DE-MUCIING CREW

Journal Entry: August 31, 2016 Wednesday

Location: OPL Anchorage area, Singapore

 

 

There's an old saying by psychologist that if you can't talk something about it, then at least write something about it. I live on that saying given that sailors even up to nowadays still don’t have the freedom to talk freely, if one does - he / she will be subjected to an onslaught of retaliation either from the persons, foes, co-workers, organization, affiliation or any other group that was mentioned negatively. Opting also on the Social Media to discuss something is as dangerous as well, Basically there's no more secure place on the planet to talk about something other than inside a person head, On my case of course I cannot depend my safety on the having a journal on my computer and blog on cyber space. If I do wish to write something openly , I have to consider writing within a minimum safe distance from what I'm discussing to avoid the "social fallout" that will come after ., And there we go ,I am writing about something.

 

I'm glad that my blog is not that popular in cyber space , so there's at least some sort of privacy maintained and that the overall risk of back firing what I discussed or posted is lessen. I take full responsibility on what I post on my blog whether it will reflect me in a positive or negative way., either of both no one can order me around or make me retract what I post here. They can coerce, harass or blackmail me all they want, they can even fire me from work or outcast me socially , but it won't make me stop telling my story and the truth, and like I said on my introduction "I'd do it my way, and I'm old enough to get it my way" . Of course I know and fully aware that this publishing blog may lead me to "blacklisting" from the POEA or Manning agency , but that’s not the end of the world for me - the end of my seafaring career but not my life.  

 

For the moment, this whole epic tank cleaning operation is getting near now on its end, probably it is only a few days till the whole enchilada will be finished. Frankly it's about damn time they did finish this whole thing, it's already about two weeks and still ongoing. I wonder most of the time of on what goes on in the head of these people that it took them this long to clean up a few cargo tanks , I remember a few years back when I was in the chemical tanker, "tank cleaning" operations only lasted a few days to a few hours. Anyway it's their style and I'm just riding along on what they’re doing.

 

Recently on work …

 

Some water on the cargo tank are being pumped out and directly thrown at sea,. If I thought a couple of days ago pumping oily water out of the pump room was bad enough, then wait till I get a load on what happened on the following day. They are seriously pumping out above the deck and into the sea The water riddled with oil inside the cargo hold, and for some reason maybe out of stupidity , they think that the water inside those cargo tanks is clean and clear. Jeez what a total set of imbeciles !!! , I sometimes wonder how did they get their chief mate license in India and ship captain license on Myanmar. I mean with that kind of thinking ???, I'm seriously thinking that these retards will get the whole crew and ship in trouble with the authorities one day. (and when that day comes, I'm going to be as far to them as possible and renounce any association with these Mongoloid's)

 

Midway along the work , I even got an ugly insult from his lordship Chief mate Dsouza when I was unable to immediately understand on what he was pointing at on how to cleaning the floating smidge of oil in the water, The whole insults goes saying that "Do not have any oil tanker working experience - something like that" even implying that he's lordship is "superior" . On my saying Inside my head, I don’t give a fuck on this insult and berating , Funny on the fact he insults me by telling that "I don’t have any oil tanker experience" and yet when I look at his decisions in work tactics , it looks like he's was just a new comer Chief Mate, most of his decisions were impractical and a majority are pointless, and I don’t have to need a license just to tell how stupid his work tactics are. To make is short , he doesn’t have any idea on how to manage people, let alone on how to properly done and finish work. Now I'm starting to wonder why the Europeans (and generally the "whites") hate Indian workers, even my late dad said the same thing, that they are a lower class of people with lower class mentality and manners - very crude even for Asian standards.

 

Be as it may - that he's his Indian lordship thinks he's superior, as far as I'm concern I'm no company dog nor a company whore like him and the captain. They can shove Norstar company up on their ass, and for the record on his primitive brain - THIS IS MY THIRD SHIP , THAT I WORKED IN AN OIL TANKER !!!

 

In the afternoon , Pumpman Obina asked if I could tag along with him down below in the pump room ., Blindly I said yes and was relieved that he asked, Seriously I'm glad that I could get some time off from the "toxic" berating environment on the deck and a little change of working scenery would do the trick, a breather from all the annoyance from the Indian chief mate.

 

As usual the Pump room is flooded again with water mixed with black sticky oil, and it's no surprise that we had to pump it out a thousand times by now. It's basically the same old routine work, and for now the water below the pump room is more colored black than the usual., as in coffee creamer black.

 

The following morning …..

 

I was awoken on the vibrations from my cabin, and felt that the ship is actually moving. Immediately I looked outside and saw that indeed the ship was moving , but at a very slow pace. The ship must have heaved anchor and moved when I was asleep, and was not informed. Anyway I'm glad they didn’t , because if they did - it will only result that I don’t have any decent rest and they're ruthless enough to let me suffer from over-exhaustion. 

 

At about noon time , this ship dropped anchor still somewhere in the anchorage area of Singapore to wait for the De-mucking crew that will arrive to clean up the remaining sludge inside the cargo tanks. By the time I ended my working shift , I heard from O.S. "mark" that they have already arrived and is now setting up shop on the deck area. When I got back on my midnight shift, these de mucking crew were resting for the big day of work for them by tomorrow.

 

On noon, Chief mate Dsouza made a deck crew meeting on the ships office to inform us on what to do. It was discussed that the working shift will retain to be a four to four hour work shift , instead of being originally intended by chief mate to be a 6 to 6 hour shift. Pump man Obina and BOSUN Rodrigo will remain to do day work , Despite Chief mate insisting that Pump Man will go on watch work (good thing Pump man talked his way out). 

 

On the first day , things were doing well. Regardless that I had to wear the lame orange norstar uniform because the superintendents were around and have to tag along with them on their inspection with those cargo tanks. The De-mucking crew were doing their usual business in removing oil and muck on the cargo tanks and such, as a matter of fact they were so busy that they looked more like built a makeshift town above the deck area.

 

Originally we were not supposedly to enter nor meddle with the affairs with the De-Mucking crew. We were just there to basically watch and see them work and of course guard the accommodation space so that those guys don’t steal anything inside, Unfortunately recent update told us by Chief Mate Dsouza said that we should now check the progress of the De-mucking crew and enter the Cargo tanks frequently every now and then, even added that if we have any complaints about this then we can kindly ask the superintendents about this. The details why we have to meddle is that apparently one of the superintendents that came in complained that the "De-mucking" crew were working very slowly and that nobody in the deck even bothers to make rounds and check to see what are they doing. Of course that is "according" to the superintendents, or am I mistaken and thinking personally that this is just a personal excuse made by our "company dog" Myanmar Ship Captain (perhaps even the Indian Chief Mate) just to make our working routine more difficult. When asked by Bosun Hector Rodrigo if entering of these tanks and meddling with the affairs of the De-mucking are "paid" , Chief mate Dsouza replied "he will still consult the captain about this".

 

"STILL CONSULT ?!!!!" What the fuck does that mean ???!!! Excuse me do I come from their country and order people around to work for free ?! This just simply meant that they want us to do more task on our work FOR FREE, - what a pathetic excuse !!! I think they're just telling this to us because they want to impress the superintendents and having their presence around gives them a big hard on. Damn Company dogs !!!      

 

Anyway despite all the negative, it does come an opportunity for me to gather data on how inside the cargo hold tank looks like. It would be great for me to take pictures or even a video inside one of these cargo tanks. Since the public is already familiar on how a deck area looks like but got only a few glimpse on what is inside in the cargo tanks.

 

In other news

 

Looks like that O.S. "mark" will be moving in again on my cabin temporarily., as usual the reason is the lack of available cabins for the visiting Superintendents for the dry dock. From what I heard this ship will be expecting six superintendents (and this includes the annoying superintendent "Si thu Thwin" ), Well there's a vacant room being left behind by Fitter Lorzano when he returns home but it looks like that BOSUN Rodrigo has already got his greedy eyes on that space - So it leaves "Mark" no other choice but to tag along until Ship repairs on the ship yard will be over (which is for a month). Anyway I don’t mind having a roommate around and got used to the idea here that I'm sharing a room,. Besides Mark is a easy to get along with and I have no problems with him.

PREP FOR DRY DOCK 3

Journal Entry: August 29, 2016 Monday

Location: OPL Anchorage area, Singapore

 

 

 

The four to four hour working shift now has been implemented and as usual, most of the crew here are wondering why the sudden change. Basically this four to four shift was unnecessary at all in the first place and most people here are just standing around doing nothing on those four hours, including myself. 

 

For me, I never cared about this and the only thing that mattered is that I finished this working contract as soon as possible. It's not my call on that, and probably the reason why the management here decided that a four to four hour shift would be implemented was on the fact that they wanted to retain the number of people working but wanted to pay less on the overtime., Smart but not that clever.

 

When my work shift started, were now "entering the cargo tank" phase, which mean that chief mate is looking inside the cargo tanks and seeing if the tank cleaning methods were effective, but before entering those cargo tanks we had to use a chain block to open those cargo hatches as it got stuck because of heavy corrosion. Its hinges have apparently had fused badly on the rust and it was a tedious work getting them moving again.

 

Late on my watch , there has been another change on the schedule. This time the four to four schedule still remains but there a "retention" on my afternoon shift which I had to start two hours earlier.  For short I'd start work after coffee break which is 10:30 and work all the way up to 4pm. Tsk, honestly I couldn't figure out what's going on in the managements head here, and the new work schedules is no different from the 6 to 6 hour shift previously, and the worst part on this so called "retention" is not being paid at all., as in free slave work for the all mighty. His lordship - the "company dog" Myanmar ship captain .

 

In other news on work.

 

I would like to include on this journal entry that our lovely captain has been making questionable decisions lately , such us making us dump oily water coming from the pump room. Although he is saying it "indirectly" such as we have to take a look if the water is oily enough then we should dump the water  to the slop port side cargo tank , and if the water is clear enough it should be dumped to the deck directly to the sea. The captain wasn't exactly bright , and doesn't figured out that the water in the pump room is mixed with black oil as like being put in a blender , separating oil and water is absolutely impossible.

 

As a result, they came with an idea that we should "filter" out the most obvious part of the oily water - The black oily blobs, the black thing that floats, based on the perception that oil is light than water . So he used cotton and a lot of rags to filter and scoop floating oil particles. Anyway despite all this talk it doesn’t change the fact that technically this ship is still dumping oil at, and that they're lucky that Far East region (Asia pacific area) doesn’t have an effective enforcement of maritime laws, like in this case MARPOL. As a perception of an expendable rating like myself, doing a lot of prohibited stuff is much easier in a third world country ( and region) is way a lot easier to do than in European or in the America's (atlantic region) , in my case and what I'm experiencing Captain Wai Phyo Aung (myanmar national)  and Chief Mate Sydney Santano D'souza (indian national) know fully the consequences of dumping oil at sea especially in anchorage area and yet they made a willfully disobeyed on the MARPOL law. Why ???? Because these company dogs wanted to impress the company by saving money on the "cleaning crew service" that will de-muck this ship. They care more of pleasing the company than obeying international law or even crew welfare.

 

 

PREP TIME FOR DRY DOCK 2

Journal Entry: August 26, 2016 Friday

Location: OPL Anchorage area, Singapore

 

 

Every now and then since this whole tank cleaning operation began, we have been jumping work from one segment of this ship (called wings) to the other. The lasted news is that 2nd wing of this ship has been finally finished on the "hot wash"   (meaning wash the whole cargo tank with hot water) and were now moving in yet again on 5 wings on the same "hot wash" phase. As usual and no big surprise, the cargo tank cleaning machine are not working properly, its automatic version is broken and have now resorted to being operated manually using a 19mm wrench (term called "manomatic" in filipino) , and thats not the only problem plaguing the tank cleaning machine here in Eagle Boston. Hydraulic is frequently leaking on some machines and one machine even has a hole on the pipe from severe corrosion, spewing water riddled with black oil on a small portion in the deck area.

 

Manually operating the tank cleaning machines here is such a chore, to the point that the whole automatic function of the machine had disappeared and we had to turn those dials very slowly just to make that machine (barely) work at all. Aside from the faulty equipment here, the Indian officers add more complication to the problem and always buzzes around our walkie talkie's , saying to do this and that and we have to report to them every detail of the work done - very chore some gum flapping. We haven't even finished the previous work given and another one comes , too much unnecessary work !

 

Today I had one minor incident to write about which I apparently got the metal end of the sounding rod cut off , while I was making a sounding on 2 star board tank. It's not clear why the metal end of the equipment got cut while inside the cargo tank but A.B. "Enrique" , suggests that the apparent cause was that it got sucked by one of the suction pipes. According to him normally sounding of the tanks would be made a few minutes to an hour after the tanks has been finished from the "hot wash" phase, but since our indian officers are always in a hurry to find results fast, they ordered me to drop the whole damn thing inside the cargo tanks without even considering that fact - which eventually lead to my situation.

 

A.B. "Enrique" says that it’s a good thing that I only broke the cargo sounding rod and not the UTI equipment and finding a metal replacement rod attached to a string rope is much easier than a whole electronic equipment sensors being sucked out to the suction pipes.

 

(for the public information, a cargo sounding rod equipment is a very crude version of a ballast sounding tape and is specifically used for making soundings on the cargo hold tank)

 

Anyway the good news is that 5 wings have already been cleared and so is the 2 wings area and now only slop starboard tank is being worked out on the hot wash - for now. While waiting for the slop starboard to be finished, A.B. "Cordova"  had a little small talk and asked if this is my first time in the dry docks like mistaking me for some sort of newbie idiot. I replied that it's my third time just to dispel his thought of me being lesser and said in details my two other experiences in dry dock (ship repair) operations, end of story on his pathetic thinking. Anyway our little chat also mentioned about keeping our cabins always locked while in the shipyard , just to avoid any dock workers that have the potential to steal stuff from the crew. 

 

After that small chat , I went on a coffee break on the crew mess.

 

Honestly I shouldn't be drinking coffee in the first place, it messes up my stamina and tire easily when I drink this, it has all sorts of nasty acute side effects on my body - but I don’t have any much choice on what beverage I should drink just to keep me awake on late night watches, there's not much selection either on the kitchen (or food to begin with to eat) and if there is , I'm not allowed to order stuff on the bond store if I don’t have any real money around - because I'm a FILIPINO. Damn !! Talk about discrimination !

 

Anyway the most effective drink for me to stay awake without any acute side effects is drinking soft drinks which I could purchase on the bond store , but like I said before on my previous entry the "bond store" here onboard is almost non-existent as if like the captain here is intentionally starving the crew and what's more on this ships wretched bond store is that anti- Filipino policy were i can only purchase stuff if i have real paper money around (in U.S. Dollars currency),. So basically to make it short I'm drinking this poisonous coffee with no or little choice - not really a comfortable working place, (the discriminating policies here do not allow Filipino's to purchase via payroll deduction) .

 

The following  morning  

 

My working shift started in just less than 10 minutes and immediately I was met with more work than the usual. This time this ship has some sort of clogging problem in the manifold area, and we have to sort out the problem in removing some sticky black oil that accumulated there, really messy work ! And more difficult to accomplish because of the humid weather.

 

While doing work , the radio keeps chirping like a bird on channel 1, because our Myanmar captain, Indian chief mate and second mate keep on ordering people now that have each a radio on their disposal. On my end while I was on deck , I haven't even finished yet doing the previous work , then comes another either one from those three people and literary every three meters or so walking away from the area I get pestered by these trio.

 

Thankfully despite the radio clutter, Pumpman managed to fix some of the tank cleaning machines, which meant reducing people babysitting those defective machines, now its mostly a 1:1 ratio compared to before having a 1:3 ratio. (One man babysitting 3 machines)

 

During the end of the working shift

 

Bosun Hector Rodrigo informed me that there will be changes on the working schedule immediately from 6 to 6 hour shift, it will now be reduced to 4 to 4 hour shift. I didn't even get to bother the details why management here changed the schedules , but its most likely they want to save money by reducing the overtime pay since recently the overtime pay shot up to 200 percent excess. Nothing wrong with that, just the typical mind thinking of a typical company dog like the Myanmar captain.

 

 

 

PREP FOR DRY DOCK

Journal Entry: August 23, 2016 Tuesday

Location: OPL Anchorage area, Singapore

 

 

After the discharge operation this ship headed off to the OPL anchorage area to  do some tank cleaning, as a preparation for the dry docks scheduled by next week (or end of the month). Given with the limited time, it is thought that we won't get inside the cargo tanks and remove all the "black oil" residues, big convenience if we don’t as this ship doesn’t have the necessary equipment to get to that kind of job.  

 

So far it seems that, the Indian Ship officers here are having a hard time cleaning all the grime and muck out of those cargo tanks and are repeating and having numerous delays on the "tank cleaning" ops. Don’t really mind the delays by the problem here is that the working schedule is pushed to the limit of having a 6 to 6 hour shift, the longer it stays this way. The stress builds up, Worst part is that I'm not getting paid or being paid less on this kind of work. So for now I'm stuck on the work schedule being woken up early in the morning and then back again by noon till late afternoon. Little time to my personal agendas and creative thinking,

 

So far there's nothing significant going on aside on prepping for the shipyard - for now this ship is still on its "Cow cleaning" (crude oil wash) and some of the tank cleaning machines barely even work at all. Most of the working shifts, I was just literary sitting around and waiting for a call on the handheld radio waiting to do something, and if there is indeed some call from the radio it just basically revolves around taking ullage from the cargo tanks , or making a sounding on ballast pipes, opening or closing drop or cross-over valves - more or less. Anyway there's at least some annoyance provided by O.S. Marder Luib or A.B. Paulito Cordova to go around. Basically these two pathetic riding repair crew are intolerable for any short tempered person, Lucky for them I have a poker face and know how to ride along on the situation. They just simply keep lecturing people around as if like they're some sort of Mr. Know-it-all and yet when it comes to them doing those task - they skip the work out and dump it to their fellow co-workers , For short - they're nothing but full of shit.

 

In other news …

 

Much to other people's (all actually) surprise , the overtime sheet paper we had to sign in the crew mess was quiet high this time - In fact twice as high that it was compared to last month. Everybody was in disbelief that overtime pay would be as excess as about 40 hrs to 56 hours. Usually overtime pay was just as little as about 10 hours or 13 like last month , but now things have went suddenly into a 180 degree turn, that there's speculation that our Neglectful Myanmar captain is just doing this to dodge possibility that someone from the crew would inform the authorities about his misdeeds - after all this ship is in Singapore and any attempt to go to the authorities is just a few clicks away plus as an added effect , the main office of pathetic Norstar is also in Singapore. This ship's lame Myanmar captain is one neglectful son of a bitch but he's no stupid dinosaur, my lucky guess is the same as the other speculation as what the crew are thinking.

 

In other news

 

On the early morning of August 26, One of the 2nd barges that was collecting oil discharged from this ship casted out, on my assumption probably it had already filled its cargo with enough slop to collect. (bunker barge actuall, first barge was a "water barge" to delivery fresh water for tank cleaning).

 

I was doing fine on my working shift , then suddenly I'm puzzled why my co-workers here suggested I should wear a safety helmet out of now where. I mean I got used to work on a regular maintenance before and now all of a sudden I am being required to wear a safety helmet - during regular maintenance. Honestly I'm not really happy at all about this and wonder why the principal and management here imposes too high safety practices , as if like they're good employers. Its fine with me about a high safety culture - but with the exception if the company is a good company and treats employee's fairly, if not - then they're just aiming for some pipe dream. Before they start on a high safety culture - they should look first on how they manage the company and how they MANAGE their employee's (crew in my case) like providing sufficient and adequate needs. otherwise their just having another companies wet dream of aiming for the top.

 

Speaking of which , before I went to work. I can't believe that food in the galley is scarce and I had to look every nook and cranny of the cupboards just to find a simple pack of noodles and to mention also , I couldn't find any variety at all to eat aside from noodles , cereals, and bread - as if like this whole ship is in near close to the point of famine. I'm not exactly sure if chief cook facundo is crapping on his work or the food budget here in this ship just got shorten but from what I'm seeing I think chief cook has nothing to do with this and that the latter is the likely cause.

 

Damn !! How the hell does this company even maintain their business ?!! They always keep short changing people on stuff including the food allowance , tsk ! Pathetic norstar !!!

 

 

NOTHING NEW IN THE PACIFIC

JOURNAL ENTRY: August 18, 2016 Thursday

Location: Johor Straight (border of Singapore and Malaysia)

 

 

Following to what I wrote earlier , it looks like that the meeting about the five riding crew at the bridge was about asking them if they could make their stay here a bit longer since their  badly needed for the upcoming ship repairs work. I don’t know the other details on their discussion that followed.

 

The following day, O.S. Marder wasn't happy about being told to stay a bit longer and insist that he should disembark in Singapore, after all his contract is already finished and there is no point in staying longer. He submitted another letter to the Norstar Management and a few hours later, In the afternoon a reply was made by the management confirming that he will disembark in Singapore along with the other three "Riding crew" , One riding crew will be left behind.

 

Some of the crew here were not happy about the news that, this ship will be short-handed when ship repairs on the dry dock will come. (short-handed means having few workers to help out). Me on my personal view, Their contracts are already finished and it's up to them if they wanted to stay a bit or go home - it's no longer obligatory.

 

Latest news I heard was that their disembarking on the nearest port , which is Sempawang Malaysia or so it looks like.

 

At about 12:10pm this ship arrived in Johor straight near the border of Singapore and Malaysia. Immediate this ship resumed its unloading operations, This time it was a ship to ship operations with "CS Zephyr". As expected the mooring operations was hard because of the weather, definitely a hot and humid tropical climate - a weather that I really hate most. Although its hot, the temperature here in manageable compared to the apocalyptic proportions of Fujairah. To describe during day time, temperatures are as hot as the Philippines, or a little hotter. While nighttime is very similar to Philippine temperatures, So similar that you don’t get the feeling of working on "another country" , to add more on the ambiance of that is that some cargo Surveyors working here are Filipino,. How I noticed that he was a Filipino ?! Simple he was wearing a "balaclava" a face mask used by Filipino's and the design of his "balaclava" is the one used typically by the transportation /  industrial workers back in the Philippines (like tricycle drivers etc.), oh and of course he also speaks Filipino (Philippine national dialect - a language heavily based on the local ethnic language "Tagalog") . By the way despite Singapore's hot climate it does actually rain here even if this place is at the equator and the movement of wind here is frequent.    

 

Anyway I easily can tell the difference of the national borders between Malaysia and Singapore here since this ships location is smacked in the middle and that the landmark I had been seeing visually is the bridge - the only way in and out of Singapore to Malaysia via land.

 

"CS Zephyr" , from what I heard is one of those other ship storage tankers of Singapore. Basically since Singapore doesn’t have much land space to build an oil depo and factory, it relays heavily on these flotilla for oil processing needs, for short this ship is fixed and is permanently always here in Singapore. This ship based on the small talk I made from the SGS surveyor (which is a Filipino national) is a fully manned Filipino crew , Their agency officer is from jebsen (located near CF sharp shipping office). The crew on the other ship doesn’t talk much about meeting their fellow Filipino's nor at least giving any small chat. NO big deal anyway.    

 

In other news.

 

On Cargo watch, I took the opportunities in testing out my new innovations for myself. Such as new outfits for the hot / warm climate of the pacific, as well as new tools , and a new "cooling" tool I worked out which is just basically a very miniaturized version of an air hose - good for keeping myself cool and comfortable despite the tropical weather. Unfortunately despite the innovation a minor problem had occurred , which is basically the rusty metallic stench of the pneumatic pipe's here stick on my clothes , smelling like a metallic version of body odor. Anyway having a nasty smell is the least of my problems

 

Another thing I had been testing is new methods of washing clothes which apparently for some reason the laundry room of this ship was closed without further notice and left all the crew including myself, finding out a way on how to wash clothes.

 

As for the work

 

There had been a few challenges, like recently "A.B. Alvin" broke the last functioning sounding tape here in this pathetic ship. Can't imagine that this ship is an "aframax" type of ship and yet it has only one accurate sounding tape around - talk about cheap management ! , Good thing that there was still some spare parts from other broken sounding tapes and they cannibalized the parts. Its repaired , but the sounding tape is 11cm inaccurate of the actual measure.

 

Another thing, that happened is that I actually learned something new here. Specifically about hydraulic lines and pumps and how to operate a manual hydraulic pump. Apparently turns out that some of the hydraulic switches on the CCR (specifically water ballast switches) do not work there and we have to literary carry a heavy hydraulic pump (around 15 kilograms) around to switch it on / off , then later check for the ballast vents if its opened or not. Air coming out means that there's an activity going on inside the vents (for short its open) and no Air coming out means most likely the ballast pump are switched off. Although it's very educational, its laughingly pathetic that we have to carry around the heavy pump for just doing a simple task (and a push of a switch in CCR), and this is how backward and pathetic this ship is.

 

 

ALWAYS LIKE THIS

JOURNAL ENTRY : August 15, 2016 Monday

Location : Enroute to Malaysia

 

 

There has been a sudden change of schedule, Originally this ship was supposedly meant to be in the Chinese dry docks for ship repair. Now new news came in that China will be scrubbed out and the new location for ship repairs will be in Singapore.

 

Now here's more of the problem, being in Singapore for ship repairs is a hassle compared to china and the latest news also suggested that the crew here have to enter and clean up black oil residues inside the cargo tanks before dry dock, hinting that the next set of job will be messy and coverall wasting. If so this will be the case then good luck if some of us have enough coveralls left and industrial soap to use for the work,

 

Another thing that I had to worry about is the permanent tropical hot weather in Singapore, Although this is not blazingly hot compare to UAE Fujairah area and the weather here is almost identical to the Philippines (probably around 30 degrees celcius or so on average temperature), it does not mean that its comfortable working outside. Probably I have to bring out my water canteen yet again and use every available "anti-heat" techniques I have at the moment. It's also obviously that I have to wear my safety helmet all the times again because superintendents will be visiting this ship very often from here on till it gets out of Singapore area

 

Anyway its always like this in the whole Asia Pacific area , the weather will be permanently warm till the next ice age, and this is one of the primary reasons why I hate being here in the pacific. If I'm correct the weather will be very warm all the way till japan area up until September to October.

 

Being in Singapore for ship repairs is more problematic than having ship repairs in china, as it meant more work for the crew. We don’t mind the work but the thing is that salaries here will not change and will remain fixed.

 

Some of Co-workers here are hopeful that some sort of "extra" pay will be made available about this "tank cleaning" work, but I don’t want to get they're hope's up on this one because this principal cant compensate us on our "overtime" rate pay in the first place, - if they can't pay us properly on our regular salaries, then let alone the "extra pay" for the tank cleaning work. Seriously I think Norstar will not even bother to pay us at all here, and judging from what I'm looking , they eventually will. Shame that my co-workers here have already been around longer than I had been as a sailor and yet they are dense enough and still don’t know exactly the reality of what's going to happen. Anyway I just keep my mouth shut about this and let them figured it all out,  As for me I'm not enthusiastic nor even optimistic about what will happen on the next few days, the only thing I care about is get the fuck out of here as soon as possible, hopefully at least by December or January .

 

In other news

 

By around late afternoon, I was told by the Chief mate to tell the other five riding crew that they should go to the bridge at 6pm. I have no idea why they are being called by I bet my bottom dollar that it has something to do about their contracts and related to their stay here on this ship.

 

PACIFIC IS STILL FAR AWAY

ENTRY DATE: August 09, 2016 Tuesday

Location : Fujairah anchorage area enroute to the pacific ocean

 

 

Right after unmooring operations , everybody is relived to get the fuck out of Fujairah and unfortunately we won't get out of Fujairah just yet and we still have a bunkering operations that would follow. It was already close to 5am early in the morning when unmooring is finished and obviously were already exhausted from the heat and work of unmooring the ship. We had to drop anchor somewhere near the anchorage area.

 

Soon after securing the pilot ladder and gangway, a small boat arrived and delivered us some engine room supplies. We didn’t even bother tp help out as were already exhausted and let the engine crew do their own business - for us we went back to our cabins and rested until we were called back again in the afternoon.

 

After the bunkering, We went back again and heaved up anchor. This time the anchor winch was having problem heaving up anchor, Possible culprit was that the hydraulic was over heating from the weather (aside from huge amount of leaking) and neither 2nd engineer nor electrician can fix the problem. Can't imagine that this was the first time ever that I had to get a fresh water hose somewhere on the deck to wet the winches and "cool it down" . This is how run down the equipment here on this ship, ( hopefully this won't totally break down for good until I get out of this ship) , Anyway the winches started working again after the "cool down" and the anchor was totally heaved up and the ship started its journey towards the pacific.

 

Whatever the case maybe , I'm glad were already out of the Fujairah area, and the weather will start to cool down by probably as soon as tomorrow.

 

Over the next few days, we were doing the typical stuff of maintenance. On my end I was doing work greasing up mooring wires, together with O.S. Marder, O.S "mark" , O.S. Molina and A.B. Cordova. Apparently we have to wire the whole wires with some black grease, which is kind of messy and in addition doesn’t stick to the wire very well and probably will have to clean later.

 

Aside from that I also put up inside the pump room together with pump man Obina to take out the oily water inside the very bottom of the space, and when I mean oily water as in black oil mixed with water. I also tested a new type of head light equipment while at the pump room, It's much more lighter and maneuverable compared to my traditional head light mounted equipment safety helmet. Testing of the equipment was a success.

 

After the task was done after a few days , I was back doing odd work like the usual chipping and painting of rusted areas, plus cleaning the mess on the mooring wires etc.        

 

During the off days (Sundays), I spent it with just plainly resting and finishing a new set of equipment. One is a new version of my "Side arm" tool holder, and accessories and sewing of the new grey colored coverall I recently found (actually this was a superintendent coverall left behind).

 

Another thing that happened during Sunday is that I ordered stuff on the bond store. (it was a pack of cola). For some reason, Filipino crew here cannot order via salary deduction and had to pay all the stuff we ordered by cash while Myanmar and Indian Ship Officers get away without paying a dime, which is unfair and racist policy (they get charged via pay slip deduction). I'm not exactly sure if this is because they haven't worked out the bank details yet or probably they just don’t give a shit about Filipino's here and are a bunch of racist psycho's . Nevertheless whatever is the case , Filipino's here including me are not happy about this policy and solidifies more the fact that Norstar Ship Management , together with CF Sharp are not equal when it comes to treating the rights of crew here. Be as it may if they're racist ! They can shove off this damn principal up in their asses, and I hope all the crew of this racist principal ditch them out someday.

 

 

LIFE IN FUJIARAH

ENTRY DATE: August 07, 2016 Sunday

Location : Fujirah Oil Tanker Terminal berth 6, UAE

 

Staying in fujirah for a week was difficult, Aside from the temperature scorching temperature of 48 degrees Celsius. I had problems as well on early counter measures in combating the heated environment.

 

Earlier my primary measure in cooling myself was to wet and wore my coveralls, But lately it seems that this countermeasure was not effective in the long run and as a result, skin rashes have been instantly appearing on almost every part of my body and the most rashes I got for now is on my legs. Probably I surmise that prolonged exposure to water and moisture (from my clothes) causes some sort of bacterial skin infection which in turn causes rashes. As a result to this unfortunate side effect from my early tactics, I took in a few antibiotics and stayed away from wetting my coveralls for a while. Despite the setback , it pushed and discovered another counter measure to combat the heat - the "dry method".

 

Basically this new method is more simpler and is generally more acceptable to my crewmates than my first method, however despite its simplicity it too has its limitations - and I shall explain later. First off the "dry method" I had discovered is nothing more than just getting fresh cooler air and this time the source is the pneumatic pipes that is so common on every ships piping system. Basically its just as simple as open a pneumatic socket and put the inside your coverall sleeves and open it then adjust the air pressure , letting the cool air coming out on the pneumatic pipe to circulate throughout inside the coveralls thus cooling the whole entire body without the risk of rashes and infection. Despite the innovation, it has limitations and the most noticeable is the range. Meaning you can only operate within the area near the air pipes, the range can be extended if there's an air hose around but the range is still limited and there's a chance it might get snagged while moving around.

 

The third method revolves around a combination of my first and second method , however I haven't tested it fully and only the first and second method have been tested. Anyway aside from that this ship is also plagued with a problem , the most simple and yet the most important of all - clean drinking water. Apparently this ship's so called water purifier is overworked and cannot support the water needs of 27 crew members, so in the end - most of the time this ship doesn’t churn out fresh drinking water , leading to speculation that if this stay in UAE will be longer , the whole crew will have dehydration problems later on. To complicate matters our lovely Myanmar captain is such a dick and refused to give the crew extra water rations , resulting that most of the crew had to buy supplies on shore and nearby duty free shops. I myself bought some extra supplies to keep myself away from dehydration / starvation problem.

 

Thank god that the visiting indian superintendent , kicked his Myanmar butt earlier when he refused to give us our salaries. Now that we have some money , it would have not been possible at all and basically I could be dealing serious problems aside from the problematic weather here.

 

During the shore leave , I discovered one thing useful. Previously I thought that having a BDO dollar debit card was useless, well turns out that this dollar debit card was not useless at all as earlier I thought it was and in fact CAN BE USED IN STORES THAT ACCEPT VISA / MASTER CARD. To simply put I can use it for shopping , as in cashless transactions. Thank god and I'm relieved that this piece of plastic card is not only a decoration to my wallet and could be used to shop some stuff off on duty free stores.

 

I wonder if I can use this to purchase stuff on the airport ?

 

In any case . I bought some badly needed supplies around for me, Some chocolates , Gatorade (as anti-dehydration) along with shower gel soap and of course the most important of all was internet sim card and top up load. I also bought a few non-essential stuff (actually low priority stuff) to upgrade my existing working equipment, some of these are a new Stanley multi tool pliers, a new "wenger" tumbler, a multi socket electric travel adaptor and a brand new binoculars (which replaces my obsolete CDR-king one).

 

Some of my crew members also bought in essentials like water, Gatorade, shampoo etc. toiletries that are missing here on the ship (and there is no bond store), Given that our pitiful myanmar captain doesn't bother considering crew welfare. Shame that some of my crew members have to result in buying their own necessities out of their own pockets to get things around, NECESSITIES that Norstar ship Principal and its Captain should have provided in the first place and according to MLC .   

 

Anyway this discovery on visa debit usage opens up an opportunity , in a way that it means that I can order stuff not only on shops that have VISA / MASTER CARD - but also order stuff online as well. To make it simple I don’t have to wait for a long time to get imported stuff or wait that any ship I will be assigned with goes to Europe or America, Now I just simply look for the online order like ebay or stuff like that and search the item I want there and presto ! . 

 

In relation to my recent shore leave. Bosun Hector Rodrigo borrowed some cash from me via debit card to buy a computer, well actually half on the actual money and the other half was debit card. Well I don’t mind lending a hand anyway to some of my crewmates and besides they're not a threat at all here, So lending them some cash is no big deal for me - as long as they pay up before I leave this place. Actually I was going to use the money to buy a new tablet office computer for my sister, but it ended up the money being borrowed first before I could actually buy anything at all.

 

As for the work related news

 

Given that this ship is already 20 years old by now, its now surprise that during loading operations a lot of piping systems has been having problems and literary leaking on its connections , one such example is the hydraulic system which one of its pipes had a huge leak near the manifold area. The leak was so huge that small buckets would quickly be filled up with hydraulic oil  and we had to use a full human size SOPEP drum to contain the leak. Aside from the hydraulic leak, Pneumatic pipes have been leaking as well and on one occasion the pneumatic pipe used to heave and slack the gangway on the starboard side burst leaving the gangway stuck for the time being until deck fitter Amiel lorzano fixes the problem.

 

It's amazing that this ship still passes vetting inspection despite being a floating rust bucket. I mean - everything is falling apart here and the only thing keeping it from being totally scrapped is because of its Filipino crew efforts in maintenance (which is not being treated fairly and being discriminated by these Myanmar whore captain). Probably i suspect that the only reason this ship passed is because the vetting inspector was Indian and they somehow bribed it.

 

Anyway lastly during the unmooring operations I made a few mistakes because of the confusion this cocky Indian third mate was yelling at me to do this and that which result in me getting uneasy on work. To add more problems on the matter is that not only is the third mate annoying but Pump man Obina is also making the same bitchy attitude as the third mate, I simply can't focus on my work and concentrate if these cock suckers keep yelling at me. So in other words I had two problems dealing with aside from un mooring operation, . I had been on six ships already and people like that are one of the worst people to work with - they are really pathetic, certainly lacking of civil manners and simply cannot teach or lead people. Their tiny idiotic brains simply think that the whole work is a competition and not cooperation, Anyway as a result I will keep in mind  to stay out of them as far as possible when it comes to mooring / unmooring operations.

 

      

HOT AS HELL

ENTRY DATE : July 29, 2016 Thursday

Location: Fujirah Anchorage area , UAE

 

 

Life is getting difficult here by the day and the latest of my troubles here is one of the most basic things here on planet earth, - WATER, fresh clean water. Since that this ship has already arrived in fujirah UAE, The temperatures here skyrocketed to blow torching proportions as predicted. Hot temperature means crew get to consume more water, Unfortunately availability of water here is scarce to the point that everybody awaits the purifier for water (take not PURIFIER, bottled mineral water is scarce) and that purifier cant supply water to all 27 people here onboard, so it's obviously someone here is bound to be thirsty or dehydrated soon if this continues.

 

Actually the main problem here is the extreme temperature of Fujirah which is very hot. To complicate things air-conditioning systems of this ship is very poor according to oiler Lester Suarez and has something to do about the compressors age and sadly all the areas in this ship have no air-condition as of the moment. Again another first on my sailing career that it’s the first time I encountered a ship that has no decent air-conditioning.

 

Recently my friend Oiler Allan Sta. Maria disembarked all of a suddenly early in the morning. Unexpectedly he received a notice informing him that he will be disembarking within an hour, Not even enough time to say goodbye. Anyway at least he's now relieved of the troubles being here and it will be easier for him if it will be that way, besides who would want to stay here on this cursed ship anyway ? A lot of people here thought that Oiler Allan didn’t had in him to resign on this ship and when he did - it was a slap on their faces. He has a lot of valid reasons why he had to resign and it's no secret or surprise that conditions here in this ship is terrible. Oiler Allan was my friend and the only one whom I talk to without any hypocrisy added , as in total honest talk around here. The rest of the people I talk here are just for plain professional reasons, not the kind of stuff that friends really talk about,. 

 

Later in the morning, It was also a surprise that a safety meeting began on the bridge. Not exactly a "safety meeting" but more of like a grievance meeting. It was discussed there that from the words of another superintendent that some supply would be headed this way , and assured us (for now I hold my judgement on this matter and "to see is to believe"). Another thing that was discussed was the "Cash Advance" matter which didn't end up well, and made our dick head Myanmar captain lash out in front of everyone that he wasn't interested in giving salaries of the crew. So basically what happened there was that all that talk he was saying or two months now about cash advance and shore leave was plain horseshit , It only showed his true colours that he was never interested at all from the start to give our salaries. Thankfully the superintendent despite being indian (or probably because he's indian and indian officers are involve as well) that he decided to scold the Myanmar captain to give "cash advances" (salaries) to the crew.

 

An hour later, We had received an announcement that ship will be berthing in fujirah, immediately this ship heaved up anchor and prepared the pilot ladder., To date this is the most difficult task I encountered because of the heat and hot weather I encountered . I'm not so sure of the exact temperature but if I recall correct its somewhere about 40 plus degree's Celsius enough for me to wet my coveralls and wore it wet just to keep cool. It helped a lot to keep my body temperature to be lower enough for me to work without any problems. As expected most of my crew mates, were exhausted on the heat and were soaking wet with sweat. One of the worst berthing operations work I made on my whole career.