WITHOUT A TRACE

For years I had been following the exploits of a maritime seafarers rights advocate ""Evangeline dela cruz Tobias" . Her bravery and dedication in the advocacy of fighting for Filipino seafarers rights. Sadly it seems that some Filipino seafarers do not  understand at all on her cause and instead prefer that the seafarers welfare be just regressed back to the way it was during the 80's and 70's , were things on that job were horrible and Filipino seafarers back then are mere cut throat criminals (and some "remanants" of those sailors still exist up till today).

As of yesterday December 17, 2019 . Her profile "Vanished" and any other means to locate her in social media have gone cold, she simply erased or deactivated everything. A month before this she said on her social media that "she will be making major changes", and would rather be an "animal rights" activist instead . I'm not exactly figuring out what it was , but I bet her "vanishment" in the social media means that she doesn’t want to be found .

Maybe its best that she disappear and would find an interest on somewhere else., and I can't blame her if it's what she did. The whole maritime seafaring industry is rotten to begin with , and there's a lot of bad people - not awful but really bad people. I understand her despair on her leaving and perhaps that the maritime seafaring industry should be left to self-destruct itself.  Let that sector or community rot for its wickedness, Evil people there are beyond any kind of redemption as far as I can tell and I saw it first-hand. The only difference from them to criminals is that criminals are bounded and sent to prison by Philippine law , compared to seafarers that are just simple sent back to their home country and then goes back again on their assigned ships to wreak havoc and spread torment like cancer.

I do understand very well the frustration "Vangie" encounters in handling Filipino seafarers. And she was really under appreciated by seafarers. I hope that where ever she is she has finally made (and found) peace on that new vocation.

WITHIN THE FURIOUS WATERS

November 22, 2019

Unexpectedly "Alok" The Indian O.S. was called in the afternoon at the ships office over some reason regarding medical test . It took only a few minutes and went down and he revealed that he would be dismissed summarily because his drug and alcohol test showed signs of possible marijuana intake. The bottom line he told to us that he "will be sent home on next port" .

Immediately the next day , he wasn't even allowed to go to work and was told that he will be just confined on his cabin , kind of like "house arrest". Aside from that , the worst is that rumors immediately started like wild fire, and given the nature of us Filipino's being gossipers who can't keep their mouths shut - fuelled more of the rumor and spread it like a plague. I guess that's worst thing in working onboard a ship - utter no privacy of any kind whatsoever.

Whether or not the rumors are true , I think it’s a person's privacy and nobody has a right to gossip against him and spread the rumor like wild fire - but I guess this is the environment here as a seafarer , people here are always treated unfairly and it would be foolish to let your guard down and discuss personal information or even personal details (especially on personal matters) knowing full well what kind of people we work here.

I writing about this because , It's not right to treat a person that way. The companies action was very swift and brutal and without any fair judgment, and the reaction of us Filipino's against that person was equally so, it's not fair to spread and make gossips about him, this is something I really despise to my own kind and on this job , people here have utter no good manners and I wonder if this people have a sense of humanity with them,.

Poor guy was confined on his quarters for the whole week before he was sent home. He disembarked in fujirah , UAE.

In other news..

Now that the old captain has disembarked (along with the indian O.S.)and replaced by the new Russian one . Things here have started to get lax, No more of restraining ourselves on not drinking juice in the ref , nor going to the crew late on dinner time etc. We can now easily do our job better when he's no longer around - good riddance !!!

Back when he was still around here, things were tense and we have to be careful and meticulous on about almost everything we do. Even had to watch  breakfast, lunch or dinner because he always monitors us and see how much food we end up eating. The way he acts feels more like he's the human version of a CCTV camera - very control freak kind of individual. He even take's coffee break at the same time as our coffee break , just to monitor people. (and using it as a ruse). It’s a good thing that one of the crew here (pump man) have already sailed with him before and warned us about the old captains deception.  He was basically a general threat here.

Now that he's gone and disembarked in fuijrah UAE. All of the crew won't have to worry about him anymore being a pest 

GATHERING STORM

November 14, 2019 Thursday GATHERING STORM

This ship is a bit odd compared to some of the ships I had worked with in the past when it comes to design. First off and most important is that this ships pipe lines has no Fresh water pipe line on the deck whatsoever. So no fresh water means that working on the deck area will be difficult during summer time / desert area for me, if temperatures rise above 31 plus and up . No fresh water source means I have to carry my own separate water to cool (and splash) myself with and have to go all the way back to the accommodation area  just to refill water bottles I use to splash myself. ( For now this is not a problem since its winter time , But it will once summer time arrives or if this ship goes to the middle east) 

Another problem having a no "fresh water" line in the deck, Means basically deck washing is practically nonexistent or if we were to work with something that is related to using fresh water like cleaning the deck , we will be forced to carry buckets of water (and a mop) for the job instead of just doing the much simple version of hooking up a water hose and washing everything up.

I myself is not sure on how will they wash the whole deck area without a fresh water source nearby. I don’t supposed they'd be using sea water to wash and clean everything up in the deck.

(difference of using fresh water and sea water in the deck is that , fresh water is less corrosive to metal compared to seawater, less corrosion means less rust, and less rust means less maintenance).

To add another weirdness in ship design aside from the lack of fresh water pipeline., is that the crew and officers mess are joined ., I mean only a single mess hall for all the crew (officers and ratings). Heck there's not even a "divider" or at least a curtain to separate the eating area of the officers and the ships ratings and have some privacy, I have no idea why the Koreans designed this ship this way. Resulting that I always have trouble eating because I get conscious that someone might be watching me while having a chow.

Adding more to the oddness is also the laundry area., Apparently washing machines here are basically a dryer as well., Two in one machines ., Good for home use and lack of space but not so good for industrial and work use. Takes eons before getting my laundry washed and dried up and another eon getting past the long line of clothes that needed to be washed.

Another oddity of this ship is the "working organization"., There is no Bosun (Foreman) here whatsoever and the person whom we should be getting job orders are coming from the pump man. So to put it simply the pump man here is also the de facto Foreman (although in contract and SMS it only states that he's simply a "PUMP MAN" )., Normally in large ships Pump man and Bosun Job Positions are independent and separate, I'm not sure on why the company cut corners on the organizational job structure just to save money. Whatever the reasons behind this , We have a Pump man who also works as a Bosun in a VLCC ship. So as a result , working in the deck is unorganized and with basically no one to keep us in line and check our work . We just basically work on the best we could on a given job order on how to accomplish it, and usually work is unpolished.

In other matters…..

Much has happened on the past few weeks and there is so many topics I have to write on this journal . This ship went by on Singapore , and had a USCG (United States Coast Guard) Inspection there , and pass as expected probably because this is ship is just a week old. During the stay also , we received some provisions along with some equipment.

It was basically a big hassle to lower the gangway accommodation ladder on this ship in the last minute, when we were already proceeding to anchorage area in Singapore., Apparently some of my co-workers here have no idea on how to work under pressure and to make matters worse is that Pump man was yapping his mouth all the time ., we did manage to finish the job , Somehow , but it took us a lot of time before we got things moving again.

During the inspection I was unwilling turned a center of attention when I was the only person who wore a harness and climbed to secure the life boat on the strapping. Personally I never liked being the center of attention and being looked by the whole crew and USCG inspectors while doing my job.  I feel unrelaxed

A few days later , trouble and problems have already started in this ship , apparently the engine crew have started hoarding and taking all the gear and equipment meant for the deck., and stocking it on their "store" ., which in turn left us nothing but almost zero tools and equipment to work with. Pump man was yapping with his mouth as usual about this incident, but did no further action to prevent the "hoarding and ransacking" of equipment by the engine crew. Bottom line is that working in the deck area would be difficult than expected because of the lack of tools.

The only equipment left by the engine crew was , some equipment they didn’t like (TAKE NOTE "LIKED" , DIDN’T Say "NEEDED")., Practically they took almost everything. 

(Apparently this ship's design was meant to have a single common store of equipment for both deck and engine crew, compared to other ships were equipment stores for deck and engine crew area separate) .

MARCH OF THE ELEPHANTS

Mornings in Korea , are quiet and peaceful especially during winter time. 

Morning at ., we were already ready and our bags and luggage's are already outside at the hotel waiting for the bus to pick us up. As with the ships terminal regulations , we were all dressed up in coveralls ready to board the ship. The bus came on time to pick us up and immediately we get out luggage's and stacked them up on the bus

When we arrived in front of the ship , it was still dark but I guess it's reasonable on  the fact that winter time in this country is already setting in. We had a little drizzle on the weather but it didn’t matter. All we had in mind is to board this ship and settle inside. 

All the unmooring ops was handled by the Korean ship dry dock workers and basically we just watched the windows as they work., earlier we thought that it was "US" ship crew that would be handling the unmooring - thankfully it was the koreans.

Some of the Korean ship workers still stayed onboard to do some finishing work before the left the next. Until then while there still around , I was not staying on my assigned cabin and was inside the "spare" one's inside.

As far as i can tell , the next few days after this will be very busy and that we have to check every bits and pieces of the equipment supplied on this ship and see if they're usable or not.

The last meal in be taking in morning before going onboard the ship courtesy of 7-11 South Korea, thankfully this pack meal is not spicy 

GROOVING IN AND SMELLING THE FLOWERS

On the second day on working at the shipyard , we were told to dress up in proper clothes (civilian) and meet at the entrance of the local hotel nearby. Apparently according to what the captain says that some top brass at the office  wants to have dinner with us , kind of like a meet and greet stuff to the crew. Some of the crew thought earlier that this is some sort of official meeting and that there will be a formal dinner of sort on the reception at the nearby hotel, Even I myself thought that this might be the case since after all the meeting place was at the hotel. 

To everybody's surprise, there is no dinner at the hotel but the "company representative" just randomly picked up a local pub for us to eat and that was just about it. No formal classy dinner , just a random meet up and go to the local pub to meet the company representative. Anyway it's not surprising if you have an Indian as a representative, they usually just go for appearances like assuming that the dinner as on the hotel , when in reality it was just going on to the local pub. Very underwhelming and a letdown.

At around 8pm the dinner was over and some of us went back to the hotel were staying. I on the other hand went on wandering on the surroundings and see if there is anything interesting around to look at. Fortunately for me there is.,  and it’s a local mall . I had a keen interest in that place because of the idea that there may be video games sold in that area and there is ., but to my dismay it turns out that the shops selling video games were closed at this hour , so it means I'd just have to come back the next day , if I wanted to buy one.

When I returned to the hotel were I'm staying, I saw some of my crew mates still outside and waiting for something . I went closer and asked , they said that there going on the bar nearby and probably have some drinks there. I decided to join them since that there's still enough time for me, and it would be boring just staying at the hotel for the whole night.

The nearby bar was just like any other bar around , but compared in the Philippines that is usually filled with people at night time., this bar is just empty and waiting for people to come in. Apparently the reason why its empty was the fact that the bar was probably reserved for foreigner. Well I'm a foreigner in a sense if you looked on a Korean perspective.

Good thing the bar had Filipina GRO's , to serve drinks and I won't have any communication problems with them when I'm talking. I just ordered a tall glass of whiskey and enjoyed the drink and listened to their stories. Apparently from what I heard from them is the typical story of a Filipina migrant worker who goes overseas and ends up doing worker as a bar worker (or maybe in often cases work as a whore). As I listen to their stories , I didn’t blame them for ending up doing work that kind of way. Employment in the Philippines have always been bad for decades and 7 out of 10 adult Filipino's just simply want to get out of the country just to find work.

apparently from what i had notice , the transit hotel we were staying at was in the middle of a red light district

I didn’t stayed long at the bar and after drinking two tall glasses of whiskey (which drunkenness have already set in on my senses), I told one of my crew mates that I'd be going back to the hotel to sleep.  

Three days have passed and we were told that there will be a "selected few" crew that will board the ship early on once the ship casts out of the ship yard. I was selected as the "few" who will board early and told that we should be out of the hotel and on the meeting point by as early as 6am. On the night before , I already packed my luggage back from the hotel room was already prepared., I took a good night's rest and wandered off to take a good look at the surroundings (which after all Its possible that I won't see land again for a couple of months).  One of my crew mates suggested to go to the local restaurant and have some Korean grub, he suggested the "no chairs while eating" kind of restaurant nearby - it was a good suggestion having to eat on a restaurant that feels like the authentic "native Korean" experience ,problem is that there's no price tag  on the menus they were serving and I'm weary that I might overeat or the food im ordering would go over budget. So we find another restaurant nearby and unfortunately it was chairs and feels more like any typical western restaurant serving Korean food., anyway we still proceeded in dinning at that place. The Korean food they were serving was delicious if I could just ignore the hot and spicy part , the Korean wasn’t bad I just never liked the food setup to be hot and spicy. My stomach was never good on that kind of flavour.

To be fair korean food dishes don't taste bad , in fact it taste good however despite theyre delectable, they spicy and hot nature is a big turn off to my taste as i really hate thier hot and spicy food . If koreans couldnt only remove that factor on their food then i could say that its edible. 

by the way their liquor taste like rubbing alcohol bought on a local Philippine Pharmacy (to be specific "rhea" rubbing alcohol) , although not bad in general it just simply taste weird.  

GOING DARK

After three flight cancellations and almost a month of waiting., I had finally been deployed on the new ship called "Hunter Saga" . Initially I was assigned with the ship called "Hunter Atla" but later on got changed to "Hunter Saga". Soon after that a series of flight cancellations and Reschedules followed and on the later minute of Sunday October 13, 2019 . I finally received a message coming from 'Annabel Aviso" that then deployment is going to push thru and that I'm required to go back to the office to claim my new plane ticket along with the signing of a new MLC Form again by the tomorrow morning.

This is the first time on my career as a seafarer that I'd be informed on short notice , as in only less than 12 hours. Fortunately for me there the family car that my sister and I bought years back , so travel time will not be an issue and traffic on EDSA is nonexistent as far as I'm concerned., and I couldn't imagine myself traveling on public transportation in the Philippines in this kind of situation especially with the recent fiasco that happened on the Light Rail transit system where they had to shut down the entire facility and let at least a million people stranded on roads and I was one of those folk who got stuck.

Whatever the case, traffic and public transportation problems won't affect me this time as I'm using the family car

The following day, I came to the office and got my tickets . My whole luggage just stayed on the car and parked it in the nearby Robinsons Mall. It didn’t took me long to get the new company forms and my plane tickets, Just 20 minutes and that just about it. Ms. "Aviso" did speed things up. There was no extra chit chat and just right down to business.

When my sister (the driver of the car) and I met at the mall ., It was decided that we should head to the local airport early to avoid traffic and wait there until the "check in" time for the plane. We arrive at the airport at around 4pm .

It was about 8pm when the "Check In" procedure started , and there on the last minute I had already found out who will be my crewmates for this ship. From what I saw there area was about roughly 11 of us all in all catching for the flight. Based on the tickets , we have a two kinds of flights one bound for Incheon , and the other is a local flight to Busan.  The flight to Korea was short and was just roughly under 4 hours , then the local flight was just an hour. Once there we were immediately greeted by the local agent on the arrival area.

To some of my crew mates relief they were thrilled to hear that , we will not be proceeding immediately to the shipyard and instead will stay at the local transit hotel. Joy soon turned to doubt when we heard from the agent upon arriving there that we will start immediately on work in a couple of hours., and that we will be just using the transit hotel as a storage for our luggage and of course to sleep for the night (which sounds more like a bed spacer ,rather than a hotel a person stays). In any case I have no complains about it and usually (being a negative thinker most of the time , or more like pragmatic) , I had already expected this to happen that once we stepped out on the airport - work will soon follow , as in very soon.

The Transit Hotel that were staying at , in this picture is my room, 

We just put our luggage in the respective room and headed out in an hour to the working site. The towering image of the ship when view afar was really mesmerizing to look at ., like some sort of giant. We took the elevator going up to the deck area and immediately went to see the deck area. As expected the deck area was very busy and littered with all sorts of shipyard workers. Even inside the accommodation bloc upon entering was filled with people doing their work.

As soon as we got on B deck , we were given our coveralls immediately and put them on. The rest of the day till later on the afternoon was spent working on hauling stuff and deck materials onboard., and of course familiarizing us over to the ship's deck area , on which equipment is located at on how to operate the machinery.

LOAN SHARK

Reluctantly I made a  Financial loan on my sisters insistence., I was not eager to make a loan given that most lending companies are a legal form of a "loan shark". Only reason I approved to make such a loan is that I made a deal with my sister that out of the 50,000 Php that will be borrowed on the lending company, I will take 7,000 Php as a sort of personal funding to buy essential work  related supplies and equipment.

The first lending company I tried "Balikbayad" lending company ., immediately disapproved my loan and didn’t disclose the reason why. The second lending company "Global Dominion Financial INC" did approved my loan but with such a hassle on their required documents that it took me 3 whole days to process. I did get the 50,000 Php loan anyway.

the 7,000 Php I got out of it was used to buy equipment like wireless computer keyboard and mouse, an Xbox wireless controller, and a few video games along with some equipment for my luggage's like sealed box containers. Unfortunately for me since those equipment was more pricy than my first estimate, the allotted 7,000 Php cost ballooned to 10,000 Php.  Which made me think that I should have borrowed instead about roughly about 70,000 to 80,000 Php instead to the lending company. The remaining 40,000 Php was immediately turned over to my sister for her expenses.

According to the Assistant Crewing manager via SMS message received our dispatch date would be on September 26th and our flight will be on October 1st. ., When I went to OSM Office on the 26th I was handled by Crewing assistant my Documents along with the plane ticket., Ms. Aviso left out the MLC papers and said that the person who would sign this was not yet at the office and at the meantime while I'm waiting , she said I could attend on an "Event" at the OSM waiting area and bar.

I attended the said event on the afternoon and it was all about some sort of mental health lecture to all OSM Crews and employee's . As soon as it was finished, I immediately strolled on OSM 4th floor to see if Ms. Aviso has already finished the MLC papers I need., To my annoyance Ms. Aviso never finished the paper I needed and took off without even leaving a note . Fortunately for me "Francis" was still around and told him of my predicament, He just finished and handed me out the MLC papers I needed in just a few minutes.  I was really lucky that "Francis" was around and if not for him , I would have returned again back to OSM for another day after the dispatch (no thanks to Ms. Aviso's incompetence) .

AWAITING LANDFALL

September 13, 2019 Friday AWAITING LANDFALL

Medical test were not that difficult in this new clinic ,as a matter of fact the whole set of medical test only lasted 2 hours for me . The only exception or pending's I had received in this medical clinic were the dental and ECG. And from what the doctor told me I can choose whatever medical clinic (or hospital) I want to have this pending's cleared up.

Dental , is obviously the easy part for me and was just the usual "Oral prophylaxis" cleaning - one that can be easily resolved by just visiting the local dentist. As for the ECG pending , I had to search far and wide from Marikina all the way up to manila for a medical clinic (or hospital) that has a Treadmill stress test.

I ended up with three clinics who have these . One is "medical city clinic" (branch) located near sta. Lucia mall , unfortunately I didn’t take the tread mill stress test here because its expensive (2500 plus PHP) and the time it take to release the results was up to 5 days. The second clinic I had searched was "PMP diagnostic medical" ., The tread mill stress test was cheap (only 1275 PHP) however the problem was its location which is really far from my home (its near PGH hospital in manila). The third clinic which I choose and took the tread mill was "Marikina Valley Medical Hospital" the price is tolerable and its only takes 5 to 10 minute walk away from my house.

The tread mill stress test on Marikina Valley Hospital was a bit difficult compared to the typical diagnostic clinics around., Difficult in the sense that they keep adding up the speed on the tread mill every few minutes and so until I gave up. I reached as far as "Stage 6" on the test before I quitted from shortness of breath. As soon as I finished the test and got out of the hospital , fatigue quickly set in when I got home and immediately fell asleep and didn’t woke up until around night time.  Perhaps I'm already getting too old in this repeated and regular medical checks in this job. Anyway I did finish 96 percent of the test.

After 3 days i got the medical results and passed it to the Nordic Medical Clinic to have them evaluated. According to the doctor there , he said that my medical has no problems and they just forward the "Fit to work" status to my employer.

Soon after that I went to my employer to inform them that I'm already medically fit and they had me to sign up a contract., The employer told me that they will just inform me when its already time to join the ship and issuing me the plane ticket.

HEADING OUT TO THE VOID (AGAIN)

September 01, 2019 Sunday HEADING OUT TO THE VOID (AGAIN)

For months I had been figuring out, on how my training certificates got lost and how could I replace them in a short time. On my recent report on the shipping office, I found out that my Training certificates were not lost but just misplaced and was just sitting there in my Filofax file record for months. In other words , it was just there all along at the office and I didn’t bother to look harder on were my certificates were. Basically since I discovered it was there , my plans on replacing "LOST" certificates are now irrelevant in a good way and saves me the cost and effort.

On my recent visit to the shipping office, it was obvious that I was again yet to be assigned to another TCC ship., unfortunately I didn’t like the TCC ship assignment because the ship assigned to me was infamous for being a shitty "regime" type of working environment. Even oiler "Gilbert" said to me at the café office that ship was avoided by Crew like the plague. Obviously I'm not going that to let it happen, and I'm still wary about the "Shell" campaigns that happened to me last 2017-2018., As much as possible im trying to avoid being entangled on a repressive regime working type of environment.

After lunch break ., I told my crewing manager that I wish to transfer to another principal. The crewing manager told me that the change of principal would meant that a possibility of reducing of salary because different principal offer different salaries. I agreed on the terms said by the crewing manager thinking that the risk of salary reduction is much better compared to living on repressive regime., I think this was the best choice for me and I would get to work better without having any worries and besides I never liked TCC principal anyway.

So I'm reassigned and works for me

Going forward now., Upon my reassignment , I was put on  a medical screening for the new "principal" . And since this will be a different one , the medical clinic as well will be different. The Medical Clinic assigned to me now is Nordic Medical Clinic ., Located near my employers office , just two blocks away.

SOME SIDE NEWS

September 14, 2019 Saturday SOME SIDE NEWS

While I was awaiting for any call coming from my employer , for the moment to be sent to the assigned ship and for the plane ticket to arrive. I went to take care of some of a  few side agenda's while I was in wait.

One of this is to make a financial loan from a lending company, to make up for some bad debts - not on my side but on my sisters. I was never in agreement with my sisters plans and only accepted it reluctantly to make a loan in the condition that I could ask for some of the funds borrowed , for me to use to purchase videogames. My sisters debts in the first place has nothing to do with at all and I was only asked to help out. Unfortunately my loan request was turned down by the lending company, they did not disclose the reasons why but it was evident that if I wanted some financial help - it will not be on their lending company.

Another side agenda that happened recently is that , an infamously known figure in the maritime community here in the Philippines is making again trouble to a small pro-workers group on Facebook social media. The trouble began when Nelson Ramirez Groups (UFS) claims victory over an issue on which a Government Maritime Agency policy was repealed, They claim it was their efforts that made it possible when in reality it wasn’t. It turns out another group was responsible on that effort and Nelson Ramirez was just riding along , and did nothing but take pictures to make it look like they had something to do with it. Nelson Ramirez made no hesitation in attacking the said group by posting negative statements via Facebook

Although it is none of my business to intervene in their quarrel , I did have a vendetta over Nelson Ramirez (the infamously known figure) over the incident that nearly had me blacklisted from being a seafarer four years ago. Thus in that reason I intervene and sided  with the leftist pro-workers group "SMP" (Samahan ng Marinong Pilipino)., I leaked to that group, mug shot pictures of Nelson Ramirez when he was arrested and put to jail over charges of "Cyber Libel" , so that the group could use it as a counter propaganda in Facebook on their part against Nelson Ramirez. 

Immediately as soon as I gave the pictures, the leftist group issued a statement countering Nelson Ramirez black propaganda against them., and stated that "Nelson Ramirez has been jailed before over this matter and was only released via  posting bailed over charges of cyber libel" . I also posted comments on their Facebook page, Ridiculing and Insulting Nelson Ramirez and also made accusations on Nelson Ramirez Anti-Filipino/ Anti-worker activities . I was one of the harshest critics against Nelson Ramirez on that Facebook page and was determined to let everyone know on how crooked he is , that he puts up an act being a labor union leader when in fact he was a company man. 

On my end aside from having a personal vendetta over Nelson Ramirez , the reasons why I made an intervention was that I figured that he may be a good "buffet" over leftist communist labor groups , and that I wanted to see on what will be the results of the confrontation of if ever Nelson Ramirez and UFS would have a full blown clash to a group that is loosely associated with leftist antigovernment communist groups. I'd like to see (if ever that happens) on how destructive their skirmishes will be (both in social media and actual live confrontation)