A MONTH LESS TO WORRY

On the recent safety meeting , it was told that the berthing would be SBM type. Much to my relief and it saves me the trouble of dragging all those mooring wires from the remaining winches. Another news also came in the safety meeting that no crew change will be conducted on its discharge port in somewhere in china and if there's going to be a crew change it will be after it and probably singapore - which meant that I won't be getting rid of "Merk" anytime soon or at least till end of next month, on the plus side despite of this setback is that at least there's a secure "job orders" for me till end of February - so it leaves me for a month on figure out on where to get Job orders after merk has been disposed of.

Merk's "disposal" is important for me on the fact that it would be best he is not around when I submit my "early vacation leave request" by April, because I don’t want any leaked information circulating around plus I wanted it to be "low key and silent" . In fact I had already selected a day in April on which I will submit that EVL request.

Aside from Pump man, I consider merk as the next threat around. Fortunately for me he hasn’t tagged me yet to be hostile.

In other news …

The other Bulgarian chief mate and Second Engineer (Filipino nationality) disembarked in Saudi Arabia, Honestly I didn’t know there was a crew change here in this country. When I saw them go down and board on that supply boat , I can help but be envious on it and wonder on how long I had to endure this ship till I get that boat and go back home to start anew.  Good thing by next week it will be February , which meant a month less for me to worry on the remain time of my contract here. Let's hope that for me the replacements won't be in any way a threat for me or be hostile in general.

FINISHED CABLE WIRES

After a couple of days working with and assisting electrician on his work in laying out a cable wire, it was finally over, not all that is left is securing those equipment and tools that were left behind on the work.

During the securing of the wire, AB. "Chirs" was blabbering something negative about Pumpman Carnaje, about him being a loafer and that all he does on work was talk and chat , and complain on work. He added that he gets paid on work just to be lazy. A.B. "Chris" asked if I agree on this. Knowing full well that I can't trust anyone here on this ship and that whatever thoughts I have must be kept only to myself. I just simply replied to him "No Comment" . As much as I can figure is that this is the best answer and reply I could make , and that I should not let anyone know what are the thoughts going on inside my head - whether its positive or negative, it's too much of a risk .

Deep inside my head , I do agree on his comments about Pump Man Carnaje. All he does as far as I can see is that he's a lazy prick and just talks around on work , and his talks are mostly made up of trashy complains . Another half of my thinking is basically the "I don’t care" attitude, It's none of my concern as far as I know on what he does , whether him being a lazy prick and all. My mindset and focus at the moment is trying to finish this contract as soon as possible in any way or manner that I can and necessary steps should be taken to ensure this. All other info's not related to this mindset is just annoyance and a drag. So whatever A.B. Chris thinks about Pumpman Carnaje is just clutter for me,  

Aside from that as I have mentioned earlier , I have trust issues over the entire crew here. I can't trust them on any kind of information and its best I just keep my mouth shut and keep it to myself - it's safer that way. I already made a mistake in trusting O.S. Dalida here before and some of the crew, I'm not going to make that mistake again.

Finally for me it's already the 24th of January and it's still almost half way from my main objective of getting the fuck out of this ship. I still have at least 2 to 3 month more left to endure before I could pass my "Early Vacation Letter" and I have to hold off until that time comes. 

In other news

For now the news on my work place is that , I'm suspecting that arrival on Saudi Arabia will be soon and that the crew have already made preparations on the usual routine equipment. I suspect as well that probably it will be "berthing upon arrival" kind of berth.  Although I still haven't saw them lay out the mooring wires on the mooring winches.

SUDDEN DRILL

Really gets tiring having to try to wake up early morning just to get job orders, as in really early like 2am - but like I said I had no other choice on my situation, I'd manage , I have to manage my predicament.

Lately I had been still doing regular maintenance work as what it is said on the job orders. In the morning me and O.S. Dalida had to remove canvass covers for mooring winches in preparation for arrival in Saudi Arabia. Now these canvasses haven't been removed from the mooring winches for some time now and may indicate that probably by the time this ship berths there it will not be via SBM.

After the removal of canvasses , my work then again got side track awhile as I helped again O.S. Dalida on some work in the Pump room. He wasn't that useful when it comes to getting some item needed for work and had me do all the work in the pump room while he just went upstairs and basically do unessential work. In any case what do I expect from a double dealing rat like him.

By the late afternoon while I was cleaning the whole aft area of the ship., O.S. Dalida suddenly inform me that there will be a drill at around 3.30pm and the sudden announcement of info had me hurriedly securing all the working equipment. I was in a hurry so much that I didn't even bother to clean up the mop and the rest of my equipment I just simply opened the door on the cleaning gear room and dumped all the equipment I'm using.

The "space" in between ceilings , incidentally the whole cable wire connection runs directly above my cabin and electrician had to make a hole above my room to run and re arrange those cables

The following morning.

I did the usual morning wake up to get my job orders and was told that I should assist electrician for his cable wire connections on the ships sensor. The job wasn’t a big deal until on the later part. I even had to go on the narrow spaces in the cabin ceiling just to re arrange those cables.  Actually this is a pretty easy job and got only complicated when we had to put those cable inside those steel pipes , apparently those steel pipes did have any hatches around at the top and we had to insert those cables from one end to another which span about at least more than 25 to 35 meters across.

yeah right , thanks for the reminder , but before that try to look up on crew welfare first 

CABIN SEARCH IN SAGA

To add humor and laugh on my personal side of things , i shall name this "GOODBYE HUNTER SAGA KIT" , and i also wrote the reason why i made this kit on the first place . Can't imagine that i lasted months on this kind of arduous situation  hehehe

As I continue to live and struggle by on a "day to day" basis given of my predicament. I had been making a lot of future plans , some of which are probably will be helpful on a long term basis. I had been planning on expanding some equipment that I will use on the civilian life once this seafaring career is over in a few year's time. Maybe because I wanted a smooth transition from an OFW style of lifestyle to a more civilian land base kind, I don’t want to get caught having a difficult position of starting all over again - So I had to advance at least the equipment I will be using in a few years time ahead.

As an added humor , I went to pack a set of clothes and named it "Goodbye HUNTER Saga kit" ., which I will  wear for disembarkation , when the time comes.

For now on work , I had to do the usual maintenance kind of work although having a job order (and getting one) is the most difficult part of the day. For now I'm left cleaning stains off on the ship fish blake.

After work , I'm left to do whatever I want which mostly ends up me playing video games on the PC , or just surfing and checking out my social media account or probably just routinely cleaning up my personal working equipment. Speaking of which as for today I was basically playing a video game on the PC , when Merk knocked to my cabin door and said I need to go to the crew recreation room and that the crew were having a sort of meeting.

when i went there I found out what the meeting was all along , turns out that the basketball ball they bought on Singapore turns out to be missing and they had no idea who took it, everyone was so busy during that day that nobody check it and was only later found to be missing. The discussion dragged on and led to doing a cabin search for each Filipino crew member , (including my cabin) but the ball wasn’t found, during the search nobody on the recreation room was allowed to leave and was just called one by one when their cabins were being search (to serve as witness) . They suspect either the Indian chief engineer took it or sabotage it and thrown it over board.

During the search I was worried on the cabin search not because of the basketball ball , but because of something else and they might found out that the missing headlight months ago would be found on my luggage. Fortunately for me , the headlight was inside on one of my pouch bags and was not carelessly inside on my luggage - so they didn’t notice.  After the search I immediately went to my cabin and locked the door and put "Loctite" super glue on the zipper of my pouch to permanently seal it and that nobody can open it in case somebody tried out of curiosity to open it.  I won't bother to open the pouch until I get back home and safe and sound in manila.

They found nothing on my cabin and even opened my luggage for them as part of a quasi "transparency" thing , although deep inside I was fearful and distressed that they might find something odd.

Honestly never in my life have I experienced this so called "cabin search" and even searched for my luggage. In fact this is the first time in my years as a sailor and this bad experience will definitely add more to the negative opinion I have on this so called "hartree" principal. Anyway I'm not here to stay any longer than necessary on this principal. 

MORNING UNEASINESS

Every time I wake up in the morning , it is usually filled with dread and anxiety probably because I have to get job orders from the chief mate (Merk to be specific). Usually I don’t do this at all , but on this time my situation ( and the first ever) is very different. Not even the conflicts I had been on "Cape Tallin" can ever scope this, I had problems on the incident "Cape Tallin" but it didn’t amount that my job orders would be suspended or affected compared to this one.  In anycase , I don’t have any choice but to manage my situation and at least hold long enough until the month of April for me to send an "Early Vacation request"

This is the number one cost of my anxiety right now, and I think it won't away until the unpleasantness is removed.

I really hate this feeling of anxiety and dread every morning.

In relation to this ….

Looks like chief mate merk has changed schedules now and is now working on the 12 to 4 time schedule. I just recently found out when I went 5am early in the morning and saw that it wasn’t merk at the bridge but it was the other Bulgarian chief mate., He told me that merk changed schedules until this ship arrives in Saudi Arabia. 

In other news ……

Took only 30 minutes of my time to finish the remaining task to clean up the life boat and Chief mate merk had me to redo some of my work to finish of that stains , anyway I'm glad I had finished the task and now moving on to the next. For the next two days I was doing none essential maintenance work , most was a light job of cleaning drip trays and removing some oily black stains of on the "fish plate" area on the ships side.

I also found out some info (from O.S. Dalida) that Chief Mate "Merk" will soon be replaced by some Russian Chiefmate. This news was on my feeling a mix of relief and "What will I do next". Relief in the sense that once "Merk" is gone , Pumpmans Carnaje's aggressiveness on bullying and harassment will  be expected to be toning down or at least he will be thinking twice before making any aggressive action. Without Merks protection , he's probably going to be careful in his moves and having a "neutral" chief mate will definitely even out the odds for me. (Apparently Pumpman Carnaje and Chiefmate Merk are really close , so close that I suspect he is also behind and responsible for my miserable situation right now and that they are ganging me up )

On the "What will I do next" part., this is the part where I have to think a lot because job orders that I got came from Merk and without him , I left on which chieft mate will I get the job orders next . This is basically a win all or lose all situation for me , on the part that I'm not sure if the new incoming chief mate will still give me job orders or just throw me back and left me leaving to find job orders. If he does accept giving me job orders then I can at least get reassured that stable work will be at least until april - enough time for me to send an early vacation leave request , for me to leave this ship by month of May.

THE TWO LIFEBOATS

Still got two and a month's half left before I sent my "early vacation" request and from that time and before , I have to hold on and do as much as I can to last. My situation have been getting grim lately on the fact that "Job orders" are getting scarcer each day that pass. Pump man Carnaje made sure of that, and doing the best he can to lock me out and starve me out. Personally I shouldn't have listened to the so called "Filipino to Filipino talk" last December and instead would have opted to seek help from a non-Filipino chief mate here and the terms will be much more fair.

For now there is nothing much I can do , because of the reality right now. As long as Pumpman Carnaje and Chief Mate "Merk" will not be eliminated., I will have to live out the rest of my days in tyranny and oppression. They are the biggest Threats around here on this ship, these people from "Oslo" principal. The previous indian O.S. once said "they will have their day, and when that they comes. I hope they received the harshest and most severe punishment from the divine".

Anyway I shouldn't write more about them , because it upsets me more about my situation.

After days of chasing and having no luck on to talking about him on what my job orders are , I finally changed tactics and went looking for him in the very early morning. As in around 5am and I finally found him at the CCR. The job order that was given was to clean the two lifeboats. I immediately made preparations on how to clean the said lifeboats and by around 8am started.  I did my best to clean the said life boat and scrubbed every nook and cranny as best as I could using soap even the stains that were too difficult to remove, (I wasn’t able to successfully remove it but did greatly reduced it). At around in the late afternoon and after cleaning it throughly , Chiefmate merk checked the port side life boat area and said doubtfully "Did you really clean, the lifeboats ? Because it's still dirty inside" and pointed on the small spot on the footsteps area and ignored the whole area of the lifeboat that was cleaned , I replied " I did sir and those were the stains that I had difficulty in removing" . He said "you should have used thinner on these stains" and made a dissatisfied look , he even added that I shouldn’t  have taken a lot of time in cleaning this lifeboats. I said kindly ," Sir its ok , I could go back and clean this spot with a thinner" . He replied "Never mind , it will take too much time" and left with a smirk on his face, dissatisfied.

It hit me at that moment and think that this person is another one of those perfectionist bastards and no matter how much effort you put on work , these kind of people will, by the end of the day still think that your dirt and your efforts are just a waste.

Bah ! Does he have any idea on how long it takes to scrub every nook and cranny of a single life boat ? Maybe he thinks I'm slopping around work and have no idea how difficult it is , Maybe he himself never even cleaned a life boat thoroughly and scrubbed it inch by inch with only soap and a very small adhesive pad on hand ? Pathetic ! I knew well this kind of people on my years as a sailor and as far as I know , Filipino's - our own kind are one of the worst bosses out there.

Anyway I have no other choice but to keep my head down given the circumstances and situation I have now. I have no other choice but to do this , no plans of arguing or even letting people know what I'm thinking inside - its better this way , The less they knew what's going on to my head , the less they'd suspect that I hate them and dislike them. besides all I can do for now is just simply buy time and enough for me to reach the month of April and May.

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