ALLOWANCE CANCELLED

Entry log SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

After two days of travelling and heading west , ship has finally arrived in Panama for its later transit on the canal. For the moment its estimated that this ship will be spending a few days at anchorage and most likely it will transit on about the 30th of September. In the meantime I'm still on guard duty during that time and most likely I will be on the bridge to steer the ship when the time comes that it will cross panama canal.

For the moment there is nothing to do but wait and sit out our fat ass at anchorage until there's word that we will transit and do the normal maintenance work we usually do. After work , both us deck and engine ratings take some time off in playing "call of duty : modern warfare" game for an LAN versus.

In other news …

I'm currently busy to remedy my HP laptop's problem, and all I can say is that its situation is getting worse. Earlier I thought that only multiplayer games cause my computer to shut down , now it seems that even single player games are having a problem as well. So for the record my HP laptop that I just bought last October 2013 is nothing more than  a multimedia device and internet machine - other than that it basically useless.

As for the news on work.

It's mostly bad news. First off is wiper "Glen" will be sent back home on a case of badly infected foot which he got when it got badly burned from a steam pipe . Apparently based on his case is that the liquid was so hot that it burned right thru his safety shoes. If the burn he got on his foot was bad enough then what's worse that came after was that it got infected. The infection was so bad that he's unable to walk for a couple of days and that he's right foot is badly swollen which included all of his digits, and to add more , it was so severe that he's having fever's already.

2nd Mate Olan of course had to remedy the situation and see if antibiotics will do the trick - but it didn't , so he had to make the call to report this to captain gorge which will inform the agent here in panama canal to send him to a local hospital for treatment.  After glen disembark and when to the hospital we haven't received word from him for 48 hours and , it was then clear that he's admitted and serious injuries. I hope it's not as serious as gangrene.

Some of the engine folks helped pack glen's luggage and 3rd mate keith cadua already prepared wiper glens travel documents. So it very obvious that wiper will be not going back on this ship. Since that the engine crew is one man short on the list , we have received word that a replacing crew will be an engine cadet. A lot of folks including us here in the deck are talking about why the hell the manning office (or NSB) planned to send a cadet to replace an engine wiper's job ? ,

There's a lot of talk that NSB is short changing people again - both engine and deck crew agree that it's not appropriate that they send in a cadet to do an engine wipers job. Anyway it's not strange that NSB is cutting a few corners just to save money - even if its most of the time unreasonable. Another bad news that came (well in some ways) , was that the extra 100 U.S. dollars pay (as deck watch keeping allowance) for the O.S. position has been PERMANENTLY CANCELLED. In other words only the O.S. - O.T. will get the extra 100 U.S. pay for doing a work meant for an A /B . Honestly I'm not surprised in hearing this and have already expected that sooner or later , this perk will be shut down, once the main NSB office finds out.

Frankly and off the record, I'm more relieved that they removed this and it gives me more of an excuse on why I should stay away from any bridge related work. After all there's no reason for me to be involved in any of it , now that O.S. personnel are not receiving / taking any money from it, and there is no means that I should be coerced to do work of an A.B. now that we don’t even profit on such a thing. Let this so called O.S. - O.T. position deal with that problem. As a matter of fact there is no such job position as O.S. - O.T. , and this is just a make believe position made by the company as a scape goat in paying less on a work intended for an A.B. . Just imagine that an O.S. is actually doing a work of an A.B. and being paid less than it was supposed to be - an VOILA it's an O.S. - O.T.

Anyway like I said it's no surprise that NSB is short changing people even up to the point that there are really cutting off perks , salaries and stuff their crew benefit with and set them aside from any mediocre shipping companies . Sooner or later at their rate , they're going to lose employee's and crew due to their bad management practice.

Anyway the only thing I could say about me being an O.S. - O.T. temporarily is that I can now do what an A.B. now does , in other words my skills now already match to an A.B. Probably its most likely that I will now reach that rank sooner than expected. The only problem now is that some people doubt my abilities of being an A.B.

HARDWARE IMPERFECT

For the moment things have turned upside down for me, first off was my gaming laptop HP broke down very recently due to suspected battery reasons. Second is that I can't play "Call of duty : modern warfare" videogame together with my crew mates because of this. In other words my hp laptop is pretty much useless and finding a replacement will take some time and money. i can still play games with my tablet PC  acer but the graphics fell short compared to my HP laptop.

I tried to restore It and reformat my computer thinking it was some sort of virus but apparently it didn’t work and the worst part was that all the system updates I made was deleted. As in all of it. I was back from scratch and asking help to my crew mates was not helping at all and ended up me losing more data on my works. Fortunately for me some of the data that is stored on my HP laptop is backed up using my acer tablet pc including this diary , so my diary / journal  data loss is the least to worry about. In the meantime I will be using the lenovo laptop temporarily to update my journal while my Hp laptop is out of commission.

I'm thinking a number of solutions about this and my HP laptops situation hasn't made any progress, power is still a big problem. I'm starting to think that I should be buying a new one instead of repairing it. My laptop as only been around with me for less than two years and yet it hardware easily got degraded. Somehow I'm starting to think that HP brands are inferior to any other brands. I'm still yet undecided on whether I should buy a new one or repair this HP when I get back home in the Philippines.

I could buy a new laptop but I still have to save at least a month's salary for me to at least get a 900 U.S.D. budget to buy a high end gaming laptop. Repairing and bringing my HP laptop could be much easier and cheaper in some extend than buying a new one but the problem lies on the "service centre's" and repair shops in the Philippines. Most shop's in the Philippines including the ones who are located inside the malls have been reported to be a chop shop and cannibalize branded computers. Replacing them with substandard and inferior parts. Another option I had been thinking with is buying a new one in the Philippines , in there I could make a proper selection what I really want to buy as a gaming laptop, the only problem in there is Gaming laptop prices are higher compared to the U.S. for some reason and that there's a possibility that the selection of computer there isn't as extent and updated as it is in the united states or in europe.

Tsk ! If I haven't just bought only the "action camera" (used for surveillance and education purposes) I could have now enough money by now to buy a brand new gaming laptop, I guess there's nothing much to do as of the moment but wait and be patient on using a tablet PC for the moment.

In the past few days there have been changes regarding on my work, apparently folks on the deck decided that they have to transfer me and change job descriptions and as a result I am now doing work as an O/S - O.T. instead of O.S. theo. Personally I did not met this sudden change with enthusiasm - because of two reasons, one is that im going home soon and I should focus my attention in preparing to go home, for me doing work as an O/S - O.T. is just another unnecessary distraction.  Second reason is that I'm used in working as an O.S. and being just an O.S. is not bad at all compared to being an O.S. - O.T. or A.B. , being a plain O.S. means that I have plenty of rest hours and rest days to attend to myself and my well-being (health).An O/S - O.T. and A.B. does not have any holiday at all in practice. I was forced to accept the new work description because of the fact that I receiving the money called "watch keeping allowance of 100 U.S.D." on the previous months without actually doing watch keeping.

Anyway I hope that this work rotation is just temporarily and that this will be over soon within a month , otherwise I'm screwed.

Lately I took interest in watching anime shows (on whatever that’s left of my free time ) and been currently hooked up watching it. The japs have really had a way to capture audiences on their anime, I was never a fan of any anime but given with my circumstances that I'm "imprisoned"  and have nothing  much to do but watch. Well for the record I did enjoy watching those cartoons and it’s a good pass time indeed.

On the past few days I was on watch keeping , my health was faltering a bit and my sleeping pattern was all but messed up. I'm not used to the rotational working schedule of an A.B. that is working 4 hours in the day and another 4 hours at night. Back before I was on watch keeping , I usually enjoy 8 hours straight working and the rest of the hours of the day as a straight rest , since the disruptions I had problems in adjusting on my new temporary working schedule. For now I had a bad cold and an occasional cough every now and then and with some chills - flu like symptoms. I asked 2nd mate Olan for some meds and he  gave me some anti-flu tablets called "bio-flu" (local medicine in the Philippines) which is a combination of nasal decongestant , antihistamine and analgesic anti pyretic  med. Not exactly the thing to rid of my flu but something to take the edge off on the symptoms.

In news related to work.

It seems that we have a new captain on Conti Agulhas and that our current captain just only stayed here for  roughly two months , apparently from what I heard on the crew the recent departure of Captain Romaniuk was that it has something to do on the twelve new tanker ships NSB will be launching soon. From what I heard Captain Romaniuk will be one of the captains that will fetch the new ship from the dry dock. I had no other details on these new twelve tankers ships of NSB . The only thing I knew is that this will be launched probably new year or before this year ends. In the meantime our replacing captain for Romanuik will be Captain Gorge Pornitiche , my former captain from Conti Greenland.

I'm ok with Captain Pornitiche since I had work with him on Conti Greenland before. In fact He's more reasonable and lenient compared to the other two ship captains I had encountered here in Agulhas.

Last saturday on this we had some sort of barbecue party at the poop deck , nothing special but this is the first time in six months that a barbecue party was held at all. Somehow our former captain Sorin and Captain Romanuik is not very fond of these at all. From my understanding Captain Romanuik says that barbecue parties are just for children , the same thing goes with captain sorin. Its fortunate that Captain Gorge Pornitiche don’t mind at all on these barbecue parties. Barbecue party was great to be honest

As usual pre caution, nobody in the crew carried a digital camera nor cell phone during the party. ABSOLUTELY NO PICTURES OF ANY KIND. , certainly there isn't anything wrong about taking pictures during the event but apparently from what I heard in this company there is are some ship official's that got a bad rep and got reprimanded years back when "pictures" of their party leaked out in the social media and this principal company saw it. I'm not sure why CSM / NSB took those harmless pictures in a bad way but it was clear that they don’t like their crew having fun at all.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

CYCLE OF A NIGHTMARE

Entry log AUGUST 30 , 2015

La Havre, Normandy France discharging operation went real quick, as in only 20 hours of discharging. We started off practically 2 am in the morning , when the French pilot boarded and ended 48 hours later on the same time.

La Havre is convenient to go on shore leave on the seaman's Centre, and the transportation is basically free, probably I suspect that after visiting the seaman's center , I could practically go around and visit the surrounding place. Unfortunately due to short of time , I never got to go ashore and see the surrounding place (and neither any crew) - made the next time I visit this place I can go on shore leave and see how beautiful la Havre is.

Internet in France is very convenient compared to any nearby European country I seen so far , they even surpassed the Dutch and Germans when it comes to internet service. The internet is fast enough to use and truly unlimited for 48 hours which is good for heavy downloader's like myself. Internet in France is very much the same to the Philippines when it comes to charging their customers , which is based on number of hours used and not via bandwidth.

As for the news on work …

For the moment, I'm trying to avoid 3rd mate Keith as much as possible for being such a dick during unmooring operations on la havre locks. I had a feeling that one day this little gremlin will be a monster to reckon with in the years to come, and for some hunch I sense in him arrogance at an early age, anyway it only proves on my theory that most Filipino sailors start out good people them become asshole when they get to be ship officers. Honestly It never occurred to me , he'd be a dick during unmooring ops. But ever since he got a promotion as third mate , he soon started to have air in his head at a very fast rate. I was totally caught off guard went that prick scolded me when I already let go of the mooring wires early inside the split drum when it's picking up tension.

To make more of the insult. dickasaur , scolded me for the second time a few minutes later.

Anyway he's not going to be my problem anymore after Conti Agulhas if he ever decided to be just another Asshole later on - its NSB crew's problem not mine. The only thing I could care of is focus on my upcoming vacation and wanted to have quality time in the Philippines.

This incident will definitely cause friction and tension between me and 3rd mate Keith, and it's obvious that in the days to come I'd have a less friendly approach with him.  Anyway for everyone's info this will be the second incident that keith became a dickasaur , the first one was in Dominican republic about dropping a mooring wire again.

In other news ….

Apparently from what I heard on the recent departure in la havre france, the time of travelling from La Havre to Amsterdam is just as short as 18 hours, in other words there's little time to rest and wash clothes., So after the unmooring operations early in the morning , expect that we will be berthing in Netherlands sometime late at night in the same day.

About news on work.

It was a surprise that I was given a time off at work on my birthday, I hadn't expected at all that I would be granted such time. Seriously It never occurred to me - not at all. I guess I should thank chief mate Oleg for having me celebrate my birthday. Strange and ironic isn't it , that kindness is given by the people whom you least expect , Compared to my own kind years before I was never given a chance to have this. I guess strange things are expected to people whom you least expect

SINCERE HEARTS

Entry log august 29 1984

Happy birthday to me ! Happy birthday to me , happy birthday , happy birthday , Happy birthday to me - you old dinosaur.  Well cheers to me , I am now officially an adult , and an old hag. Years passed by and I hardly felt that I'm now a fully grown Hag errr…. dinosaur errr…. I mean adult by now. Seriously It never occurred to me that I have now reached that age and since it's my birthday. I am not going to write anything about politics or any other worldly affairs in the maritime community and on work , I can write that on the latter - for now I'm writing on something philosophical , something to think about on my life and what I had been through.

For now despite my advance age , I haven't gone anywhere in life beyond "settling down" - For now I could say that I'm a full fledge standalone bachelor. A lot of people at my age (and younger than me) are now saying that I should live in peace now and settle down , but of course I would really love that but apparently the situation I had been through in all those years are somewhat hostile for me to thrive and as a result my progress in life is has been suffering from "arrested development" . From my overall observation , I am ten years (give or take) late on what I should had been doing in life.

Anyway , for now I am going to write about my love life since I'm already an adult (and it's my blog anyway )

(MY) Love Story

So when does love begin ? Some people say that love begins during high school or maybe even in college , the thing when you're old enough (as in really old) to handle a connection with someone. Honestly I don’t think love starts at that period, it starts at an early age. People and society tend to ignore and this dismiss it entirely as some childhood fantasy , maybe so but perhaps they always brand this because they never understood it entirely nor even be open in talking about it.

For me love starts at an early age. Despite ages have already passed, I still remember my very first love and her name.  If my memory serves me correct I was in the third grade with her and she was my seatmate , things didn't exactly progress between me and her other than being classmates and just friends but it was very obvious that I like her a lot. Sadly things will never progress any further on the fact that both our parents hated each other.

The next love interest I got myself into was in the following year. On fourth grade , I met her at school and had been good friends since I lend her my notebook and helped her out on her homework. She has short hair and always wear a "head band" accessory on her hair. I still remember that her favourite class subject was science (same as mine) and dreams of being an astronaut someday (me a scientist) .

The most awkward moment between me and her was that one day our teacher caught me day dreaming and staring at her in the class room. Worst part was that the whole class saw it and instantly figured out I had a crush on her. She was so embarrassed at that moment that I saw her face flushed red. Sadly me and her got separated when she moved in on another country (her classmate told me it was in Australia) at the school years end. I never or never got to confessed to her my true feelings.

On the middle fifth grade and sixth grade, My love interest back then didn’t started out exactly as "friends" . She was basically more like a school rival or in some ways an opponent classmate, we competed on almost anything from grades to all the way done on the teachers attention. Turning point on our rivalry was one day I caught her cheating on one of our exams and told it to our teacher, I felt terribly sorry on what I did and should have turned a blind eye on it   after that incident i decided we had to have a heart to heart talk about it.

I guess little by little we got close to each after that until we became good friends and in some ways a romantic interest. Our classmates would always tease us being a couple. We were both happy at that time. I guess the mistake I made during those happy times was I should have decided to stayed with her all the way till high school. It was a big mistake for me to swap her with my ambition to join some elite high school during those times, a mistake that up to now i regret and had to live with. I still remember that day she asked me if I'm going to stay on our school and join her in high school, I said that I'd be changing schools for high school.

High school was a very turbulent time for me and was constantly plagued with problems both back home and at school. It was for the best that I shut myself out and my heart from all those problems, I fell in love I guess on the last parts of my high school years and it was all by accident. Never imagine her to be my dream gal at all, actually I just treated her as an "Assigned" (or arranged) prom partner, since proms here in the Philippines get "assigned" and not exactly invited or asked out like in western countries, yes I fell in love with her inadvertently .  Anyway I had got no option in backing out probably because of school pressure from our school advisor (teacher) , I back out - my reputation will terribly suffer and my grades are already falling apart back then , I had no other choice but to accept - reluctantly. Prom day came and wasn't really looking forward to it, but the thing to make me have a change of heart was that she was nice to me throughout the prom, took me by surprise and normally didn't expected to be treated nice.

It was a very romantic relationship ,though officially we never declared to be boyfriend and girlfriend. It lasted until my early years in college, but like any other sad ending in a relationship - we separated ways due to major difference on how we view our relationship.

I guess that will be the last time that I really feel in love head over heels with someone.

Over the course of the years my romantic love live fell dark and silent because , I was kept busy and left rebuilding my life on the aftermath of a series of domestic problems. Things were so bad back then that I had to set aside everything and focus on picking up the pieces reconstructing on what's left of my life, it was not even certain that I would finish high school or even reach college at all.

I got my hands full on those hard years focusing on necessity and survival, there is absolutely zero time and monetary budget to even create and maintain a love relationship. This hardship dragged on until I was back in college some years after. Although I was practically afloat , funding on my college could not sustain any romantic relationships.

For me the Filipino society is backward when it comes to love compared to other Asian countries, probably too conservative in the wrong sense. Anyway I don’t exactly think that love starts somewhere on college or beyond it, and don’t really believe in being too young to fall in love like most adult always say. For me they're saying that because they're so full of hypocrisy and never get to understand young people. Filipino Society is very judgemental on that fact, and very medieval. 

I haven't found her yet , and maybe there's a possibility that I never will. But to find the meaning of existence is to be that something is out there meant for me and I won't stop losing hope that maybe I will encounter her someday.

SCHOOL DAYS ANIME

Entry is based on August 26, 2015

Ship has been diverted to La havre France first, before going to Amsterdam. Apparently from what I heard on the bridge, the full discharge will be in france and the loading will be in Netherlands then slingshot its way to Ecuador. So obviously after Netherlands its going to be a very long travel again that will last for a month.

Possibly my disembarkation if this will materialize will be somewhere in south America , which will be a problem for me because of the temperature issue again. I'm not exactly sure if temperature's in that area will be cold enough for me to wear my travel clothes since I only carried clothes suitable and designed for European weather. Anyway whatever the case if this will ever be the reality I will have to make changes on my clothing style.

Currently playing network games of "call of duty: modern warfare" is temporarily suspended until this ship gets out of Netherlands, well good for me in this case in the sense that I get to spend some time doing other thing like updating my blog and other stuff. For the mean time its good that they had to suspend the games and I myself isn't exactly in the mood to play them at all for now because my game save there went corrupted and I had to forcefully start back down again to the rank of "private"  (from LT. Col.) I had to do some remedies to get my rank back again and all my equipment and fortunately for me I had an extra pc to come by so , it means I just update and upgrade my game saves using a "drone PC" . Hopefully I will get back my rank and equipment in days time.

In other news

Lately I had my interest in watching some anime material which I copied on 2nd mate OLAN's hard drive, one in particular titled "school days" got my interest probably because it’s a great drama / tragic love story. Originally this anime came from the "hentai" series but was toned down and revamped into a wholesome (well in some extent) love story. It has a great story plot, a must to watch for the non-anime (and anime) people.

RUDENESS AND LACK OF MANNERS OF PINOY SAILORS

Been some time since I last updated my journal, and I guess it's about time I write something. The days that went after this ships recent departure from kinder Morgan terminal in Galveston Texas have been relatively quiet. I had been busy doing mostly the usual routine maintenance work and some affairs related to the  bond store.

Apparently the latest news is that , the bond store inventory is not that accurate as it was supposedly and as I suspect 3rd mate keith caduas predecessor (3rd mate german corales) never even bothered to update it before he left and finished contract. As a result me and Keith have now been updating the inventory every so often and checking out why the numbers have been inaccurate. Anyway doesn’t surprise me that German was always such a dick and dumped all the unresolved inventory to keith after he left, I mean he was an asshole back then in Cape Tallin and It hasn't changed when I encountered him again here in Conti Agulhas.

For the moment I had been testing out the latest laptop computer (Lenovo) I bought to my sister during this ships stay in U.S.A. . The new computer I bought isn't really much to look at and from my perspective as a buyer, I only intend it as a gift and nothing more, This Lenovo computer I bought lacks the RAM power , I sufficiently need to run games. Its only has 4GB of RAM compared to my aging HP laptop that is 6GB Ram.  I'm sure that my sister will be delighted to see her new laptop and she needs a little reward after all in successfully taking care of mom when I'm not around.

Aside from the high end equipment that I will giving to my sister when I get back home, I'm also planning to buy a new car for myself. My sister has told me that there's a possibility that I could buy one this Christmas season and that the payment terms are easy , 60 thousand pesos for the down payment and the succeeding monthly payment will be just 10k

In other news

I recently ran into a heated discussion over someone who posted something on the internet (tinig ng marino facebook group page). Apparently the posting is basically harmless and does not have anything to do at all in regards to the maritime community but what happened was that someone butt in on my advice and sharing of wisdom in regards to matters of the relationship. From what I saw this "Navie trasga" guy is very rude and ill mannered, and not only does he even contradicted my posted opinions but that thunder cunt even has nerve in insulting my username like a dog that got loose from his yard and keeps humping and shitting his way through the neighbourhood. Of course I'm not just going to sit around and let that insult pass, the problem with Filipino sailors is that they love to insult people but are afraid to take an insult, So I respond on his message by hurling a lot of nasty words and beating the shit out of him (in cyberspace)

That's one of the many reason why people (and me in particular) don't like Filipino sailors , they always piss each other off. 

Here's the snap shot copy of what transpired. (its not translated) 

KINDER MORGAN

AUGUST 06 2015

Ship has arrived and is waiting a couple of days now, Ship has arrive at around august 03, 2015 midnight. Supposedly I was the one (or two of the O.S.'s) needed to drop the anchor but turns out that BOSUN serafin has a new policy regarding anchor dropping / heaving - he only needs one O.S. at a time. So in turn my presence there was no longer needed. O.S. Joash was the one who dropped the anchor at that time.

Weather on the past few days was cooler compared to what I experienced in Louisiana. A bit windy now in Galveston Texas probably because summer season in the U.S. about to end. On the days that this ship was at anchorage , we were basically busy in doing the same old maintenance task (chipping , polishing and painting rusted areas) plus washing the deck every now and then from bird droppings which littered the whole forward aft area.

On the 7th of august there were rumours that this ship might go to berth sooner than expected. At around 5 pm on the same day , as small supply boat came near on our ship to deliver some food provisions. It was expected that this small supply boat would also bring in the new on signers to replace the disembarking ones (2nd engineer, 2nd officer and electrician) but apparently it was revealed that they are only carrying a small amount of provisions and bonds store supplies (only becks beer, nothiing else)

After helping out in the provisions, it was expected that berthing schedule was cancelled within this day. So I went back to my cabin and resumed playing a pc game called "call of duty: modern warfare"  , it was a first person network game and I was playing against three people (fitter, wiper and oiler) . It was about roughly 8 pm when I received a call from my cabin phone that berthing schedule will commence and we have to heave up anchor and prepare for the pilot ladder.

After the pilot went on-board this ship , we were ordered to heave up the pilot ladder and secure it.

Usual charade when it comes to berthing , same old drill that I'm now accustomed and familiar after years being a sailor. Channelling to the terminal took six hours an  

OLA REPUBLICA DOMINCANA

Here's the events that happened during the Dominican republic stay.

Monday work routine was done as usual , I was put on the task of segregation of garbage along with the disposal of food waste and then on the latter helping out O.S. Joash and A.B. Ryan Osiang in washing the deck. The whole work took us until noon time and was expecting or assumed that berthing will be sometime on the latter afternoon. During lunch time all of a sudden , it was announced that arrival in dominican republic will be in an hour and its berthing upon arrival schedule. (meaning this ships gets to dock as soon as it arrives).

1pm exactly when I was called in the cabin to rig the pilot ladder , then it was followed by mooring operations. Temperature in domincan republic (and the rest of central America was humid and hot. I had to bring along three purified water bottles filled with cold water just in case to keep us rehydrated. Mooring arrangement from what I recall is 3:2:2 and the spring lines will be wire , the rest is soft ropes.

Mooring is tedious and complicated because of the weather and we have to drag one soft rope around all the way from the forecastle area to the spring line winches . After that we have to give the spring line to the dock . Since there was no apparent mooring boat on standby we had to manually give those ropes one by one via heaving line. It was taking us a lot of time and as a result Captain Romanuik was already shouting on the radio that were wasting too much time on that rope.

By the time we already finished heaving up the third rope , everybody was already exhausted from the temperature. Good thing for me I already took my anti-heat medications so at least I have some form of resistance from the hot weather.

SAILORS PERCEPTION ON THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Security in Dominican republic is a bit different compared to the usual countries in central America , although it's not as tight as in south America or even west African countries. There is still a discrimination on how we treat them - all because on the guise of "Security measures" . As expected there no supposedly allowed at all times to go inside without any permission and if permission is granted they don’t go around without any escorts. The kitchen is closed for them at all times and they cannot use any facilities inside.

Despite the ill treatment, The D.R. guys don’t seemed to mind being treated that way.

Anyway , One good thing about the local folks here in the security and gangway watchman is that they also sell all sorts of stuff , and believe it or not they also sell "black stone" (some sort of premature ejaculation tablet from what I heard on the locals) . Earlier I thought that this was only being sold in the panama area and not elsewhere, it was a surprise for me that they were selling it here as well. I suppose this tablet is available on the whole Caribbean area. Aside from selling that drug , some local folk here also sell the usual stuff , internet SIM card and from my understanding , it's about 15 U.S. Dollars per 750 MB , their mobile network here is either "Orange" or "claro" , unfortunately for me I didn't saw on how they registered the whole process - so for now I have no clear records on the internet here.

One thing I found out on the port here in Dominican republic is that there's a night club here called "Manila bar" , and as expected on any red light district in a foreign  country especially central and south America there's prostitutes and whore's inside it. During my late afternoon gangway watch shift , I heard on the radio that A.B. Ryan asked me that he will be coming in late on work and will go on shore leave and I had to fill him in for a while. I agreed of course. A few hours later (well about 9pm) , he returned back and showed something in the gangway . It was a panty and a high heels shoe, I don’t want to get into the details but its obviously he went there and had some fun.

DEEP IN THE CARRIBEAN

july 24 , 2015 friday

As part of the two part unloading cargo operations , this ship is now currently moored in Jamaica. Docking operations started as early as 6:30 pm and was told to immediately prepare the pilot embarkation ladder for the pilot. Soon after the pilot embarked on this ship, all crew was announced via P.A. to standby for mooring operations. Mooring operations proceeded very smoothly and without any problems , the mooring arrangement if I recall was 3:2:2 (3 headlines and 2 springs lines) The spring lines was of surprise, a soft rope was used along with the headlines. The breast line if I recall was a wire line. The whole mooring operation in the forward could have finished a lot sooner , if not for the Jamaican mooring boat crew which took its time in placing it on the dolphin platform.

As for the weather , it has very few changes and was still very hot. - not much to expect on a tropical country , as a matter of fact the Philippines despite being a tropical country is much cooler compared to tropical countries in central America. But if I could compare the temperature experienced in Louisiana and here , I could say that its much better.

The loading operations here in kingston Jamaica will only take a day based on what I heard and it's not a full discharge , ( the other half of it will be in the Dominican republic ).

So what can I say in Jamaica ? First off this is a small island located south of Cuba , mostly this country is a tourist destination and people here speak English, even their local television shows are in English language so there's basically no problem, which is good since a lot of Filipino sailors understand English (take note UNDERSTAND , I didn’t say their able to speak English). I'm not sure if Jamaican's here are nice people given that this ship is only moored on a platform. The internet from what recall here is bandwidth charge and expensive . 20 U.S. Dollars for 250 MB of internet. The good thing about internet here is its ready to use and no registration needed.

After a day of discharge , pilot boarded this ship at about 10:00 pm and immediately went into unmooring. Unmooring and securing of deck equipment was finished at about close to midnight.

Travel time from the Jamaica to the Dominican republic takes about a day.

Sunday was a good thing a rest day , and we haven't have a good rest day for ages now (which for some reason berthing and unmooring operations get timed always on weekends). 

INCOMING DISASTER

July 17, 2015 

When this ship leaves port, it will have four new crew members. The thing here that concerns me is the new crew , Rumours have been going on that these new crew members are somewhat trouble makers and definitely not the kind of people whom can't get along easily. I don't know them personally but there are rumours saying that two of these new crew have serious attitude problems. Specifically the O.S. and the BOSUN.

Anyway in just a matter of a few hours after they arrived , immediately two I had mentioned got into the wrong foot with some of the crew. And caused a bit of bad impression during then recent bunkering operations (Immediately after we unmoored). Apparently BOSUN Serafin left the whole six hour long transit outside lake charles to only me and O.S. Joash, each of us has to spend three hours each on the forward part being on "guard" , when supposedly he should be the one leading and staying on watch , but it turns out that he was the first to step inside the cabin and slept. O.S. Joash said he wasn't happy on what happened that were still out there  while him (referring to BOSUN Serafin) is inside, in other words he ditched us out. From what I interpret this new bosun is somewhat a problem from what I heard on previous crew. 

A few days later…

We are still doing the old maintenance work of chipping, polishing and painting rusted area on this ship. As expected this so called routine maintenance will never end , like exercise during prison time and 24 hours before we arrived oj the next port we did the usual chore (I mean work) of washing the whole deck area.

In other news during those few days' time

The new salary rate scale of NSB just arrived, as expected the new salary scale was a bit lower compared to our current salary. Most of the affected that got a huge decrease in salary was for the higher rankers, as for the A.B.'s and lower ranks they got at least 30 U.S. dollars down from their current salary. The rank that was hugely affected was "messman" ( ship version of a "maid" ) which had a decrease of as much as 200 U.S. Dollars. On my current status , the reduction of salary was not that severe (in fact benign)  with only 13 U.S.D. something. Despite my rank was less affected , I still have thoughts of maybe going to another company - not because of the money but because I wanted to started over again , start fresh and maybe (and hoping) that this new start will be better from the previous one.

Honestly I'm facing a dilemma as a sailor, this so called "profession" is now very impractical and costly in maintaining, and I have serious doubts I will ever proceed further in this job. Seriously this job will cost me another 100 thousand pesos more in upgrading in the years to come and this doesn’t include the objective of securing a license. All this expense for a job that is related to similarly to a construction / maintenance job ,

Frankly I have serious thoughts of retiring early and shifting career and going into medicine, in fact to be honest I shouldn't be here in the first place at all - If it weren't for the financial difficulties that I had suffered during my teen years, I would have been very much a medical doctor by now.