OFFICIALLY THREE MONTHS

This day marks my 3rd month onboard this ship. I had been for 3 months without any cash advance, no shore leave and no official job order. Most of the time I think, things are equally grim for me and that my stay and existence here are uncertain. There threat of bullying and harassment is ever constant and the same goes also on being fired on the spot and ruining the whole career.

If this was just a land base job , I could easily solve the problems here of bullying and harassment from pump man carnaje by simply going AWOL and let them figure out the rest, on top of that the whole career as an employee will not be ruined. Unfortunately no matter how I wish that would be the case, the situation I'm here at the moment is problematic and persistent. For now my stress , depression and anxiety levels are quiet high, So high that it affects me on my day to day activities and compounded with harassment and bullying of Pump man Carnaje.  I though earlier that things would be stable now and beyond but it proved me wrong that as long as "job orders" are not secured for the next 5 months , Stability and existence here will always be under constant threat.

Currently tensions flare up again , although this time it's in directed at me. Apparently Pumpman Carnajme is pressuring O.S. Dalida to leave me behind and stop giving job orders. This came when , A.B. Jun told and snitched us to Pump man Carnaje that the paint used in painting the chain was "hard top" type.,  This was false accusation and O.S. Dalida himself opened the can of paint and the paint used was never "hardtop" type . In any case the conversation dragged on until I was brought on the subject ,  About my presence in assisting O.S. Dalida on work. I never said a word on what I overheard, and let O.S. dalida decide on his own on what he views in this matter. The only I care of at that moment was that I have 2 and a half months left before , I submit my "early vacation leave" and four months the least to get the fuck off on this ship.

I ignored them and just proceeded to painting the fire isolation valve, unintentionally I mistook painting the foam valve., Good thing at that moment O.S. Dalida returned and said that I was painting the wrong valve and immediately corrected my mistake before going back to his previous work.

 I spent the whole day painting the said fire isolation valve. And was thinking that again I'm alone and will have deal with my situation single handedly.

MAKING STATEMENTS

The anti dehydration meds , i brought along on my luggage really proved its worth in the hot and humid temperature of singapore. Probably I'd be carrying this regularly to prevent dehydration on work.

As expected , The crew of this ship went on to a working treadmill by the time it reached Singapore and for me as being a "regular" crew was already up doing work as early as 5am by preparing and rigging the gangway accommodation ladder and Pilot ladder. Thankfully the weather in Singapore in the morning is not that hot as expected, in fact it's quite a bit cool .

Soon as the Pilot embarked and this ship went on anchorage, This ship was approached by numerous supply ships for provision and stores , plus some other ships for bunker and ships carrying spare oil.  I was literary on the work schedule from 5 am till 11pm late at night doing various stuff ranging from assisting on the provisions till all the way in assisting the mooring operations for the bunker ships. I stop once in a while to take meals and change coveralls.

The temperature of Singapore rose to uncomfortable level starting from 9am all the way to probably 8pm at night. The Anti-dehydration meds I brought along on this trip (and stored on my luggage) really proved its worth against the blazing humid temperature and made the stay on the outside weather tolerable. As a standard practice against heat and humidity , I wore my coveralls wet.

During mooring operations there was once an incident were our heaving line snapped.,  and apparently O.S. Alvin didn’t informed me that we were already heaving 2 mooring ropes at the same time , which our heaving line cannot support that kind of weight. I was unaware of this because I was the one operating the winch and couldn’t see very well plus to add more I was a bit far distanced. When the heaving line snapped , everyone working on the deck area saw it., as for me I was stupefied that the line had snapped.  Seeing what happened the whole crew working on decked immediately helped us out in pulling the mooring rope of the bunker ship manually and didn’t use the winch , fearing that another heaving line might snapped.

As soon as the mooring were in placed on the bollard. O.S. Alvin approached me , trying to wash his hands on the incident and finding a scape goat said to me and asked if I was pulling the heaving line on the winch rashly. I replied that I wasn't and was only pulling the winch slowly and taking orders via his hand gesture. After that reply I just went silent and never bother to listen to his blaming comments. The next few work that I went was annoying having O.S. Alvin around making rude statements to me if I didn’t get the job right, I just kept my mouth shut to avoid trouble but keep the tabs of his rudeness. As soon as I finished the job , I ditched him and moved on to the next.

The last work I did in the afternoon was cleaning the garbage room, and just used a mode to clean those huge garbage bins since "washing" with a water hose is impossible because this ship is still at anchorage area. I tried to get bleach from mess man to get rid of the smell but I could find him , so I just used a typical soap and water ingredient to clean those bins.  After that work I rest for probably a few hours , then I was called back again by around 10pm or 11pm to assist on the engine crew in the unmooring of another bunker vessel.

By around 4.45am the following morning another phone call came on my cabin and instructing me to help rig the gangway and pilot ladder on both sides of the ship, the pilot came and after an hour left and disembarked on this ship. I was out once more and from that time and was busy securing both gangway access ladder and pilot ladder until 7 in the morning. It didn’t took me awhile in securing It since it's me and only O.S. Dalida was around.

I guess one scary thing I did after securing the pilot ladder , and was securing the transfer bag at that time was that I was grumbling and making comments about a crew member stating that "he only knows how to act like a bully in the workplace, but if you look closely on his work ., its full of crew ups" . O.S. dalida overheard what I was grumbling and said "PSST !!!" to shut me up., To my surprise O.S. Alvin was behind my back and I'm not sure if he overheard my statement . (good thing for me I never mentioned any name, although I was actually pointing out both Pumpman Carnaje and O.S. Alvin) . He joined us briefly in securing the transfer bag then immediately left.

O.S. Dalida was giggling with laughter thinking that I was making a comment about O.S. Alvin ., But I vehemently denied it and said I was pointing out Pumpman Carnaje (although deep inside I knew he was half right). Somehow ,and for some reason O.S. Dalida is more interested in people having conflicts and chaos onboard, and he might think I'm adding more fuel to the hostility between me and pump man, He might even think that I'm joining his side over his quarrels with O.S. Alvin and A.B. Jun. ., Honestly I'm not getting myself dragged in on their hostilities and as far as I'm concerned an alliance with O.S. Dalida is just out of practicality and not on mutual trust., I won't let myself get dragged on in their hostilities . I would have trusted O.S. Dalida before but after A.B. Jun and O.S. Alvin told me and exposed that he was playing both sides and inciting another fist fight between me and Pumpman Cranje, I stopped short of trusting him and distance myself back .

I'm already here for almost three months and I'm still using the same old cotton gloves that was issued to me months ago (3 months ago) good thing these gloves are washable of else i'd have nothing to use while on work. This principal really has issues on how "regular" they supply PPE's on their crew.

BETTER THEM, NOT US

As this ship gets closer to Singapore, the weather gets hotter and hotter as it closes. So probably I'd be preparing my Anti-Heat Tactics once again and see how I fare well on this kind of weather , besides as far as I know this ship won't be staying long. It's going only for Singapore for provisioning and bunkering.

For the Job order today , I'm basically just tagging along with O.S. Dalida and the   general work now is washing the deck.

While doing this work there was once incident of a screw up when O.S. alvin along with A.B. Jun ,Opened the the water line used for the sprinkler in the Bosun Store , instead of the main water hydrant, as a result the whole Bosun Store got flooded with seawater. It was only found out when the third mate , radioed in and said that there's a bilge alarm on the Forward Bosun store area . Pumpman Carnaje immediately check which valves were opened and saw that indeed the sprinkler's for the Bosun store was opened and immediately shut down the valves. All three of them when inside the Bosun Store to confirm if it was flooded and it was. Soon cheifmate Merk  came and went inside to confirm it as well and left soon after.

Me and O.S. Dalida were just nearby and was basically scrubbing the deck area to get rid of the Seagull crap. We saw them  removing water , bucket to bucket first then later they used a wilden pump to remove all the excess water. Me and O.S. Dalida were thankful that we were not the ones who screwed up or else it’s a lot of trouble and will add more to the problem I have onboard.  It’s a bad thing to say but given on how bad the work reputation here of our co-workers are , I could say that "It's better them and not us".

After Coffee Break, O.S. Dalida told me that . Pumpman Carnaje simply made an excuse about the incident "all people make mistake"., But O.S. dalida just smirked the said comment and said "Yeah all people make mistakes but , If either both us made that kind of mistake, I'm sure that the only thing missing is that they forsake and curse us all to hell, ". He added that people like them "like to wash hands and pretend they themselves to be cleaned".

O.S. Dalida said that after the incident Pumpman Cranaje looking for someone to duke out his frustration , and said criticized him for working always in close proximity with me. O.S. dalida was definitely pissed about this , since its none of his business to be meddling on other peoples work and that Pump man Carnaje should mind his own. I just silent and listen to the whole of O.S. Dalida's grumbling. For me, I'm thankful  that it was not us who was involve on the screw up and I'm more than grateful because of it. 

As long as it's them and not us, its fine with me.

We proceeded on the whole day work removing all that bird crap on deck and later switch in using fresh water in cleaning the whole deck area ., Good thing it rained on that day and saved us most of the trouble in washing a huge deck area of this ship.

OUT OF POSITION

Since I'm officially don’t have an job order's since the incident., I just typically tag along with O.S. Dalida and assist him in any work he does., Unofficially I do get job orders from Chief Mate Merk ., but those job orders are unreliable, inaccurate and could change anytime depending on the situation - so I just only use it as a reference.

Such example was the job order meant for today , which Merk told me to paint the bottom area of the Pump room. On that morning I decided not to tag along with O.S. Dalida to proceed on his job order., later I found out via O.S. Alvin, while preparing the grey paint, that painting was not the job order meant to be done today coming from the other chief mate (there are two chief mate here onboard) and that it was just basically cleaning the whole pump room and other areas. I immediately halted my work and proceeded in finding O.S. dalida but I couldn’t find him and was immediately worried (and feared) that I have nothing to do for work and was all alone., It’s a good thing and by stroke of luck that I decided for myself that I should clean and rearrange the whole paint room as a filler time until I find O.S. Dalida., I was left there all alone for about an hour cleaning the paint room and tried not to be noticed that I had nothing to do. I located O.S. dalida after an hour and a half when he left his squeezer equipment at the front entrance of the accommodation and he was taking a leak on the toilet. After his leak on the toilet,  I immediately rejoined him on his work.

The thing I'm most annoyed , about O.S. dalida is that he keeps asking questions on why I immediately rejoined him like its a big deal or something and I had to answer them indirectly to cover up my "out of position" job order. Personally I don’t like people who ask a lot of questions especially question asked that are sensitive and too private, or would put me in a problematic position. I don’t like him snooping around on my own personal business., Honestly the only reason why I had to cooperate with him was the fact that I had no other choice but to tag along him for the job orders., Anything beyond that , I could just simply ignore him and he just a nuisance on my day to day activates. Its true that I don’t I like him , but I do need him for work. Our alliance is simply just made out of practicality nothing more and certainly not on mutual trust.

Anyway what matters is that I've made thru the day without any incidents

PROBLEM WITH LIVING / WORKING CONDITIONS

Titled "Two Minutes till Midnight" . Picture depicts a public swearing ceremony for enlistment in the Greater Terran Union Armed Forces 

Its been years since I had changed my wall paper and background on my computer , and now I guess is the time I changed it to a more abstract painting. Before I used the Painting type of wallpaper I got (or copied) from a computer game called "Civilization 5" . Now I changed it and copied the artwork from a fan made faction from a computer game called "Stellaris" (another strategy type of game by the way). Id, post it here on my blog the wall papers.

Anyway …

I'm writing about now about my situation here, and standard of living conditions and I could pretty much concluded that my situation here has similarities on what happened to me back in the "Eagle Boston" incident way back 2016. Here the only notable difference is that this ship is new and that I'd had been on constant at odd's which a shitty crew member called Pump man Carnaje. Beyond that I could say that living / working conditions here are not pleasant. First I would mention here is the food here is insufficient , to the point that I'm technically losing weight as of the moment while writing this - its possible that maybe after this contract I would be a "slim" again because of food shortages.

There is the problem on food not because of the chief cooks skills , but the supply given by this "Hartree" principal (he owner of this ship). The do give the "regular" three meals a day but anything beyond that is zero, So basically I mostly end up feeling hungry every early morning or sometimes in other cases , late at night. There is also another option called the "Bond Store" were I had to pay some food as a supplement to my nutrition needs, but unfortunately here on this ship they don’t regularly resupply it and was always basically empty. The only thing left in the bond store is basically cola which not very good for nutrition. There's another option which I could get food once this ship gets to land and have a shore leave there I could buy from the local food store, even a local convenient store is invaluable on this situation, but unfortunately this ship is a VLCC type and most likely given on its nature of operations , there almost no possibility that this ship will berth at port anytime soon or even if it does - there's no guarantee that it will provide shore leave to crew. To compound more of the problems with this option is that for some reason this ship does not given "Cash Advance" of any kind - meaning they don’t cash to crew at all which would be used to purchase items from a food store,

So basically my situation here is totally fucked up with no way of getting any supplementary food for my nutrition, and I have no choice but totally endure this situation for another 4 months (the least, worst is 5 to 6 months). In just hope I still have meat on my bones left on that time.

Another problem plaguing this ship (and principal) is the regular supply of PPE and working equipment. Every company has in mind to keep their expenses at a minimum level or probably very low , but to the point that regular issuing of PPE and working equipment is jeopardize - I don’t think it’s a good idea. For example working glove here are not issued regularly and that I'm stuck with only four pairs of cotton gloves for three months now (and still ongoing). I had to rewash that gloves regularly as to keep it clean, which in normal practice shouldn’t be because working gloves , in particular cotton gloves are meant as disposable PPE and shouldn’t be reused. It’s a good thing that I had extra working equipment brought along with me when I arrived here to supplement my working needs.  

Land force Command (Army) of Greater Terran Union 

BEEF UP SECURITY

Now that im back again on my cabin after nearly four days of stay at the ship's hospital due to the lack of room. I have now started to optimize and compact my belongings to my luggage for a much easier "pack and go" type of strategy, besides it would be beneficial to me to do this , in the sense that moving stuff around takes a lot of time, which exactly happened to me the last time when they suddenly told me to vacate my room and move to the ships hospital temporarily. So cleaning and being a pack rat won't hurt once in a while, Aside from that I'm doing this out of necessity.

Another thing why I'm doing this is also for security measure to prevent any information or hint on what I'm up to , especially what O.S. Dalida is always frequently visiting my room probably to spy and check on what I'm doing, plus get information on what I'm thinking so he can leak. I've already made a solution and counter tactic on the part of "what I'm thinking" by simply being secretive and mindful of my words. Now on the part of "what I'm doing" , That what I'm trying to solve so he can't figure it out. My best assumption and tactic is that its best he does not see anything laying around on my cabin and better keep it just inside my luggage., the lesser he sees (or seen nothing at all) will be better

I'm tiding up my cabin , not because of the pursuit of cleanliness or any other "goody too shoes" idea but because of the pragmatic belief of being defensive and security.

Of course I could just tell O.S. Dalida, that he should stop visiting my cabin frequently and bar him altogether , but that raises problem of him suspecting that I'm already have leads and as far as I know O.S. dalida is not that stupid. So definitely that is out of the option., (Unless I want to bring out another enemy on this ship). 

In other news …

Cleanup work in the pump room is finally over after a couple of days. We had to haul off tons of garbage bag off the area by using a crane, even the equipment we brought in the pump room had be brought out using a crane., Afterwards once in the deck area , we had to clean those equipment using diesel.

Once cleaned , we had to go back again in the pump room to wipe the floor area again, this time using a thinner chemical (JOTUN Thinner #10). Its assumed that were wiping the floor area to repaint it with a gray color paint.

PUMP ROOM LEAK OPERATIONS

During the discharge operations, a work incident happened were the Pump room was flooded with oil coming from a defective cargo pump. The whole oil leak was not a problem but it got complicated when excess water from the ballast got mixed up and added to the flooding in the pump. If the flooding was only just Oil then the whole mess would just be isolated and controlled.

Having a mix of oil and water going around on the bowels of the Pump room, made the problem complicated and out of just bad luck , the vetting inspector went inside the Pump room in the middle of us cleaning the said spill . For now its no my problem on what will be Vetting inspectors remarks (but for them , its their problem) . Most of my time during discharge operations was spent cleaning up the oil mess , I did clean a significant area , but since the oil had spread to a very large floor area of the Pump room , it would be impossible for me to clean this alone.

Then on the last days of the discharge operations (took three whole days) ., when the leak was nearly cleaned and about 3/4 of the whole floor area was cleaned , Disaster struck once again as there another ballast water spill again and flooded once more the bottom area of the pump room - Basically starting again back to scratch in cleaning the whole area.

As soon as the ship went unmoored from the SBM and went on a voyage again , work resumed in the cleanup. When I got there the following day , the water has already been drained and the only thing left was the film of sludge. The probably have used an "eductor' from the bilge to remove all the water along most of the oil floating around.

Clean up work is still ongoing up to now , and I'm expecting that this will keep me busy for a couple of days.

The whole floor area of the Pump room is littered with sludge oil

A SNITCH IS AMONG US

As I went back to my working shift during operations , I saw A.B. Jun on the manifold , he says that O.S. "Alvin" is in the forward area and babysitting the mooring buoy. He told me that I should be careful with O.S. dalida for being a backstabber, (in other words a "Snitch") and he revealed that there were two incidents on work were backstabbing occurred, One incident was while cleaning the said "bilge" pipe inside the Pump room on which the sensor was accidentally trip or triggered  ,

Apparently he reported me to chief officer "merk" , aside from that he used me as his scape goat and me taking all the blame. Honestly I can't exactly recall on that incident, nor I can't recall specifically that I myself was the cause on why the sensors was tripped. On my point of view I was simply cleaning the bilge thoroughly and was keeping it dry. In addition to what A.B. "Jun" told me , there is another separate incident also in the Pump room were apparently he reported to Pumpman Carnaje about my activities and included an insult that I do not know "How to mix paint" .,

The latter that A.B. Jun told me raised my alarms, as I know the whole incident well and that during that day., me and O.S. Dalida was doing fine on work , and I didn’t suspect him of snitching me at that moment on the fact that I was just doing my job and finished it well with no incident whatsoever, I'm not even acting aggressively or O.S. Dalida acting suspicious on that time . So it’s a surprise to me on what A.B. "Jun" Revealed. Another revelation that A.B. "Jun" told me was that, he is insinuating a renewed conflict between me and Pump man Carnaje and was more anxious and looking forward in a violent confrontation. Either way its apparent and clear that O.S. Dalida betrayed me and that I trusted the wrong person.  This troubling reports and revelation cannot be overlooked, and that I should watch my back often from now on and do not disclose any information that might lead to me being put on a problematic situation. Of course I'd act subtle , so that O.S. Dalida will not suspect that I'm counter acting. Besides this situation has already been a "cloak and dagger stuff" - and I'm not the one who started it.

Historically and by practice., Filipino Sailors have been notoriously known for betrayals and treachery. Such examples of it is that they intentionally give away information about somebody, and this O.S. Dalida is not above of this such examples and that his actions against me are a proof of that. This is also one main reasons why on work I do not reveal any personal information, and that if by no other choice or option is available., I only give half-truths or give false information for my personal protection. I keep a personal policy of "Protection of anonymity". If I didn’t practice this policy then I could point myself in harm's way unknowingly. 

Looks like for me things have went on an unexpected turn and that on this ship , I simply cannot trust anyone regarding about information and I'm all alone and surrounded by betrayals and snitches all over. Anyway the good thing I'm already accustomed on this "cloak and dagger Stuff' since time in memorial as a seafarer., 

PLAYING SWITZERLAND

Believe it or not New year's Eve here was spent on work and being on "standby" ., because of vetting inspections. A few hours later then came the discharge operations. It’s a good thing that discharge operations of this ship for now in South Korea is via SBM., So basically there's not much to prepare on mooring wires (In fact none at all) . When we were preparing for the pilot ladder and gangway accommodation ladder , A.B. "Noel" Approached me and said to me that my cabin should be vacated immediately for the incoming visitors of this ship (referring to the Korean mooring team , and surveyors). I told "noel" that as soon as I'm finished on work, I'd get my stuff out of my cabin, in addition I asked "noel" were will I stay for the time being ? , A.B. paused for a few minutes and didn’t know how to reply to my question and radioed back to bridge. A minute later a reply was given that I would be put to stay on the ships hospital for the time being, until the discharge operation of the ship is over.

As soon as I was finished I immediately went to my cabin in haste and grabbed everything I could carry from my belongs and put them on the nearby Ship hospital room. It didn’t took me long to pack all my stuff and transfer it. As soon as I was finished I went out again for the mooring operations

During Mooring operations in the forward area, O.S. Dalida and O.S. "Alvin" had a heated conversation about the winch operation. I just stayed out of their way and played Switzerland in their argument, I don’t want to get dragged down on other people's business especially heated arguments. They were having such a heated argument that even the Korean mooring master got their attention and had to yell to O.S. Dalida to focus in operating the winch rather than chatting with O.S. Alvin.

After mooring in the forward section is finished , I was ordered by Chief Mate "Merk" , to be the watchman on the bouy at the forward section. After my few hour long watch I was relieved by O.S. Dalida on noon time in the forward area. When I was on the starboard side section in the accommodation block. I saw A.B. "jun" , O.S. "Alvin" and A.B. "chris" talking to each other apparently from what I notcied they were still brooding over the mooring incident. As I passed by they said to me and told that I should be careful in hanging out with O.S. Dalida as he has a tendency for betrayal and has an attitude in backstabbing people around him. I was puzzled on what they said and just proceeded to my routine after work to rest and have a hot shower to warm myself from the freezing weather of south Korea.

Inside the ship hospital (where I temporarily stay), I immediately sorted out my belongings and compacted them on my luggage. So I could easily be more mobile in moving my stuff, when I go back to my cabin after this operation. After the hot shower , I just dried myself and slept to the hospital bed since it was the only bed around the room. As I lay I looked more like a sick patient rather than just simply taking a nap , but thankfully the hospital bed seemed to be more comfortable.  

My whole stuff just got transferred to the hospital room on the last minute 

UNINTERESTING NEW YEAR

"Your born , you live and you die, you cannot undo all this. No second chances to make things right if you Fuck up the first time - not in this lifetime anyway" "like i said you make your own choice and you live with them and in the end you are those choices"

All is well for now at the turn of the year 2020, but to my disappointment the new year's celebration here on this ship is desolate and empty compared on last year with TCC. Probably because of too much "budget constrictions" this principal has to impose , it's hindering so much that provisions itself were a problem. Aside from that problem , the adding factor is that the crew here are fractious and had no sense of unity. In any case although New year's eve celebration was dismaying , I'm hopeful that new year would be grand and fun on another ship and definitely not "Hartree" principal nor any of their ships.

As far as I can tell this experiment contract I went on "Hartree" is a big failure. Both in their crew welfare , and working environment. Pretty obvious that this will be the first and last contract I will have with them, no more other contracts slated for "hartree" or any of their ships and I will not even dare venture again on another VLCC kind of ship. For me I'd stick with the aframax type and below (better if not best if it’s a panama sized) .

Believe it or not New year's Eve here was spent on work and being on "standby" ., because of vetting inspections. 

(Incidentally this is also my 401st entry on my blog journal)