DEFINITION OF A HERO

"Hero - A person who fights for a cause"

Couple of days' time, I will be leaving this spoiled country behind temporarily. I won't be seeing the terrible traffic of EDSA , corrupt government officials , and the terrible 32 percent of income government tax . (means more than 1 / 4 of your entire income for a month is taken away by the Philippine government)

Life in the Philippines is difficult for any Asian country. So difficult because of economic depression that has been raging on for decades, and I think I'm not going to see that the Philippines and its Filipino society will not get any better in decades to come - or at least on my entire lifetime. For now the trend in the Philippines is send its people to faraway lands, some end up in the middle east , some in the united states , few in Europe, others in Asia, but all of them wind up doing slave work or very manual jobs like a second class citizen. Funny thing that the Philippines has all the ingredients to become a much better utopia than most Asian countries but end up short on a lot of things. The main conclusion and bottom line is that Filipino's cannot govern themselves, and most of the national wealth and power comes from aristocrats and the elite - and its only for their personal use and not for patriotic gain . Not exactly a true democratic country if you look closely, but more of like a monarchy or aristocracy kind of country

As a normal Filipino citizen, and one among the so many overseas Filipino workers. I am bound by this very tiring cycle. Honestly they call us "the new heroes of Philippines society" but I question that government statement and refuse to acknowledge it up to now, from what I recalled a hero fights for a cause , and basically that’s the question us Filipino OFW's should ask ourselves. WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR ???! AND WHAT IS OUR CAUSE ?! . For all I knew OFW's are out there for purely selfish personal reason's and not for patriotism, because on the main fact that jobs here in the Philippines are almost non-existent and pay very little (remember the 32 percent income tax I mentioned on local employment). Its already an establish fact that Filipino workers do help the national economy, in some extent (or a lot of extent). But the problem is what does the government do to help sustain itself ? Basically our Philippine government is helpless in doing anything aside from extorting money to its citizens. It as far as in every definition available is unstable and cannot survive on its own. Let's face it !!!! The Philippine Government cannot provide its citizens any stable form of security. If the Philippine government would be a parent , everyone could say that their doing a piss poor job as a parent.

The government simply give the title "new heroes of Philippine society" even without thinking on what it is actually. They say those things simply to distract the fact that its citizens are just cattle where they can get the source of income called taxes. As for us Filipino overseas workers, we had all the time in the world to ponder our meaning of existence and didn't question why are we called that. we simply content ourselves in thinking that thru slavery work we can be called hero's. Despite heroic brands they call us, we are less heroic than we sound - and far less heroic on what OFW's actually do. OFW's are not special in any way - not even special in our own unique way. The simple truth is that the Philippine government sold us out, and they're not content in just selling us, they want more from us, Stripping us of anything they could get their hands with.

Are we actually hero's for patriotic cause or simply just innocent victims who got caught in the middle of decades long economic depression ? Ponder this things as an OFW.

THE THING ABOUT CHRISTMAS IN THE PHILIPPINES

The thing about Xmas in the Philippines , is that you're god son's always kick down the door and ask for Christmas gifts . I'm still researching on what part of Philippine history did it started , I dont recall in history class that Filipino's are doing this during Spanish era, or even america period . hmm i think it must have been during after world war 2 that this started.

Anyway point here is that every year , god fathers are always plagued by this Philippine tradition 

PAMASKO PO NINONG !!!! , and put youre hands up in the air where i can see them :D

THE TRUTH ABOUT CAPTAIN PHILLIPS

Can you imagine that your worst boss  in real life would be pictured here as a saint and a hero ??! WHAT THE FUCK ???! why don't they just stab my heart with a stake huh ?! anyway sailors are meant to be deceptive in the first place , only shows their character that they don't tell the truth. Maybe one day when my biography gets the big screen or Hollywood , i get to choose the actor to be the heroic one like alden richards (from eat bulaga tv show) etc... nah !!! that idea is pathetic hehhehe   

In a few days' time we will be saying goodbye to 2015 and will be greeting 2016, Amazing that one year just went by in a snap and being in prison with the ship for six months was tolerable.

Lately I had watched the film, known to sailors as "Captain Phillips" . This film is well known to any sailors around the world especially Filipino sailors and believe it or not it was nominated on the Oscars, this film was based on the height of Somali piracy few years back. In this case it was a ship named "Maersk Alabama" was attack and its American captain was held hostage and on the later was rescued by the U.S. navy

The film was average and mediocre at best on my perception but it took my curiosity to at least do a background research about it. The thing I never expected was the film should be at least historically accurate, well unfortunately it turns out too far from the historical accuracy of the events nor even the portrayal of real life characters in the movie is entirely based on a person's single bias testimony. Anyway the film was made purely for cinematic and money making purposes only and does not cover the facts and reality - just like the film "brave heart" (starring Mel Gibson) 

The film features Captain Phillips who is being pictured as the heroic captain who has no fault , brave and a dedicated sailor. If it were not for his actions the whole crew would have perished in the hands of Somali pirates.

For the people reading this , I will not go on describing the film and let the people watch the film themselves and analyze the facts from cinema, what I can say on the summary is that it was not historically accurate and doesn’t even come close to facts. What I'm going to write now is the reality of the situation. First off Captain Phillips in reality is the "asshole type" captain (horrible bosses - least to say), he wasn't the hero of the day and it was not even his efforts why the crew was saved, people onboard that ship figured out during the pirate attack that it was best that they don’t listen to the captain and hid in the engine room, (in the movie it was ordered by Philips that they hid in the engine room)

Fact is his attitude was so obnoxious that people refuse to be assigned on the ship he's stationed at . He doesn’t even fit the criteria for a diligent captain and ignored the safety part on putting up anti-piracy measures which already existed back then (putting up barbed wire) . In the movie there was not a single Filipino sailor around , when it fact in reality there was a Filipino crew. Another thing in the movie portrayed was that his crew is nothing more than coffee break lazy workers who are comfortable hiding in the worker union's protection and he is the only one who seems to be concerned about the pirate attack during that time (in reality it was the other way around). Anyway I don’t think the producers of the movie has nothing to do with the wayward story , basically they just based the story on the warped perception of reality by Mr. Phillips - even if it was bias , unfair and totally unrealistic, not to mention deceptive. The thing here overall is that people should think about is that if Mr. Phillips testimony is inaccurate and unreliable then its only concludes that he's credibility is poor and reflects his character to be really an arrogant asshole shitty kind of captain .

People should seriously ponder about this….

For me, if this was the case then captain Phillip's got what he deserves - to be abducted and beaten by Somali pirates. Anyway its no surprise for me that the tale told in the movie is a far cry of facts, what I can tell first hand as a sailor myself , is that generally sailors and to be specific Ship Captains are one of the worst kind of people in society - and expect them not to be telling the truth, .

People will never get to understand sailors, and will never know the truth about it. What I'm saying is that not all sailors are bad people and not all of them are good either, in fact generally mostly sailors are more generally inclined to being more of a bad people than good.


THE FACTS I HAD READ IN FACEBOOK (repost from new york times)

New York Post
NEWS
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Crew members: ‘Captain Phillips’ is one big lie
By Maureen Callahan October 13, 2013 | 3:34am
Crew members: ‘Captain Phillips’ is one big lie
"Captain Phillips" star Tom Hanks with Capt. Richard Phillips. Photo: AP Photo/StarPix, Dave Allocca
It’s made for Hollywood: the story of an average American family man, captain of a cargo ship in dangerous waters, his vessel overtaken by armed Somali pirates demanding ransom, saving his crew by allowing himself to be removed from the boat and taken hostage.

All of this is the basis for “Captain Phillips,” starring Tom Hanks as the titular, real-life hero. The only problem, say some members of the real Capt. Phillips’ crew, is none of it is true.

Capt. Richard Phillips, they say, is no hero, and the film is one big lie.

The Maersk Alabama leaving the Port of Mombasa, Kenya in 2009.Photo: AP Photo/Sayyid Azim
“Phillips wasn’t the big leader like he is in the movie,” says one crew member, who, for legal reasons, spoke with The Post anonymously. He worked very closely with Phillips on the Maersk Alabama and was alarmed by his behavior from the beginning. Phillips, he says, had a bad reputation for at least 12 years prior, known as a sullen and self-righteous captain.

“No one wants to sail with him,” he says.

After the hijacking, 11 crew members have sued Maersk Line and the Waterman Steamship Corp. for almost $50 million, alleging “willful, wanton and conscious disregard for their safety.” Phillips is a witness for the defense.

“The crew had begged Captain Phillips not to go so close to the Somali coast,” said Deborah Waters, the attorney who brought the claim. “He told them he wouldn’t let pirates scare him or force him to sail away from the coast.”

‘REAL ARROGANT’

Phillips had taken command of the Maerskin late March 2009. Left for him, says the crew member, was a detailed anti-piracy plan now used by all ships per the International Maritime Organization. Should pirates get too close, the crew should cut the lights and power and lock themselves below deck.

“He didn’t want anything to do with it, because it wasn’t his plan,” says the crew member. “He was real arrogant.” Phillips says he knows nothing about such a plan.

Over this three-week period, 16 container ships in the same region had been attacked by pirates, and eight had been taken hostage.

As the film opens, Hanks, as Phillips, is seen assiduously tending to safety protocols. “Let’s tighten up security!” he orders. “I want everything closed, locked, even in port.”

Phillips has admitted that, on board, he got seven e-mails about increased piracy off Somalia — each exhorting ships to move farther offshore by at least 600 miles.

The Maersk was 235 miles off the coast, says the crew member, though Phillips has since rounded that number up to 300.

“I couldn’t tell you exactly the miles,” Phillips tells The Post. “I don’t know.”

In 2010, Phillips told CNN the Maersk was 300 miles off shore; published reports from that time had the ship at 240.

Phillips ignored every missive and later admitted he didn’t share these warnings — though they were not sent exclusively to him.

Meanwhile, another crew member was tasked with keeping track of every ship in the region that had been attacked. Using the e-mails, a chart was built. On it were the names of each ship, the dates and times they were assaulted, their latitude and longitude, the ransom demanded.

When presented with this data, a crew member says, Phillips ignored it, too. In the film, Hanks tells his crew — depicted as lazy coffee guzzlers who fall back on the security of their union-protected employment — that their job is to get the cargo ship from Point A to Point B in the shortest, cheapest time possible.

In fact, says this crew member, the Maersk veered off course by 180 degrees south — this was during the first attack, on April 8. Phillips denies this, and says the boat only picked up speed.

“We had two pirate attacks over 18 hours,” says this crew member, not just the one shown in the film.

The crew didn’t know whom to fear more: the pirates or Phillips.

According to this crew member, during the first attack, as two pirate boats came into view, clearly chasing them, Phillips was putting the crew through a fire drill. In the film, it’s a security drill.

“We said, ‘You want us to knock it off and go to our pirate stations?’ ” the crew member recalls. “And he goes, ‘Oh, no, no, no — you’ve got to do the lifeboats drill.’ This is how screwed up he is. These are drills we need to do once a year. Two boats with pirates and he doesn’t give a s- -t. That’s the kind of guy he is.”

At first, Phillips maintains this is a lie. “No,” he says. “The mate called up and said, ‘Do you want to stop the drill?’ They [the boats] were seven miles away. There was nothing we could do. We didn’t know the exact situation.”

But is it true that he ordered the entire drill completed anyway?

“Correct,” Phillips says.

“Yeah, seven miles. What’s the dif?” the crew member says. “I saw them, and they were closer than that.”

The Maersk eventually made a narrow escape, and Phillips ordered it back to its original route.

One of the crew mutinied — he refused to do it, instead going below deck, sleeping with his boots on and his flashlight by his side, waiting for the inevitable.

At 3 a.m., the pirates radioed the boat to stop; Phillips had left the stern light on and the bridge open. At 7 a.m., came the third and final attack: Four armed Somali pirates stormed the Maersk.

The crew was on their own. “Phillips didn’t say what he wanted to do,” says the crew member. “His plan [was], when the pirates come aboard, we throw our hands in the air and say, ‘Oh, the pirates are here!’ The chief engineer said, ‘We’re going downstairs and locking ourselves in.’ One of the mates said, ‘Let’s go down. We’re on our own.’ ”

They hid in the engine room, in 130 degree heat, for 12 hours. Phillips and three other crew members were held at gunpoint, yet Phillips tells The Post things weren’t that dire. “The ship,” he says, “was never actually taken.”

Aside from the movie review , I had heard another news around the Philippine maritime community.

UFS also known as United Filipino Sailors , apparently got trashed by this so called COMELEC EN BANC on its candidacy for political representation of sailors. I'm not exactly sure on how UFS got denied on their petition to run for office but those are the words of COMELEC , Anyway it's not that bad or shameful if UFS didn’t make the cut - it's not exactly the end of the world anyway and to be frankly honest , the maritime community would be better off without any political representation in the government than having one, the same goes as having a bad representation is much worse than having no representation at all .

For the record The last political party who represented the maritime community turned out to be such a disappointment (I'm referring to "Angkla" political party)  and instead of helping out the maritime community and easing up the burden of sailors , it turns out that this organization  added even more problems than solutions to the maritime community. And thanks to them everything is in the maritime community is in a god awful shitty mess and being a sailor in the Philippines is much more complicated and impractical.

Anyway despite the disappointments that UFS ran into , it doesn’t stop them from helping people. And a little rain on their parade won't be a setback. AMOSUP doesn’t even come close to UFS in confronting and discussing issues related to the maritime community in the Philippines. 

Screen shot photo i took in wikipedia confirming if the film was shitstoricly errrr..  i meant historically accurate 

CROSS PLATFORM

There is some trouble lately on the internet connection, for some reason "Smart communications"  lately pulled out its unlimited prepaid internet connection and replaced it with a much less disappointing 800 MB per day offer called "SurfMax" . Not a very good news for me given that I use torrents for downloading of some stuff I need , in particular PC games. Frankly I'm having a hard time finishing those downloads because of it.

In other news related to my work …

For now things are going smoothly and in fact, I had just finish all the necessary working papers needed. I am now just literary waiting for my time to be called up and wait for the dispatch orders coming from my company. However despite being ready there is one part of my working papers that is somewhat questionable, Specifically my Schengen visa (European Visa) - from what I recall its was supposedly to be expired this September and I had to renew this visa. I'm not entirely sure that my next ship still requires a Schengen visa but what I can say is that my U.S. Visa is still active and that my Schengen is expired, Maybe I have to go back to my company and verify about what will they have to do with my Schengen visa.

As for my equipment , I had just finished customizing all my stuff and all it needs to do is pack it up on my 2nd luggage. I had finished sewing my reserve coveralls and putting extra pockets on its shoulder , aside from adding a zipper function. On my water canteen , I had added a company patch to it so it won't look too much like a military water canteen and look more like a civilian type

Another thing about my equipment lately is that I kept inspecting it every now and then to keep insects away (specifically ants) from building a hive inside my luggage. It's annoying for me that animals and insects have an automatic behavior that makes them go to my luggage, and the bad part is that they always destroy something on my luggage. Last year it was my sisters dogs that keep chewing on my electric cords and other parts of my luggage , and the year before my cats were sleeping and leaving their fur  behind. For this year its these ants that got inside my luggage and nearly chewed off (or drilled holes) on  my "ateneo" collectible jacket. I got rid of the jacket and washed it but it looks like that these ants are not only after that but are even planning on building a hive inside the bag.

the outfit that the ants chewed off 

On my electronics equipment lately I had made a discovery about a certain android operating system emulator for windows. If I recall correct the website is called www.bluestacks.com , and can be downloaded on the internet. I haven't fully tested it out yet but it shows promise in playing all the android apps that can only be played on the cell phone and tablet. For now the thing it can do is back up my contact list on  my phone and do basic google related apps, Another thing that I noticed on this program is that requires an Wi-Fi or internet access to be played, without it basically it can't do anything else.

ITS MY FIRST TIME AGAIN

Been sometime since I wrote anything, in fact I was lazy to write anything at all, probably because I lack the creative idea lately. So in response I'm going to start fresh again in writing and pick up where I left off,.

The latest news I had been doing is preparing for my next ship assignment , which I had accepted although I'm reluctant because my last experience with CSM.

Anyway there's nothing much I can do now but ride along on the 10 month ride in that cursed ship and had been preparing heavily and investing a lot on working equipment to ensure that I can last long enough on prolonged isolation. I had been buying a set of clothes and all sorts of stuff in preparation. I took pictures to show on this blog what's the kind of clothes and equipment I had selected.

Why prepare ?! That's a big question most people would ask . In fact some sailors that I had talked about this even question the necessity of my methods and instead say that I should have faith and relay on the ships store for all my needs. A lot of people (even younger ones) opt on that option, all of course except me, why ? The answer is just basic.

I had been on a couple of ships now since I had started as a sailor few years back (longer than this blog was created) and they all had shared the same factor. Ships store and supplies are unpredictable and the people who are in charge on it are more unpredictable as well. In other words management could be a lenient for a few months and suddenly cruel on the next few months or so, and working supplies and needed equipment goes along on this sudden changes. The conditions on a ship are simply unpredictable and unreliable , and  putting my trust on the management and the people inside the ship is simply foolish.  Yes in other words , I practice self-reliance and that’s the reason why I lasted and still around in this cruel brutal job.

A lot of sailors nowadays simply overlook this kind of matter , or probably not aware that they have to be prepared and bring the right equipment they will need. Instead they're concern is preoccupied on how much money they can make rather than how long they can last.

As before my equipment consist of three main types this time .Communication and electronic equipment which is basically my backpack ,Personal clothing and Reserve equipment which is the small stroller luggage , And Working equipment , which is the larger stroller luggage.

Some of the equipment that i bought

In relation to this…

Customizing my military type water canteen

It looks like that I won't be tagging along with NSB for a while , apparently when I reported back to the office Mr. Nidoy has already had plans in transferring me back to CSM . Based on his explanation , most O.S. personnel of NSB have been displaced by cadets taking over on the work - so as a result most O.S. personnel will be hanging out in CSM for a while.

As for me I'm assigned to the CSM ship called "Cape Texel" which according to my search in the internet is roughly the size of my former ship "Cape Tallin" , Given with its size and appearance I could estimate that it is a "black cargo" type . Well I don’t mind working on the same type of environment as what I had years back in cape tallin - but the thing I'm worried about is what kind of people are there inside that ship, will they be friendly or the hostile hypocrite bitches like the one's I encountered on cape tallin ?

The thing about being a sailor when it comes to ships is that, you'd never get to choose who are the people you're going to work with , there's no certainty and no assurance that people inside that ship will be a good (or bad one). The ship assignment is always random

In other news

On the past few days I had been working on processing my working papers and I never had any serious problems finishing the paper work , in fact this is the easiest and most "low budgeted" agenda's I made since I started out being a sailor. The only thing I spent was for the minor "oral prophylaxis" cleaning of my mouth on the dentist which only costed 750 Pesos on a specialist dentist. (cost could be lowered on an ordinary dentist) .

Aside from that I currently attended two boring company seminars , which is basically nothing more than basically waste my time . One seminar called "ECP" (Environmental Compliance Policy) has a cranky 2nd engineer professor. He's ok for the most part on the lecture but that old bat seems to get pissed off easily if we tell a joke or something. Anyway the reason why I had to take this course was because according to the company , CSM got caught throwing garbage off in the United States and as punishment (aside from the huge fine) they had to inform each and every one of their employee's about the garbage disposal rules , and remind them about the what will be the consequences of throwing garbage .

The seminar was basically more of like showing fear and terror tactics rather than to be an educational and enlightening one, and overall it only points out that shipping companies and principal are more concerned of losing their money that providing good welfare on their sailors. Anyway most sailors are ignorant or blind about this fact and believe it or not greedy CSM believes that human lives are EXPENDABLE compared to properties and assets. Anyway that fact doesn’t surprise me.

Come to think of it, it reminds me of a court argument few years back about a shipping company called sulpicio lines. According to their attorney's , they argued to the court that assets and properties are more important than human lives because they say it gets passed on to one generation after another - can you believe that ?! What kind of bullshit argument is that ?! And even the Philippine court sided with that kind of argument .

Total amount of leave pay i got , cumulative of six months work onboard as an O.S.

COSMIC RULE OF ALL SAILORS

After waiting for some time on the news regarding my upcoming disembarkation, It seems that there is now an information about it. The latest news that I heard and was notified on memo was that who will be the guys replacing us and I already saw on paper on who is going to replace me. For now it's just a name drop and there is no specific details yet on the date and flight schedule, but it's good to hear that my return to the Philippines would be very soon.

Upon confirming this information, I immediately prepared to pack my luggage in case there's a possibility that my disembarkation will be on short notice.  The only problem I have for the moment is the "where" and not the when part on disembarkation. Its rumoured that its possible that my batch will disembark in Ecuador which from what I know is not exactly a "convenient" for travellers especially on the joining / departing crew. From what I heard Ecuador , Is very similar to the Philippines when it comes to transacting business. CORRUPT, TOTALLY DISHONEST and EXPLOITING POWER FOR PERSONAL GAIN .

From what I heard on some of the crew , customs or to whom has the authority in charge in disembarkation and embarkation of ship's crew , ask bribes to have crew get past security checks on their luggage and this is not the worst - from what I heard almost everyone in charge in taking the crew to the airport are asking bribes as well , from agent , service boat personnel all the way to the customs in charge. A very big hassle and annoyance over sailors. Anyway this is just rumours I heard from the crew , I still have to witness this first hand to verify if it's true.

At October 17, 2015 in the afternoon , this ship heaved up anchor and went ahead to Ecuador finally after more than a week of being at anchorage, From the latest news, this time it's not Esmeralda and it will be libertad area. I have no information on what is the procedures but , I guess I'd find out sooner or later.

Out of the blue and all of a sudden , I received news early in the morning of October 19, 2015 about our flight details to go home. From what I recall, Me , Pump man Sepulveda , A.B. "Ryan" and oiler teston will be disembarking and catching a flight on American airline flight from Ecuador going to Miami then connecting flight to los Angeles California , then going to Narita, Japan then finally to manila Philippines.

It was totally unexpected that Fitter Lorenzo would be left behind and apparently there's a rumour that the reason why he got left behind was because his replacement backed out when it came to his knowledge that he would earn less. Anyway as a result fitter is very unhappy on the news , expecting that he will disembark along with us. As for oiler teston , he himself isn't happy that he'd be going home early

As for the moment, the four of us aren't happy to learn that our disembarkation will be in south america given that its not exactly travel friendly.

On October 20th it was finally confirmed that our disembarkation and flight will be on the 22nd and that crew who will replace us had already left the airport in manila and is enroute to ecuador

 Few days later.............

After a long and tiring voyage hurling myself back to the Philippine, I'm finally here. However despite my success being away for some time - I am greeting with much horror and despair on what i left behind before I went overseas. My home has been much devastated with internal conflict amongst family members and its sad to say that nothing has changed from where I left off several months ago. My house looked more like a dying planet when I arrived , everything was either dilapidated, broken or non-existent at all.

I guess this is always part of being an OFW , as soon as you depart away from home and to a faraway land, the people and life we left behind will immediately descend to chaos and on my case this is what just exactly happened. Soon as I arrived to the Philippines and went home , all my personal savings are immediately stripped and channeled to the house. Can you imagine my savings worth of 110,000 just immediately went kaput in over less than three weeks ???! Worst part is that I haven't even spent that money on personal luxuries and essential equipment I need for work. Its more like that I’m working for nothing

Apparently based on what my sister has told me , the situation in the house is in total financial chaos and I'm caught in the middle of it. Worst part is that I'm the only one in the house who is financially capable as of the moment.

Sad as it may seemed , but it looks like that my vacation here in the Philippines will be the shortest and most of the time will be spent in replacing and acquiring equipment that I will need on my next contract. I'm already broke and yet I haven't bought yet the equipment I need. It's obvious that as soon as I get then last remaining money left I had on the company , I will be processing my papers immediately for the January 2016 departure

In other news,.

It looks like there are some news going on lately in international airports about some sort of airport security planting evidence on travelers both tourist and overseas Filipino workers. This caused a lot of scare on travelers that most people going in and out on the NAIA international airport had to pack their luggage's in plastic to avoid bullets being slipped in. Travelers and OFW's who are unlucky enough to fall for this bullet scam will get to pay a nasty extortion fine of 80,000 Philippine Pesos to the beloved crooked aviation security group (who are apparently the ones behind who planted the false bullet evidence on helpless unlucky victim)

Lately the incident of "Bullet" scam in NAIA international airport per year had an increase of 750 percent in just within a month. So basically criminals and crooked people in the Philippine airports are getting bold doing their extorting business

I don’t want to believe it either but , recently NAIA international airport in the Philippines has been proclaimed to be one of the worst airports around the world   by travelers  magazine's and from seeing it on my point of view as a traveler OFW. I could say that they're definitely living up to their name as the worst.

SOME VIDEOS OVER LOOK

Some videos i made during my stay on my previos ship , hope that in anyway this will be useful

Unmooring work

Putting fenders for ship to ship mooring ops

Anchor dropping , gravity type with audio

FIXING THE LIFEBOAT

ENTRY MADE OCTOBER 12, 2015 MONDAY

Past few days have no significant thing that happened well at least not anything that’s very important, for the moment this ship is still stuck in anchorage in Panama (pacific side) and I have no idea on what are they still waiting here for. My suspicion will be that there's an incoming vetting inspection probably on this ships next destination.

There's a lot of hints that vetting inspection will be on next port and that the two of us O.S. are currently doing work in the engine room and painting some stuff. Our presence in the engine room apparently is not met with question and as a matter of fact I myself ask on why the hell am I doing there when I'm supposedly doing work on the deck. Even the BOSUN is figuring out why where currently doing work there. Us deck crew suspect that chief engineer is behind this.

In other news…

Wiper Glenn's replacement has arrived a few days ago. A brand new engine cadet and without any past work experience of any kind on a ship. Plucky little kid and well-mannered to be honest, I think he'd fit along just well here in this ship. Unfortunately for this little kid, his luggage was left behind and the airport made a mistake in sending his stuff halfway on the other side of the planet. It must be horrifying for the little kid to have no equipment of any kind and trapped for a whole year on this ship, If this were to happen to me now then I'd be having serious problems on my working in the ship - absolutely horrible.

It’s a good thing that after a few days, The one of the NSB superintendents boarded this ship for a routine inspection on the upcoming vetting and along with him was the engine cadets luggage. So he's exactly saved by the bell.

In other news in relation to work…

For the past three days, much with my surprise and O.S. "theo" , we were ordered to work on the engine department and help out the engine crew, and I have basically no idea why the maintenance problems of the engine get dumped to the deck department - the only thing I knew is that our lovely chief engineer is worm tongue his way again to the ship's captain's ears to pluck a few guys on the deck to clean up their problems. BOSUN is also asking on why the hell does he need extra guys from the deck to do their work.

So on the couple of days that went by , Me and Theo was busy painting the whole floor area of the engine spaces plus removing all the garbage left behind by the two technicians who boarded and disembarked in panama . Wasn’t really a problem around in the engine department , the only problem I could foresee is that the temperatures in the engine department is exceedingly high especially in this tropical country like panama  - more than enough for me to wear my coveralls wet and maintain it that way. From my rough estimates the temperature in the engine room is not less than 37 degrees Celsius and very hot for my preference. Anyway despite this inconveniences , I was still able to work and record it on video on what exactly is the maintenance work done in the engine room. Hopefully I would be able to upload it soon when I get back in the philippines.

After the slight side track in working on the engine department, Me and Theo went back to the usual jobs done on the deck like chipping, polish and painting some stuff. (and the latest was chipping off all the rust on the grating platforms on the life boat deck.)

CROSSING PANAMA CANAL

ENTRY LOG MADE ON OCTOBER 02 , 2015

Just another tiring day again on work, and it’s a bit busier than the usual because today was supposedly the day this ship is going to cross panama canal. Work was already suspended at noon time to give way for us to rest and the only thing we did was pull out a few more mooring ropes in the aft and forward area. From what I recall we pulled out on 6 ropes forward and 4 ropes aft.  After that noon time wasn't exactly a rest time and all of us crew had to help out on the provisions , on my part in particular is the bond store.

Handling on the provisions on the shore side was apparently piss poor job on the ship chandlers side and there were some items that got broke during it was being transferred from the supply boat to our ship and as a result a few item got broken in the process, luckily no case of beer was broken nor even wine bottles. As for the bond store matters, it turns out that the Budweiser beer purchased here was way too expensive, as in about 25 U.S. Dollars per case. Obvious no one in the crew will be interested enough to buy that kind of beer.

After the doing work on the provision, 3rd mate Keith Cadua said that is should arrange the items in the bond store, took me till 5 pm to finish the whole deed and sort out the broken item , and re arrange them.

At night time 7pm , the ship finally resumed to transit the panama canal and stopped right in the middle of the transit (Gatun lake)and apparently will resume later at around 2pm the following,'

 since I'm still on bridge watch keeping duty, I did my usual job in maintaining a watch. Work isn't that heavy really it's just basically roaming on the whole ship and check for the anchor if it's still in position and it's much easier and not hectic with 2nd mate OLAN around.

Close to 2am in the morning, I heard a sound on my walkie talkie that Conti agulhas sister ship was also here in gatun lake panama as well, upon listening further I heard it was CONTI Guinea , and they were surprised as well to see (visually) Conti Agulhas on Gatun lake. Incidentally one of my acquaintance during CSM Cape days was also there,  Mr. Jermonick. I had a brief talk with him on the radio before the communications was cut off and gave me a warning. He says that as much as possible I should try to avoid being assigned in CONTI Guinea because the captain there was Mr. grigoras , One of the baddest mother fucker captains out in NSB. He added that if we think Sorin was an asshole in NSB , then Mr. Grigoras is the Devil incarnate,

ALLOWANCE CANCELLED

Entry log SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

After two days of travelling and heading west , ship has finally arrived in Panama for its later transit on the canal. For the moment its estimated that this ship will be spending a few days at anchorage and most likely it will transit on about the 30th of September. In the meantime I'm still on guard duty during that time and most likely I will be on the bridge to steer the ship when the time comes that it will cross panama canal.

For the moment there is nothing to do but wait and sit out our fat ass at anchorage until there's word that we will transit and do the normal maintenance work we usually do. After work , both us deck and engine ratings take some time off in playing "call of duty : modern warfare" game for an LAN versus.

In other news …

I'm currently busy to remedy my HP laptop's problem, and all I can say is that its situation is getting worse. Earlier I thought that only multiplayer games cause my computer to shut down , now it seems that even single player games are having a problem as well. So for the record my HP laptop that I just bought last October 2013 is nothing more than  a multimedia device and internet machine - other than that it basically useless.

As for the news on work.

It's mostly bad news. First off is wiper "Glen" will be sent back home on a case of badly infected foot which he got when it got badly burned from a steam pipe . Apparently based on his case is that the liquid was so hot that it burned right thru his safety shoes. If the burn he got on his foot was bad enough then what's worse that came after was that it got infected. The infection was so bad that he's unable to walk for a couple of days and that he's right foot is badly swollen which included all of his digits, and to add more , it was so severe that he's having fever's already.

2nd Mate Olan of course had to remedy the situation and see if antibiotics will do the trick - but it didn't , so he had to make the call to report this to captain gorge which will inform the agent here in panama canal to send him to a local hospital for treatment.  After glen disembark and when to the hospital we haven't received word from him for 48 hours and , it was then clear that he's admitted and serious injuries. I hope it's not as serious as gangrene.

Some of the engine folks helped pack glen's luggage and 3rd mate keith cadua already prepared wiper glens travel documents. So it very obvious that wiper will be not going back on this ship. Since that the engine crew is one man short on the list , we have received word that a replacing crew will be an engine cadet. A lot of folks including us here in the deck are talking about why the hell the manning office (or NSB) planned to send a cadet to replace an engine wiper's job ? ,

There's a lot of talk that NSB is short changing people again - both engine and deck crew agree that it's not appropriate that they send in a cadet to do an engine wipers job. Anyway it's not strange that NSB is cutting a few corners just to save money - even if its most of the time unreasonable. Another bad news that came (well in some ways) , was that the extra 100 U.S. dollars pay (as deck watch keeping allowance) for the O.S. position has been PERMANENTLY CANCELLED. In other words only the O.S. - O.T. will get the extra 100 U.S. pay for doing a work meant for an A /B . Honestly I'm not surprised in hearing this and have already expected that sooner or later , this perk will be shut down, once the main NSB office finds out.

Frankly and off the record, I'm more relieved that they removed this and it gives me more of an excuse on why I should stay away from any bridge related work. After all there's no reason for me to be involved in any of it , now that O.S. personnel are not receiving / taking any money from it, and there is no means that I should be coerced to do work of an A.B. now that we don’t even profit on such a thing. Let this so called O.S. - O.T. position deal with that problem. As a matter of fact there is no such job position as O.S. - O.T. , and this is just a make believe position made by the company as a scape goat in paying less on a work intended for an A.B. . Just imagine that an O.S. is actually doing a work of an A.B. and being paid less than it was supposed to be - an VOILA it's an O.S. - O.T.

Anyway like I said it's no surprise that NSB is short changing people even up to the point that there are really cutting off perks , salaries and stuff their crew benefit with and set them aside from any mediocre shipping companies . Sooner or later at their rate , they're going to lose employee's and crew due to their bad management practice.

Anyway the only thing I could say about me being an O.S. - O.T. temporarily is that I can now do what an A.B. now does , in other words my skills now already match to an A.B. Probably its most likely that I will now reach that rank sooner than expected. The only problem now is that some people doubt my abilities of being an A.B.

HARDWARE IMPERFECT

For the moment things have turned upside down for me, first off was my gaming laptop HP broke down very recently due to suspected battery reasons. Second is that I can't play "Call of duty : modern warfare" videogame together with my crew mates because of this. In other words my hp laptop is pretty much useless and finding a replacement will take some time and money. i can still play games with my tablet PC  acer but the graphics fell short compared to my HP laptop.

I tried to restore It and reformat my computer thinking it was some sort of virus but apparently it didn’t work and the worst part was that all the system updates I made was deleted. As in all of it. I was back from scratch and asking help to my crew mates was not helping at all and ended up me losing more data on my works. Fortunately for me some of the data that is stored on my HP laptop is backed up using my acer tablet pc including this diary , so my diary / journal  data loss is the least to worry about. In the meantime I will be using the lenovo laptop temporarily to update my journal while my Hp laptop is out of commission.

I'm thinking a number of solutions about this and my HP laptops situation hasn't made any progress, power is still a big problem. I'm starting to think that I should be buying a new one instead of repairing it. My laptop as only been around with me for less than two years and yet it hardware easily got degraded. Somehow I'm starting to think that HP brands are inferior to any other brands. I'm still yet undecided on whether I should buy a new one or repair this HP when I get back home in the Philippines.

I could buy a new laptop but I still have to save at least a month's salary for me to at least get a 900 U.S.D. budget to buy a high end gaming laptop. Repairing and bringing my HP laptop could be much easier and cheaper in some extend than buying a new one but the problem lies on the "service centre's" and repair shops in the Philippines. Most shop's in the Philippines including the ones who are located inside the malls have been reported to be a chop shop and cannibalize branded computers. Replacing them with substandard and inferior parts. Another option I had been thinking with is buying a new one in the Philippines , in there I could make a proper selection what I really want to buy as a gaming laptop, the only problem in there is Gaming laptop prices are higher compared to the U.S. for some reason and that there's a possibility that the selection of computer there isn't as extent and updated as it is in the united states or in europe.

Tsk ! If I haven't just bought only the "action camera" (used for surveillance and education purposes) I could have now enough money by now to buy a brand new gaming laptop, I guess there's nothing much to do as of the moment but wait and be patient on using a tablet PC for the moment.

In the past few days there have been changes regarding on my work, apparently folks on the deck decided that they have to transfer me and change job descriptions and as a result I am now doing work as an O/S - O.T. instead of O.S. theo. Personally I did not met this sudden change with enthusiasm - because of two reasons, one is that im going home soon and I should focus my attention in preparing to go home, for me doing work as an O/S - O.T. is just another unnecessary distraction.  Second reason is that I'm used in working as an O.S. and being just an O.S. is not bad at all compared to being an O.S. - O.T. or A.B. , being a plain O.S. means that I have plenty of rest hours and rest days to attend to myself and my well-being (health).An O/S - O.T. and A.B. does not have any holiday at all in practice. I was forced to accept the new work description because of the fact that I receiving the money called "watch keeping allowance of 100 U.S.D." on the previous months without actually doing watch keeping.

Anyway I hope that this work rotation is just temporarily and that this will be over soon within a month , otherwise I'm screwed.

Lately I took interest in watching anime shows (on whatever that’s left of my free time ) and been currently hooked up watching it. The japs have really had a way to capture audiences on their anime, I was never a fan of any anime but given with my circumstances that I'm "imprisoned"  and have nothing  much to do but watch. Well for the record I did enjoy watching those cartoons and it’s a good pass time indeed.

On the past few days I was on watch keeping , my health was faltering a bit and my sleeping pattern was all but messed up. I'm not used to the rotational working schedule of an A.B. that is working 4 hours in the day and another 4 hours at night. Back before I was on watch keeping , I usually enjoy 8 hours straight working and the rest of the hours of the day as a straight rest , since the disruptions I had problems in adjusting on my new temporary working schedule. For now I had a bad cold and an occasional cough every now and then and with some chills - flu like symptoms. I asked 2nd mate Olan for some meds and he  gave me some anti-flu tablets called "bio-flu" (local medicine in the Philippines) which is a combination of nasal decongestant , antihistamine and analgesic anti pyretic  med. Not exactly the thing to rid of my flu but something to take the edge off on the symptoms.

In news related to work.

It seems that we have a new captain on Conti Agulhas and that our current captain just only stayed here for  roughly two months , apparently from what I heard on the crew the recent departure of Captain Romaniuk was that it has something to do on the twelve new tanker ships NSB will be launching soon. From what I heard Captain Romaniuk will be one of the captains that will fetch the new ship from the dry dock. I had no other details on these new twelve tankers ships of NSB . The only thing I knew is that this will be launched probably new year or before this year ends. In the meantime our replacing captain for Romanuik will be Captain Gorge Pornitiche , my former captain from Conti Greenland.

I'm ok with Captain Pornitiche since I had work with him on Conti Greenland before. In fact He's more reasonable and lenient compared to the other two ship captains I had encountered here in Agulhas.

Last saturday on this we had some sort of barbecue party at the poop deck , nothing special but this is the first time in six months that a barbecue party was held at all. Somehow our former captain Sorin and Captain Romanuik is not very fond of these at all. From my understanding Captain Romanuik says that barbecue parties are just for children , the same thing goes with captain sorin. Its fortunate that Captain Gorge Pornitiche don’t mind at all on these barbecue parties. Barbecue party was great to be honest

As usual pre caution, nobody in the crew carried a digital camera nor cell phone during the party. ABSOLUTELY NO PICTURES OF ANY KIND. , certainly there isn't anything wrong about taking pictures during the event but apparently from what I heard in this company there is are some ship official's that got a bad rep and got reprimanded years back when "pictures" of their party leaked out in the social media and this principal company saw it. I'm not sure why CSM / NSB took those harmless pictures in a bad way but it was clear that they don’t like their crew having fun at all.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

CYCLE OF A NIGHTMARE

Entry log AUGUST 30 , 2015

La Havre, Normandy France discharging operation went real quick, as in only 20 hours of discharging. We started off practically 2 am in the morning , when the French pilot boarded and ended 48 hours later on the same time.

La Havre is convenient to go on shore leave on the seaman's Centre, and the transportation is basically free, probably I suspect that after visiting the seaman's center , I could practically go around and visit the surrounding place. Unfortunately due to short of time , I never got to go ashore and see the surrounding place (and neither any crew) - made the next time I visit this place I can go on shore leave and see how beautiful la Havre is.

Internet in France is very convenient compared to any nearby European country I seen so far , they even surpassed the Dutch and Germans when it comes to internet service. The internet is fast enough to use and truly unlimited for 48 hours which is good for heavy downloader's like myself. Internet in France is very much the same to the Philippines when it comes to charging their customers , which is based on number of hours used and not via bandwidth.

As for the news on work …

For the moment, I'm trying to avoid 3rd mate Keith as much as possible for being such a dick during unmooring operations on la havre locks. I had a feeling that one day this little gremlin will be a monster to reckon with in the years to come, and for some hunch I sense in him arrogance at an early age, anyway it only proves on my theory that most Filipino sailors start out good people them become asshole when they get to be ship officers. Honestly It never occurred to me , he'd be a dick during unmooring ops. But ever since he got a promotion as third mate , he soon started to have air in his head at a very fast rate. I was totally caught off guard went that prick scolded me when I already let go of the mooring wires early inside the split drum when it's picking up tension.

To make more of the insult. dickasaur , scolded me for the second time a few minutes later.

Anyway he's not going to be my problem anymore after Conti Agulhas if he ever decided to be just another Asshole later on - its NSB crew's problem not mine. The only thing I could care of is focus on my upcoming vacation and wanted to have quality time in the Philippines.

This incident will definitely cause friction and tension between me and 3rd mate Keith, and it's obvious that in the days to come I'd have a less friendly approach with him.  Anyway for everyone's info this will be the second incident that keith became a dickasaur , the first one was in Dominican republic about dropping a mooring wire again.

In other news ….

Apparently from what I heard on the recent departure in la havre france, the time of travelling from La Havre to Amsterdam is just as short as 18 hours, in other words there's little time to rest and wash clothes., So after the unmooring operations early in the morning , expect that we will be berthing in Netherlands sometime late at night in the same day.

About news on work.

It was a surprise that I was given a time off at work on my birthday, I hadn't expected at all that I would be granted such time. Seriously It never occurred to me - not at all. I guess I should thank chief mate Oleg for having me celebrate my birthday. Strange and ironic isn't it , that kindness is given by the people whom you least expect , Compared to my own kind years before I was never given a chance to have this. I guess strange things are expected to people whom you least expect