Much to my
dismay and disappointment , Saturdays and Sundays work off (rest day) have been
cancelled meaning that everyday is work day here - to make it even worse
overtime working hours pay has been reduced yet again from 85.5 hours to 54
hours. To simply say it situations onboard this ship have escalated further and
has gotten worse. Imagine more work and less pay, ( Anyway what do i expect
from a ship run by soviets eh ? No democracy and more of a dictatorship ) in
addition to the worse situation , Provision here are running very low - both on
equipment and on food. The bond store has been high and dry now, while on the
deck area the equipment there is insufficient , the stocks of paint have been
so low that only a few cans of paint are left. There is no paint thinner left
on the paint room as well.
December 07, 2013 Saturday
For the
moment half of my day on work was spent cleaning my cleaning station, wasn't an
easy job and wasn't easy at all now that there's no rest days available (for
now i hope) . The other half of the day was spent me painting some black
stripes over ramps , unfortunately it
suddenly rained and wasn't able to finish it , so instead i went to the
workshop room to grind some plastic bottles using the trash compactor.
Another
thing i might add for this day is that a new chief mate has just arrived to
replace our currently one who would be going home (for a vacation ), I don't
know his exact name yet but I'd get to look on that in the crew list on the
latter. All I could say for now is that the new chief mate is fairly young , as
in 29 years old (based on what i heard from mess man Ferdinand saying he's date
of birth is 1984). Hope that this chief mate is not an asshole.
Aside from
the new chief mate , a superintendent came along as well. As usual when an
upcoming vetting inspection is expected on this ship (and to any other ship's ,
CSM or not) a superintendent board this vessel to assist people (or at least
give tips) . Unfortunately Superintendents' are not good news , and usually
brings more burdens on any ship it visits , like for example my previous ship
and this one where Saturday and Sunday rest days are cancelled.
December 08, 2013 Sunday
As much as
i hate going to work on Sunday's , i have no other choice but to go along on
the flow of things. This morning I was surprised to see Electrician
"koba" to be in coveralls , puzzled i still went ahead in eating
break fast at the crew mess. A few minutes later when Pump man Liscano came, it
became clear to me what was it all about. Apparently from what i heard for him
(pump man) berthing will be this morning and this ship is just waiting for the
weather to clear up (weather this morning was rainy). It was bad news for me to
hear that berthing will come unannounced and only learned from it on the last
hour. Another bad news came when BOSUN Amican arrived and said to us in the
crew mess that there will be a cabin inspection today by the superintendent.
Double bad
news this morning, Upon hearing the two bad news. I hurriedly finished up my
breakfast and quickly went to my cabin to clean up, I hurried cleaned it up and
made sure that they wont discover anything on my cabin. After which then i went back again on the kitchen to take
soft drinks and mineral water and put some of it to the CCR and Bridge (as part
of my job description in handling the bond store)
When i came
out on work , weather wasn't really good and according to what i heard from
A.B. Homer that the weather is still being waited to clear up before commencing
to berth. We waited for an hour or two , then came in the announcement that
berthing is cancelled - For now. So in
the mean time were off again doing maintenance works, like processing garbage
and stuff like that . Food waste garbage as what i know is currently being
burned , as me and A.B. Homer are the one's who are taking it to the
incinerator machine, down at the engine room.
Aside from
that , rest of the day i was busy hiding from the superintendent and other
senior officers (Captain and two chief mate's ) as they conduct inspections on
the deck area. If they're in the port side area , i simply go away and do my
work on the opposite direction. I kept
moving a lot around the deck area just to simply not get caught up with the
ship officers, like a cat and mouse tactic.
Seriously I think hiding from them will do me no good and the
superintendent is here to at least help us up (or to the very least give us
tips) on the upcoming Vetting inspections, In other words it wont matter if i
crap up now rather than right in front of the vetting inspector.
Surprisingly
the work schedule for Sunday is only half day ( I expect it was whole day given
that the superintendent was around hovering like a helicopter ). At 3pm there was a meeting supposedly at the
CCR room but since a lot of people are hanging out on the crew mess, they
decided that a meeting should be held there rather than in the CCR. Anyway the meeting was all about what to do
in case of a vetting inspection, The practical Do's and Don'ts , like ISPS
thing etc. Nothing special really. Afterwards the meeting i asked O.S. Del
Monte if there was seriously a "cabin search" after this, he replied
that don't ever believe what BOSUN Amican says - its just all a big fat lie and he's just dickin around with
us.
Pretty much
relieved it was just a bad joke , otherwise i has to figure out better where i
had to hid all my stuff from prying eyes of this ship's crew and officers.
December 10, 2013 Tuesday
 |
| The power plant in Zouk Lebanon |
Heaving up
the anchor was no bid deal at all and was finished very quickly, we went back
to the accommodation to take a breakfast. Not exactly a full fledge break but a
quick meal knowing that mooring ops will soon follow and that the location of
the berthing port is very near - as so near that i can visually see it.
The trick
in being ready for work and at the same time having a meal is not to eat a huge
volume of food. small enough to keep me going in a few hours and not big enough
to restrict my movement.
I was
correct, a few minutes later. We were immediately put on a standby for mooring
operations. I hurriedly went to my mooring station (forward bow part of the
ship) and waited further instructions. It was unexpected that Chief mate was
the one who is leading this mooring operations on the forward part (usually its
3rd mate byron) but nevertheless I don't mind at all , i have been to too many
mooring operations already ever since i was a deck cadet - I'm used to that
kind of idea.
Mooring ops
was a bit different and somewhat similar to the mooring operations i had during
my stay in Bow Ophelia in iskendur , Turkey. Mooring Ops was about this ship
being moored on a Cargo Buoy floating in the sea. Anyway i now understand what
is the bow chain stopper used for, (located on the forward part of the
ship). The purpose of it was to hold the
chain of a large buoy which acts like some sort of function similar to a
mooring dolphin appliance commonly seen in any port facility.
Mooring ops
on a buoy is much more easier and less workload compared to being moored on a
typical port.
After the
mooring ops, I went ahead on the usual SOP procedures like preparing the SOPEP
equipment near the manifold area , arranging the foam monitors pointing them to
which direction the unloading of cargo is, putting up the fire hoses and such
etc. One thing happened though when i was putting up the SOPEP equipment, The
superintendent saw me wearing a badly tattered coveralls (which I typically use
on "day work" times) and asked me a few question. He asked how many
coveralls were issued to me by Career Ship management and i replied that they
only gave me 2 sets of boilers suits. Latter he took a picture of me in those
dirty coveralls , not exactly sure of what the pictures were all about.
It was at
about 9 am when i went to my cabin to take a small rest and prepare my stuff.
Vetting inspection will come soon, so my equipment and gear to be used on work
should be clean and tidy for ship inspections , for obvious reason since this
ship is expecting a vetting inspector , I didn't wore my "side arm"
tool pouch to avoid any unnecessary discussions on the vetting inspector .
Three hours later i went outside for my cargo operations work, When i talked to
A.B. Jay - he said that the vetting inspector had already arrived and is now at
the ship captains office. He added also that at maybe around 3 or 4 pm the
inspector would do some rounds and check everything from deck to the engine
department.
Before i
took over , O.S. Jermonick told me that i should focus my attention on the
manifold for now rather than on the gangway for obvious reasons.
There was a
bad weather brooding up and there's occasional rain showers ever hour or so,
Worst was that i don't have any functioning rain coat and had to borrow Pump
man Liscano Winter jacket just to keep myself dry. When the inspector came he
just passed by , most likely because of the bad weather that was happening and
he can't make a comprehensive check around - which is good for me though.
During the
watch "Johnny" the boat man came by along side on his boat and wishes
to lower our gangway ladder to board our vessel. For some reason "Bastard
- O" Renan Oveda Olis says on the radio that he's not authorized to board
this ship, Unfortunately A.B. Bryan didn't heard what 2nd officer
"Bastardo" said on the radio and by the time he knew what
"Bastardo" was saying , He had already lowered the gangway ladder and
"Johnny" the boatman had already boarded on deck. Obviously A.B. Bryan got scolded by
"Bastardo" for it and a few minutes later I could hear A.B. Bryan
grumbling about it.
30 minutes
later "Johnny" the boatman disembarked on the ship on his boat and
cast off, 2 hours later he came back again and i radioed in if
"Johnny" would be let in or not. 2nd officer "Bastard-O"
said that he can board the vessel. Upon
hearing this A.B. Bryan grumbled again on the reason's why he got scolded
saying "Eh papasukin naman pala eh bakit pa ako pinagalitan"
(translation in english : Then why the hell did i get scolded for if he's just
going to let him in ). I just gave A.B. Bryan simple smile and played innocent
, a body gesture meaning " i don't know , beats me ?" . Seriously i
don't really cared about it whether "Johnny" is authorized or not ,
as long as I stay out of trouble and remain neutral to these rowdy sailors then
I'd be fine. Glad that I'm not the only one who see's 2nd officer Renan Olis as
an asshole.
At around
5:30pm. I heard the sound on the radio that , discharging on the manifold area
will be stopped and cargo hoses will be disconnected , then followed by
unmooring operations. I was in disbelief that the cargo operations was very
short, nearly only just 8 hours (started at around 11am).
Unmooring
ops started at around 6:00pm and was a very short and brief one , lasted only
at least 10 minutes to 5 minutes. Just simply disconnect the bow chain stopper
and the two other loose ropes and that's it. After the Unmooring ops , the
chief mate Sergey told us that by tomorrow we can take a rest till 1pm and work
will only be done on a half day. 15 minutes after unmooring ropes , anchor on
the starboard side was dropped . There was a very minor problem when we dropped
the anchor, as the some of the chains get twisted . We resolved it by dropping
the anchor very slowly.
For the
moment this ship is going to stay here in the anchorage area for a week , then
go back again to discharge the 2nd parcel of this cargo. In the mean time we
may be doing the normal maintenance work for awhile.
