For the
past few days this ship has been sitting its fat ass out here on the anchorage
area , probably waiting for the next destination. There hasn't been any word
yet on the next unloading operation of this ship, but what I'm certain is that
this ship is waiting for bunkering operations (refuelling).
Winter
season here in eastern Europe is harsher than i thought, with temperatures
ranging negative below zero - it would be really unwise someone would go out in
the deck area without winter clothing even for less than 5 minutes. For the
moment the temperature now as while i write this already hit on the negative 9
degree's Celsius and possible could get any lower within the coming of
days. Rule of the thumb here in winter
is that its not the snow that is actually giving the cold , but its the wind.
Get caught on a small cold breeze or blizzard , and you'd find yourself (or any
body part exposed ) frozen within less than 5 minutes.
As for
work, most of it is now on indoors like going to the pump room painting on
something or inside the accommodation cleaning on my cleaning station. Going
outside on the deck area is almost nearly as impossible as the whole area is
covered with ice especially on the forward part. For now my latest assignment
is painting some sort of heating machinery in the pump room and i have to paint
it with an aluminium colour paint afterwards i have to clean all the oil
residues with a chemical known as "Aquatuff" (some sort of heavy duty
alkaline chemical , in the words its a soap). Aside from that i did also helped
out Pump Man Liscano in changing rubber gaskets off from this heating
machinery.
On January
29th Wednesday...
At 9pm, I
Was busy playing Far cry 2 in multiplayer mode along with my co-workers. When
suddenly i saw BOSUN AMICAN came to my cabin door (my door was open to let a
clear signal from the WI-FI modem) and
said that " its time to heave up anchor" , at first i thought that
this ship has spent too much time in anchorage and maybe its about time this
ship has left in Ukraine and go to turkey . As usual i immediately put on my
winter gear and headed straight to the forward part, Immediately when i opened
the water tight door, I was totally caught unexpected on the weather - The
winds were blowing very strong and furious like a hurricane and i nearly slip a
couple of times because even the main deck was covered with ice (not snow) .
Even O.S. Del Monte was caught by surprise on the strong weather and slippery
deck floor, he said that i should go ahead cause he's going to get something
first and change foot wear.
I tried as
hard as i could to maintain my balance while walking as i could easily lose
balance from the wind and the slippery floor . I walked on the middle side of
the deck as their isn't much ice in there and the pipes break off the blow of
the wind, by the time I'm almost at the forward part area, i saw A.B. "Jay
" going on the opposite direction and said that chief mate Bezruchko said
that our presence in the forward part of the ship is no longer need. I asked
why ? He replied that some small ship nearly collided with us and just passed a
few feet away from the bow , now that the ship has passed by without ramming us
then there's no reason why we have to heave up the anchors
Upon what
A.B. "Jay " said, i finally figured out why me and O.S. Del Monte was
called in the middle of the night to heave up anchor. Immediately i went back
to then accommodation and saw O.S. Del Monte going in on the same direction as
i am earlier. I just relayed the information I got from A.B. " jay "
and both of us returned on the accommodation.
As for A.B.
"Jay", last i saw of him was that he was talking with pump man
Liscano over some heating valves that need to be opened at 3 portside
On January
31st Friday...
I was busy
continuing the usual job of painting when this ship suddenly gave the order to
heave up anchor, To the reasons why the anchor is being heaved up , i have no
idea why. Nevertheless to whatever reasons , as part of my work as an O.S. Here
onboard i have to go to the forward part of the ship and assist (and operate
the winch) the heaving of the anchor,
Before we
heaved the anchor, we chipped the ice off from the winches - the whole
machinery was envelop like an ice cube. Took us at least 3 hours to get the ice
off and we used a couple of tools we have in the work shop, some of the crew
preferred the fire axe to chop off those chunks of ice, others the "Ice
Pick " (a handheld stabbing tool) ,
me on the hand preferred the chipping hammer as its ends is a bit pointy (not
sharp)compared to a typical hammer. Its very good hand held tool and there's no
danger of it endangering myself (or others) if it ever slips on my hand.
Seriously it was a bad idea that they heaved up the anchor at this
day as winds were quiet strong and to make it worst the temperature dropped to
negative 11 degrees Celsius, and on top of that there was this huge sea spray
going on and off at the forward part of the ship. Obviously all of us (BOSUN ,
O.S. Del Monte, A.B. Bryan, and chief mate Bezruchko ) were all wet with freezing sea water and the whole
forward part in the deck area are already covered with ice.
It was a very tough anchor heaving operations because of the wind
and the temperature. My whole winter clothing was wet from the sea spray, then
shortly it gets frozen from the low temperature , I was very much covered with
ice that i couldn't even put the hood on my winter jacket as it was already
frozen. I didn't even knew that it was already frozen until O.S. Del Monte told
me that it wasn't stuck on my jacket- It was frozen. Aside from winter jacket even the red goggles
i use became frozen and its plastic lens broke.
Both me and O.S. Del Monte take turns in operating the winch every few
minutes or so , if I'm the one operating the machinery, O.S. Del Monte is the
one who warms his hands using the steam pipe on 1 starboard side - and Vice
versa.
 |
| the whole aft part area is covered with ice |
After the anchor was successfully heaved we received orders from
captain slabada that we should hide somewhere as the anchor will be dropped
again in a few minutes via gravity type drop. Without hesitation all of us went
to the bosun store below as it is the only safe place from this kind of
weather. After a few minutes we went out again as we need to drop the anchor.
A.B. Bryan was the one who dropped the anchor via gravity type. 11 shackles was
dropped over the water and soon after the anchors were drop, I was told by
BOSUN AMICAN to go back to the accommodation as the weather is already getting
worse. Me and O.S. Del Monte hurriedly pulled away from the forward area and
used the catwalk in going back to the accommodation because there was less ice
on that path and its not slippery at all.
 |
| at my back is what used to be our deck area , fully littered with ice |
