DRIFTING TO THE BALTIC

An NSB propaganda material

Work in La, Havre France has been finished after a 72 hour long operation. Basically this is just another one of those typical discharge operations made by any commercial oil tanker ship going in out of the port. No tank cleaning operation followed since this is a product tanker ship and not a standalone chemical tanker.

During the discharge operation, the reliever of 2nd engineer Andrejs Aronietis and Captain George Potirniche arrived. I haven't identified their names yet and will be knowing it on the latter once a new crew list.

Also during the discharge operation , it was fortunate that a French businessman (sells retail items) arrived and sold some of his stuff at the crewmess. One of the business he sells was Internet phone cards which I took the opportunity in buying one as I need it to update my computer and download stuff from the internet, plus drop by on my social media website. The cost of the Sim card was about 20 U.S. Dollar , a small expense for the necessity of communication.

As soon as I got the access in the internet, I quickly updated my blog and corrected a few misplaced entries plus uploaded a few pictures.

Aside from the French businessman, 3rd mate Vergel Acebo Abalos and O.S. Joseph Quinal Dinglasa had some *monkey business* selling cigarettes to the jettyman personnel on the shore side. They bagged a couple of few extra Euro's in the process which isn't bad at all given that income here is reduced (Overtime pay issue). Jetty man personnel were so eager on their cigarettes that they keep clamouring for more , and inadvertently bothering me every hour or so by asking if we had anymore cigarettes to sell. I myself got an extra 20 euro's when I gave my Marlboro cigarette to 3rd mate for him to sell. Seriously doing monkey business is really tempting and considering that monetary used here is in euros (which has more value than a U.S. Dollar) , It would mean a lot of extra income for us sailors - of course , the only problem here is that cigarette dealing is done in secret for some reason.

During unmooring, 2nd officer Olan got furious over what he heard on the radio, apparently Captain Portirniche is complaining about a lot carbon dust accumulation on the bridge wing and worst he scolded A.B. Marlon and 2nd officer over the radio,blaming them that they don't have enough time to clean the bridge (enough for everyone to hear).

Few hours later after we got past the bridge locks of La Havre , this ship anchored of just a few miles from land, close enough to get an internet signal for at least a day.

Dropping the anchor via gravity wasn't that hard this time around and I'm now able to control (in some extent) the rate of anchor chains being paid out.

On Monday maintenance work was cancelled for two reasons , either its chief mate's birthday and reduction of workings hours (overtime pay limit) good for me in the sense that I need to take a load off on work and needed a good sleep after the discharge operation.

Late in the afternoon, Captain Portirniche called the mess room and said over the phone that we will be heaving anchor in a few minutes and we should get reason. The call was a mood killer and everyone in the crew mess is having a drink and celebrating chief mate's birthday, it was really sudden and no one expected that this ship would be sailing off this soon.

Going to work drunk  (or had a few drinks) isn't really a good idea , but what the hell can I do ? The announcement came in very late and now I'm stuck going to the forward part of the ship to operate the anchor winch machinery. Fortunately , I'm not the one who operated the machinery and it was O.S. "Ronnie" , I just stayed put and prepared a water hose for anchor washing and lowered the anchor ball.

From what I heard the next destination of this ship will either St. Petersburg Russia or some Russian territory in the middle of Lithuania and Poland (believe it or not Kaliningrad , is a  piece of land that’s Russian - check the map) 

Video of actual rust chipping work , a bit grainy due to bandwidth limitations on internet connection. but then again i hope this give's a people an idea on what sailors do onboard a ship. an old filipino saying called "Tiktik Kalawang"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!!