm the engines of this ship stopped and it was my cue that this ship has arrived and a pilot will be boarding in soon. Mooring soon followed, after that I proceeded to take a rest for a few hours and factory reset my HP pc. It wasn't that difficult to reset my HP and my reasons why I had to reset it was because most drives and hardware that are compatible before now seemed to be incompatible , and can't install. Anyway it’s a good thing that I had a back drive for everything and I brought it along on the trip.

When I got out for my working schedule , I was surprised to learn from O.S. Rafael Crisostomo that our lovely jack ass captain now forbids everyone to wear a face mask gear. WHAT THE HELL !!!! , I haven't asked any further why suddenly the captain forbids the use of this equipment and certainly I'm left figuring it out. Obviously Anyone in their right mind won't care if people wear this , but of course Captain sorin isn't in his right mind , so its unsurprising. Luckily for me this is only applicable when were inside port otherwise it would be very difficult for me

At about 10 am the following morning this ship left , and to my knowledge it is headed to New jersey (or new York) USA.

Couple of days went by and at around Sunday afternoon, Captain Sorin conducted a meeting at the bridge. O.S. Bantic came in late and our lovely "god"  captain got all fired up blabbering about disrespect.  There's a hint on the meeting that we might even work on Sundays (Sundays are rest days) due to the upcoming U.S. coast guard inspection. Anyway doesn’t matter and makes no difference as long as I stick to my known routine's on the drill. It was also discussed that after lunch break the engine crew will be unclogging some sort of water pipe.

By Monday, weather was terrible and had problems keeping my balance and orientation around due to sea sickness - I didn’t throw up from the motion sickness but my work was obviously hindered and worked slow. it was after lunch break when suddenly I was approached by third mate corales saying that I'm a likely candidate in handling the bond store and asked if its ok on my side. I blindly said yes without even thinking for a second thought (which is kind of stupid on my part). So overnight I became now assistant to third mate corales on the bond store, Anyway bond store handling isn't really that bad. I already handled this during my time in Cape Tallin , and also both on Stolt Strength and Bow Ophelia on the other company. Personally I find it bothersome to be handling the bond store despite the lucrative offer, probably on the fact that some of my personal activities will be affected like I'd be required to be in the crew mess every now and then, plus less time I will be spending on my free time

In other news, most of the work I had been doing was galley related duties basically just cleaning the dry good shelves and refrigerator chamber. Probably the reason why I had been doing work in the galley was the fact that our "God"  captain here is skittish about the upcoming U.S. Coast Guards Inspections and doesn’t want any lapses of any remarks coming from U.S. authorities regarding that this ship is "unsafe"  . Probably he's over excited on the fact that if a ship captain thinks he's a god around the ship, then the U.S. coast guard has the power to kill a god. In other words the arrogance and power of ship captains is basically nothing there and U.S. authorities has the power to send them back home packing.

I guess public media and pop culture portrays ship captains, as gentle wise elderly folk which has a big friendly smile , and smoking a pipe - similar to Santa Claus. Unfortunately In reality its exactly the opposite - and most Ship captains I had encountered (Filipino and other nationalities alike) are nothing more than an aged hostile cocky son of a bitch who thinks of themselves as a human version of the divine and supreme, for short - just another asshole around. Anyway this fact just adds more to my conclusion that being in the maritime community is just as worse as being into prison, totally a god awful environment and definitely I don’t want to waste my (life and) career here.  

THE TABOO OF A SAILOR

April 26, 2015 Sunday

Now that this ship is headed off back again to Tarragona, Spain to load some cargo. People here are still wondering on why the hell is the laundry room still closed at this time ??? Basically I have no idea why the hell there's a strict laundry schedule in the first place, and I couldn't say that the ship structure here can hold only a limited amount of water since this is ship is identical to conti Greenland when it comes to structure and back on that ship I never had any problems of water shortage - plus surely the ocean is big enough to accommodate (and generate) fresh water supply for everybody's basic needs like washing clothes and taking a bath, so absolutely there no need for unnecessary restrictions on water . Its only plausible that the management here (I'm referring to the captain) is very depriving one and a no good twisted hoarder.

In the meantime, this ship had a finally a days off on Sundays. As in totally no work to be doing at all , Unfortunately I didn't get to enjoy it that much given that this ship is currently transiting Biscay seas area (north of France) which is notorious among sailors to have rough seas. Even experienced sailors experience sea sickness in this area due to high waves.

In the afternoon I got bored and went outside my cabin to the crew mess to have some green tea , from there I saw electrician felix rodriguez and chief cook regidor pineda having  a coffee chat. Basically there discussing if this ship will ever go to America after loading cargo from Tarragona, Spain. Rumours that some Conti ships have already went there to renew their inspection with the U.S. and it's likely that this ship might go there to do the same.

Finding that the discussion is entertaining , I decided to stay a bit longer and listen to their chat. Then suddenly the conversation went towards me and out of surprise Chief cook asked me if worked previously before in a call centre, I told him yes I did work before there and it was a long time ago before I became a sailor. I'm not comfortable in discussing the details and never opened that kind of topic in front. As a matter of fact I even hid my association with my previous job to being a sailor for fear of persecution and discrimination from my co-worker sailors.

For me it's just simply taboo in even mentioning that when I'm working as a sailor,. I made it a rule never to mention any personal details about my life in this autocratic totalitarian homogeneous dictatorship work environment - I tried being transparent about my previous work before and it turned out to be a disaster which eventually lead to my discrimination and persecution. The same thing happened also in A.B. Dondonilla when he was too lax about his personal details (another sailor I met who previously worked as a call centre). He got badly persecuted in Cape Tallin. Anyway I never mention such details here in Conti Agulhas, and was totally surprise that Chief cook Pineda even mentioned that and how did he knew of such information ? I only suspect that 3rd mate Corales is blabber mouthing again on my background, after all most folks who came from Cape Tallin knew of my background (another story I will tell later on how they found out). I better be careful around and that this info might spread around this ship.

In other news…

Sunday just came and went , and with me just confined on my cabin and resting from the nasty rolling and pitching motion of this ship. I'm not really comfortable with this but apparently there's not much I could do about this and this ship is transiting Biscay bay. Only thing I could do is sit this one out and hope that this rough sea is over soon. According to rumours this ship should be out in biscay by Monday.

By Monday maintenance work was briefly interrupted in helping out 3rd mate Corales do a pressure test on all fire hoses. Basically it was just a basic job of grabbing and connecting all those fire hoses but took half a day all in all. Worst was that Captain Sorin went to the deck area to personally check on what we were exactly doing and meddle on the job. Captain Sorin is starting to get on our nerves meddling on our work and dumping even more task for us to work with - plus take note he hovers around us like a helicopter during working hours, trying to see if were doing something or not.

For some reason folks around here nicknamed him "COBRA" , I asked O.S. Bantic why they called him cobra , and he answered was because his face looks like a reptile. (and I thought it was because his manners or treatment to the crew, referring that he's poisonous on the working environment). Hopefully by Tuesday this ship will reach its destination in Taragona, Spain at night time and from what I heard , its berthing upon arrival scenario. From there I'd find out what will the next location this ship will be heading.

GADGETS GALORE

April 20, 2015

Out of nowhere , Sundays off work was cancelled and this ship finally went to berth in Netherlands and nobody saw it coming even the Bosun Diosana was surprised as well to be informed on the last minute that this ship will be berthing. On my perception I was sleeping at that hour when suddenly I received a call from my cabin phone to hurry up and that we are heaving anchor in a few minutes.

Honestly I suspect that Captain Sorin knew that we will be berthing on Sundays and kept the information secretly from us, to purposely give us a hard time and cancel off our rest days - in other words to intentionally annoy us. Jeez what a total bastard !! Anyway it's not surprising given that being a sailor this is the environment that it was supposed to be , there are a lot of bad people out here on this job - as in really bad people, Filipino's and Foreign nationals alike. Expect that chances are there will always be assholes out here who are willing to do everything they can just make other people's lives as  miserable as humanly possible.

Anyway going back , I hurried dressed up as usual and got into my coveralls and went to the forward area to heave anchor. Heaving anchor wasn't a big deal and finished the work within 20 minutes or so. Next thing that went was preparing the pilot ladder on starboard side after that it was basically just wait and see.

Arrived on the pilot station at around 8 am and fetched the pilot via small boat and at around 9am , The whole ship was put on P.A. by the captain telling that the whole crew should be put on standby for the temporary mooring on the water locks. For some reason the captain loves using the P.A. system as much as possible probably makes him feel like some sort of sky god , anyway arrogance is  a typical behaviour amongst sailors. Filipino and Foreign nationals alike !

During the wait for this ship to enter the water locks, There was rumours spreading all across NSB about my former ship CONTI Greenland and apparently I heard from BOSUN Diosana that the Bulgarian Captain there was booted out of NSB after a fiasco in heaving up the anchor. Its plausible that he was referring to Captain Kolev and the incident were the anchor machine nearly got ripped off in Germany (see my entry on December 2014 titled "ONE HELL OF A MESS" ). I kept my mouth shut on the chatter and just listened because I too was involve on the incident and was the O.S. at that time when it happened , more incidentally is that I was the one who personally saw what happened.  Poor Captain Kolev assuming that it was true that he was kicked out, I admit He was a Captain that made poor decisions but certainly not as bad or worse as Captain Sorin.

Anyway other news aside from mentioning the apparent fate on what happened on that captain, It was also mention that this ship might not go after all in the America's from what 3rd mate Corales mentioned. According to him CONTI BENGUELA is headed off in New York area while Conti Equator is busy and doing business in los Angeles ( the other side of the American seaboard ). From the looks of it , it seems that two CONTI's have beaten this ship in getting to America. Honestly it's not bad at all that those CONTI's took over the trading route that CONTI Ginuea has , Personally because I never liked going to America during this time of year. The scorching heat of an American summer is way too hot for Philippine standards , The height of summer heat temperature in the Philippines during may is nothing compared to the summer heat in Houston texas.  I had been into the America's previously so I know very well the situation and incidentally its during summer season's and boy it was hellishly hot !.  

Mooring operation went along with no problems whatsoever. The mooring arrangement is 2-2-2 and was over by noon time, After the mooring I went ahead on the crew mess to grab some grub. On the crew mess I took the opportunity in getting an internet sim card, which the agent sells for a price of 20 U.S. Dollars. Some of my co-workers says its pricy for an internet connection - but I don’t really have a problem with it. The end justifies the means and I need an internet connection to update some stuff on my laptop.

Given that its Sunday, Sunny Euro is apparently closed and I had to wait for 24 hours for them to visit our ship. What's worse is that I haven't got yet my salary yet.   Anyway I did get my salary , but on the last minute when sunny euro visited our store and was taking orders. From my observation , Captain Sorin hates giving salaries to crew and as much as possible and he doesn't want the crew to handle our own money - as much as possible.

Monday came by and it was the usual 4 hour long gangway watch for me, The morning was very cold for me and supposedly my working winter gloves isn't really working well as I thought , probably I'd be replacing this glove for good as it already served me for 5 years now, I guess it's about time I retire this equipment. At noon time I had a sudden instinct that somehow sunny euro has arrived , and that nobody here would even bother to give us a signal. Given with that hunch I went down on the crew mess and indeed saw a sunny euro sales man now taking sales orders from the crew. Good thing my instincts were good and immediately ran upstairs to my cabin to get the list of the items I'm supposedly to buy, after that I went downstairs to the crew mess to give the list of items I'm going to bought. From my list I immediately I already prepared few months ago I ended up with this.

1 acer tablet/ laptop

( I needed a support gadget to my HP PC)

1 samsung galaxy young 2 cellphone. 

(Aside from cellphone this will serve as a pocket modem Wifi for internet)

1 Seagate external Hard disk drive 2 tera bytes.

( needed an extra space for my multi-media files, 2 TB is enough for storage)

All in all I ended up spending 445 Euro's on this shopping spree. I guess that all for now given with the budget limitations involve., but regardless this new equipment will serve me well on this ship.

Waiting for these equipment took me all night waiting for it to arrive, for some reason Sunny Euro never arrived which bothered me a lot. This is the first time that  Orders from Sunny Euro ( Europeans call it sunny radio for some reason) came in very late. I checked on the crew mess at midnight and still there was no sign on it.

On Tuesday morning at around 4:30, I was already about to give up hope that , it may not arrived but fortunately on the last five minutes when this ship is about to depart a small boat came and said it was from sunny euro.  About time they showed up and I was beginning to think that we might get these stuff on the next port, surely took them their sweet time in delivering. After getting the stuff from sunny euro, the ship immediately started unmooring and after closed to an hour the ship was already on the water locks, an hour more the ship dropped anchor.

There's a rumour going on that captain sorin was jealous about the crew stuff's bought on shopping and a rumour that says that he delayed sunny euro's boat for a couple of hours until it was already almost late, apparently a rumour of sabotage. Aside from that he dropped anchor on the far side of the anchorage area. A lot of crew have been thinking of this rumour given that they have mistrust issues with the captain. Whether or not this is true, there's obviously friction going on - and it's pretty obvious that most of the crew doesn't like the captain because of his odd behaviour and "mental instabilities" (that's what the closest the crew can describe about him).  From the latest news I heard , he's not giving any cash advance for two months - or simply saying till the next captain.

Most of the crew think that we might have the rest of the day off given that the engine crew (as well as deck) was exhausted from work, but to our dismay it was ordered that we will be put back on work at late noon - good thing it was only a light work and just basically arranging some provisions back on chief cooks ref chamber.

The rest of the day the crew was busy fiddling the stuff they bought on sunny euro duty free.

Laundry has been closed again on a few days (or more like a week), and as a result don’t expect that coveralls will cleaned anytime soon.  On three days after anchoring , The crew spent of most of the time doing maintenance work as usual . Like chipping, polishing and painting rusted areas with primer paint and greasing some gears etc. nothing new. After work I spent most of my time fiddling with my new toys and testing it, analysing and thinking on how this new gadget can be put on practical use. For the moment my conclusion on the "Acer tablet " I just bought with is that this primarily based (or heavily relies ) on internet capability (given with low HDD memory of 26 GB ) and not for offline usage like my HP laptop- although programs that are installed here can be installed there as well on my Acer Tablet.

At late time on Thursday at about 7pm to 8pm this ship heaved off anchor and next destination will be Taragona Spain to load cargo.