TOILET TROUBLES

April 16, 2015 Thursday

While waiting for any news regarding berthing schedule, This ship temporarily had  a tiny problem regarding vacuum type toilets. Problem started at around 10 pm late night when the toilets stopped flushing (or suctioning given that it’s a "Vacuum" type) and persisted until on the next day of 7pm, worst part is that the septic / toilet system here on this ship is centralize which meant that if one machine (or area) breaks down the whole entire ship is also affected. Not exactly sure on what is the specific details given that it's an engineering maintenance kind of job, but from what I overheard it has something to do with the machine that produces a suction.

During the time the toilets were broken , some of my co-workers here are joking about us readying the buckets and throwing crap on the poop deck during night time where everyone else isn’t looking (I'm starting to figure out why the "Poop deck" is called that). For time the whole crew tried to hold off our urine and poop until the toilet machine down below the engine room got fixed. The whole engineering crew was all over it and had its full attention getting it on working condition. The jokes didn't stop until after dinner , saying that we should try not to eat that much given that some of us might not hold of our poop longer than expected, eventually the toilets started working again at around 7pm otherwise we'd start throwing poop at the aft area of this ship.

In regards to work….

Captain Sorin seems to be hyper mode, and keeps making rounds and looking for people if they look busy on work. Of course I had to steer clear and lay low given that SORIN is riding asses again.

In particular he was riled up on O.S. Bantic, Elezar A. ,When he asked on what's the next thing he will do after this work. O.S. Bantic replied that he's going to sleep afterwards. From afar I saw the commotion going on (I was in the forward area of the ship, working on the sprinkler valves) , I was busy chipping off rust and polishing the valve and was already near finish when after a few minutes , I saw on my back that the captain was looking at me. Very intimidating and said what I was doing and gave me some comments that I shouldn't keep the air always on as it may have problems later on the ships compressor. 

TO THE DISTANT CONTINENT

APRIL 13, 2015

Dropping anchor wasn't as bad as it was compared to CONTI Greenland , No thanks to my previous BOSUN Nilo Payopay who made me learn on how to drop anchor effectively. Now given with my experience and skill acquired , I dropped anchor without any problems in CONTI Agulhas and believe it or not the anchor brakes have a much better grip than Greenland.

Anchoring procedure is slightly a bit different in Agulhas and this ship only requires one BOSUN and one O.S. to drop and anchor the vessel compare to other ships I had been before. Typically there should be two O.S. around and a BOSUN during anchoring operation but somehow they have reduced the staff to just two. Anyway like any other NSB Conti Ships, Anchoring is still via free fall / gravity type and not by winch.  

In the meantime after dropping anchor this ship has finally arrived in Netherlands after a couple of days sailing, Its now exactly sure on the next destination of this ship after Netherlands it could be somewhere again on Europe, or Africa or maybe perhaps in America. Doesn’t really matter at all, as long as Captain Sorin gets disposed of - everything's going to be fine without him.

There's a rumour going on that this ship might be headed for Ecuador after discharge in Netherlands but it's still hard to tell if this is confirmed, but there is some hints that this ship might be headed there. From what I heard CONTI Ginuea had some problems with the U.S. Coast Guard at the moment regarding fire safety and flunked the inspections TWICE and as a result CONTI Ginuea might be pulled out from its dedicated station in the America's and be called back in Europe and as a rumour this ship will serve as a replacement since this ship had already a previous voyages before in the America's.

On my opinion the America's has a plus and minus factor, plus in the sense that electronic goods are really in good quality and cheap there. There a possibility that I might be even get my hands on a Mac Computer for my sister there, in other words America is good economically. Another good thing about America's is the communications, Internet connection is definitely good there - so there won't be any problems for me contacting my relatives there in case they need me in an emergency. Probably there's even the possibility that money wire transfers is accessible in the America's (door to door money delivery service in Filipino terms)

The minus part is the weather and the disembarkation part, Currently the weather in America is definitely hot and humid at this time - it may be ok and cool here in Europe even on summer for Filipino standards but in America , Summer there is another story. From what I had experienced years before - America during summer time is hellishly hot, perhaps even hotter than the Philippines. Definitely a big no - no for me since almost all of my equipment are suited in cooler cold climates like in Europe. 

Another thing that concerns me is the luggage restrictions in Ecuador (in case of possible disembarkation). From what I heard on my colleagues at work. The airline there can only accommodate one check in luggage per sailor, In other words it's only a 20 kilogram limit and I'd be forced to leave or even pay the other check in luggage I had if ever there's a possibility I'm going to disembark there on the latter. Anyway this is only a possibility, and as much as possible its disembarkation should be in the U.S. given that I still have a valid U.S. Visa.

I do hope that this will not be the situation that this ship will be facing on the latter, I'm still optimistic that this ship will still be based on Europe rather than in the America's

IN OTHER NEWS ….

Given with the excess amount of time and much more "light" working schedules of Conti Agulhas, I had decided to restart my gym program after almost a year being dormant. The gym equipment in NSB Conti isn't as good as the one's in CSM Cape's but at least its sufficient to maintain a workout.

On work related affairs. For the moment since there is still no announcement yet on which date and time will the pilot come , we are off doing maintenance work  in chipping a few rust on the crane for the fast rescue boat. As much as possible BOSUN Diosana limits the work as much as possible since there's no exact assurance on what time and date will this ship berth at the moment and it's difficult to be caught off guard that were still doing maintenance while this ship is already berthing.

Aside from the rescue boat, we did also chipped off part of the hook on the cargo crane and the water tight door in the deck store.

Anyway one observation I had found out is on this CONTI NSB ship, people here have a low morale when it comes to work , probably in the fact that salary has been reduced to 103 from 120 hours of overtime pay ( no thanks to captain sorin) and there is absolutely no way sailors here are compensated here on the hard work, heck even the ship officers here change actual working hours on our working job sheet papers and reduce them just to appease people on NSB office that they won't pay up on the sailors extra efforts, Thinking that the sailors here do really actually love their work .  I wouldn’t  blame my co-workers here for such having a low morale given on the working conditions, after all nobody in the world would want to work for free and we would be better off slacking and resting rather than work without being compensated. 

LIFE UNDER A TYRANT

April 09, 2015 Thursday

Life under a tyrant dictator can all be but challenging, On a ship ratings and officers are at the mercy of a depriving captain who fancies himself as god. Seriously these are one of the reasons why I encourage Filipino's not to take a job as a sailor or study a college course called B.S.M.T. (bachelor of science in marine transportation). Incoming college students and High school students are too damn good to deserve this rotten kind of life, and I feel sorry for them to condemn themselves on this life of hardship.

A lot of people wonder on what kind of society sailors live on-board a ship, like I said I can only summarize it that it's an autocratic dictatorship and nothing more, some ships have a benign dictatorship but nevertheless ITS STILL AN AUTOCRATIC form of society with no room for any form democratic kind of system. A person taking this course is basically condemning himself / herself on a life of coveralls and closed spaced dwelling and strip all individual freedom normally a society will offer. Basically sailors nowadays are just prisoners with a salary and more like a feeling that you're going into jail, trading off and sacrificing years of life and freedom for money. 

On a ship, there are all sorts of evil and wicked people out here, Filipino's and foreign nationals alike. If a worker is assigned on a unfortunate ship who has a kind of captain that violates basic human right and civil liberties, he is in one hell of a ride. It's unfortunate that on my situation here the captain here is very depriving on one of the most basic human necessities known to man - WATER.

Can you believe that !? Water, For now based on the information I heard. Captain Sorin Sageta is one depriving bastard and even the laundry is not spared at all on his wrath and this corroborates testaments said by Messman Montaya in Conti Greenland few months ago that "Sorin" has a laundry schedule of twice per week (or none at all if there's a work operation at port) and as a result laundry is piling up not because the crew here are lazy to wash to them but because the laundry room is locked up. According to my co-workers and from what I'm observing first hand, laundry room hasn't been opened for a more than a week ( up to now while writing this) and some of them are forced to wash their clothes by hand inside their cabins. Worst is that it's not only the laundry that suffers the most , even clean drinkable bottled water is restricted to the crew.

It is only my conclusion that the remaining three months with him around will be filled with nothing more than pure torture and suffering. For now potable and clean water is scare on this ship despite the availability, and I bet this is just only the beginning for the four month long tyrannical rule of "Sorin" on this ship and more out of this world hardship will come in the days ahead. I have no idea why this captain impose this kind of restrictions on laundry given that there's water all around the ship, and I had been into a CONTI NSB type of ship previously and the structure of these kinds of ship has sufficient volume of water enough not to impose this water restriction. Anyway it's only a conclusion that the logical answer is that this current ship captain is a neurotic one who has succumb to mental disease. A social degenerate to simply say. 

One of my co-workers here say that this captain was not as ruthless as before and that he changed on a lesser extent of being wicked after having a heart attack, Honestly I beg to disagree on his impression because I have a saying "ONCE A BASTARD WILL ALWAYS BE A BASTARD" . On my perception my co-worker only says that Captain Sorin is less vicious because of the fact that he has only been around on this ship a month and that he's wickedness hasn't reach full blast yet, and my rough estimate is that it will take another month to reach its full height.

Good thing despite this challenges, my ingenuity is a bit advance for an average sailor and giving me an edge that despite this so called unnecessary water discipline, I can still wash my clothes and coveralls without ever using the laundry room. Unknown to them I brought along laundry soaps on my luggage for the journey plus a laundry brush to wash my clothes, So basically my supplies could last up at least 3 months based on the soap I'm carrying. Aside from that I'm already experienced in handling this situation given that I had already encountered this kind of situation in "CAPE TALLIN" ship a few years ago.

Aside from having problems with the water , All of a sudden Sundays off work was cancelled and we were doing basically the usual maintenance work. The captain reasoned out why Sundays work off was cancelled was because of the fact that this ship will be undergoing some sort of internal audit from NSB and probably were expecting guest when this ship arrives in Netherlands , so this "ship" has basically have to prepare for the inspections. 

NEWS UPDATE

After two weeks (and a month on the other crew) , the laundry room has finally opened up hallelujah ! I was already in the brink of washing my clothes and coveralls using the method I devised back in CAPE TALLIN ages ago.

THE UGLY TRUTH

APRIL 07, 2015 Tuesday

"WORK HAS STARTED, MAY IT END SOON"

Just unfinished unpacking my stuff and putting some of it on my cabinet and my locker for work. I tend to reflect and look back on my life in the Philippines, on those nearly 3 months that have passed seems like just a dream, and that I had to woke up again and find myself here in European waters. Frankly I wish I had more time back home and there are still a lot of stuff that I wish to do in the Philippines that was cut short because of my work as a sailor., Seriously I'm not enjoying my life knowing that I'm imprisoned here and all locked up on some floating vehicle that strides over water - I mean I should be spending my life in making important memories than being trapped and doing work.

Anyway being a sailor, One should be mentally, Physically and logistically stable enough to endure its rigors. Most sailors overlook this factor and just concentrate on their experience and knowledge on work and look on how they turned out - a total social degenerate, unable to cope and fit in on the outside world and a social outcast. Yes most of them indeed are very good doing their respective jobs but anything beyond that , their just simply poison and mentally handicap.

Being a sailor myself, I not only focus my attention on the knowledge and experience but pay attention on being mentally, physically and logistically stable, I focus on those factors as well which sets me a bit different from the rest of the litter. Not to brag but I can say that from the rest of the group here, I'm one of the most well equip and advance when it comes to the gear I use on work. Some of the folks here just relay on experience and skill alone to last for the contract compared to me.

Honestly I take pride that I excel on the logistics factor and knowing that I'd be away from home for months on work and being Isolated and no going back until the contract finishes. I brought along  all the necessary equipment needed to last for the long duration, this includes not only work equipment but also personal equipment like external hard drives which contains movies and a laptop which has national geographic documentary videos to entertain me plus several video games and an offline journal. Aside from that I had a PC tablet as a support device for my Laptop in case something bad happens. I guess I excel on the logistical and this provides me comfort that I will last out more than six months despite the conditions here.

In matters happening on-board

A lot of people might wonder why I put my stuff on the bathroom instead of the locker room, it is because of security reasons and to prevent thievery from my other crewmates, Aside from that is that I could easily get dressed up in case I'm needed on work in a short notice. I started this tactic way back on my second ship "Bow Ophelia" and was not perfected until my stay in Cape Tallin which was in full use and was very effective against my enemies there, providing isolation and security. 

Anyway I had just finished renovating and fixing up the bathroom of my cabin and converting it as a makeshift locker room (aside from a bath room) and made use of a bed sheet as a suitable replacement for a shower curtain to prevent my working equipment from getting wet.

At around 11:45 am I was getting ready to prepare for work and will take a meal on the crew mess when suddenly I noticed that the crew mess was a bit different and there were white sheets placed on the two tables, what added more to my astonishment was that there are still no food prepared yet for the noon meal. I went back to the kitchen and saw that Chief cook Pineda was still preparing food, I asked him if there's anything special going on at the crew mess and he said that there is indeed some sort of upcoming party or get together of sorts two hours from now . I was asked back if I do recall a scheduled party of sorts a few days back, I replied that indeed I do remember that there's a scheduled party but never occurred to me that it was supposedly today and though earlier that it was after this port that a party will be held.

At about 2pm I was going down to the crew mess to get some chow when I heard my phone cabin rang, It was A.B. Nelson Dominguito. Message was that I had to go to the portside to prepare the pilot ladder, From that message I already knew that this ship will know be leaving tarragona, Spain. I hurriedly got dressed up and went there. When I arrived There was only BOSUN Diosana and O.S. Rafael Crisostomo preparing the ladder and I joined up with them. Combination ladder seems to be very easy now on my side knowing previously that Greenland and Agulhas ship are exactly alike even on equipment and somehow believe it or not - I'm not exactly afraid in going down on the gangway ladder anymore, it just seemed now that everything makes sense. 

After the ladder was Finished, the next thing to do was go to the Forward mooring station and Unmoor the ship. The mooring arrangement 2-2-2 wasn’t a problem and we hurriedly Unmoored and packed the ropes inside the BOSUN'S Store compartment. While stowing I manage to have a small chat with BOSUN Diosana, from what I learned from him my previous BOSUN. Mr. Payopay , was a total badass as a BOSUN years back and it was only until recently when he lost his son that his bad habit got toned down. Well it was good for me that Mr Payopay toned down during my time in Greenland, and I never thought he was an asshole before.

Soon after work was done, We the party proceeded but I wasn’t exactly in the mood to eat , probably because I'm more tired rather than hungry. During the meal time I heard rumours that 2nd engineer Yuriy Pavlenko was gay (homosexual) of some sort, I don’t know it that was exactly true or not and probably just some nasty rumours of sort going on. Anyway during the meal despite everybody is tired and wanted to rest on the next day , it seems that Captain Sorin wanted us to work straight even on Sundays. Well looks that way. For now the alexandria, Egypt destination got scrubbed and was replaced with Rotterdam, Netherlands destination. If that will be the case then I guess I'd be seeing Sunny Euro again (Europeans call it sunny radio).

THE FOLLOWING DAY …..

First day of maintenance, Seriously it's just like any other day when I'm on-board on the past 5 ships. Usual deck washing "Baldeho" although some of my current co-workers are having a difficult time adjusting on this new time schedule Captain Sorin put up. Supposedly there shouldn't be any work but it looks like Sorin never really cared about it. Anyway on my part I had no problems with it given that I maintain a policy of readiness since I'm on-board working, to simply put it never drink a lot of beer (and any kind of alcohol) if I'm not sure whether there's work for tomorrow and we might never knew if the Captain is truly an asshole and this is the instance that I'm well adapted.

On the first day of maintenance work for us, Pumpman Sepulveda was very furious about some guy in the engine room. I didn't ask further who it was or what was the reason but it's definitely some guys there, saying that there a bunch of cocky sons of bitches.

UGLY TRUTH ABOUT CAPTAIN SORIN SALVADORE SAGETA.  

Back on my last ship, I heard some stories about this captain, about him being one of the meanest, toughest , son of a bitch in NSB. Sometimes I even wonder when I hear those stories that it might be just an exaggerated kind of circulating rumour of sorts. Anyway the story about this Captain is that he is rumoured to be an autocratic high and mighty person who abuses his crew. Based also on the rumours I heard was that most crew in the Philippines refused to join any NSB ship when they find out that their ship captain will be Sorin, In fact from what I heard was that CONTI Greenland ( the former ship I was assigned with) went to a formal protest in NSB when they heard "Sorin" was coming. The protest says that he wants that captain booted out, NSB responded that they will reshuffle their list of captains so that the crew won't have any idea , who's coming.

There's another rumour going on that one mess man committed suicide when he heard that captain was coming. The mess man was mentally abused and always demeaned on the previous captain and when he heard that the next captain will be the same ( Captain Sorin Sageta ), he couldn't take it anymore and decided to jump on the sea.

Another rumour I heard was that the person who saved him was in such regret that he had to save that captain at all from a heart attack a few years back, Story goes on saying that he should have let the captain died from it rather than reviving him. The ship would be a better place without him and despite its "unintentional murder" nature, story says it was for the greater good of all the people on-board if he's dead.

Anyway to add there's a funny version of that story on how that captain was revived from a heart attack , I'm not exactly sure as how it goes but from what I heard , CPR wasn't exactly performed on him when he had a heart attack , apparently from what I heard . Some guy literary pulled off his dick from his pants just to save him, and according to tale. The captain was so furious that instead worrying of his heart attack, he sprang up from furiousness and told the guy to never pull off his dick from his crouch ever again. 

BACK TO EUROPE

"I will start from scratch on this new ship, but I have done so successfully before. When I started out a few years ago I only relied on my strength and vigilance. Survivalism has never baffled me, as it has so many others. Such principles just makes sense in me. I will lead my family to great riches, and Career Ship management will profit once I had my share"

APRIL 05, 2015 Sunday

After being notified by Career Shipping company on such a short notice, and getting the plane ticket in just a few hours before the actual despatch (can you imagine me hurling my way on such long distance from my home) and successfully making it all the way to Taragona, Spain along with five others. Only the four of us proceeded directly out of the airport and into Conti Agulhas (what no hotel accommodations??) and one was left to the hotel to be followed in joining us on the latter.

While writing this , I had been on CONTI AGULHAS for a couple of hours now, staying on the Suez cabin temporarily and making observations. So far I won't be able to make yet a full analysis on my situation, but here's some information I had gathered within just a couple of hours. CONTI Agulhas seems to be having problems with the water supply and as far as I'm concerned and this affects basic stuff like laundry and potable water (one litre of mineral water allowed only for now per person as opposed to my previous ship Conti Greenland were there's an abundance of water).

One observation I made something about this ships current captain. From what I heard on rumours  spreading on my previous ship they're not saying anything positive about this so called Captain "Soren" guy. I asked a few folks here on CONTI Agulhas and they say the captain is an OK guy but they're comments are somewhat restrained and hiding something, or their comments are somewhat fake on my intuition, - not exactly sure for now but it gives me a nasty impression that something might be wrong on the surroundings.

Another observation I had made is when I had a small chat on the O.S. I'd be replacing. He mentioned something that folks around here are easier to get along with and theirs so called "harmony" , Honestly when he mentioned that, It raised my suspicion that people here might not be going along well and based from my experience both from STOLT Strength and more recently Cape Tallin - you don’t mention those kinds of words (or highlight it) when everything is exactly  in good harmony, but like I said I haven't made my mind yet on what's the general situation on-board this ship given that I had just arrived.

As for the folks here, I had been familiar with Pump man Thanny and chief cook Pineda from Conti Greenland and their Ok and for the moment all the other folks I saw are somewhat less of a threat for now (or my data and observations is still incomplete). However theirs a folk here whom I encountered on Cape Tallin and obviously I'm not in good terms with him ever since my days there. To be specific I'm mentioning 3rd mate German Tan Corales (the predecessor of Third Made Byron Fourie in Cape Tallin) who happens to be now the current 3rd mate of Conti Agulhas, He's not much of a threat in general but the problem is that he knows my past being in a call centre before and that kind of information is very dangerous and damaging when I work as a sailor. Worse part of it is that this guy sucks on keeping confidential information and sooner or later I suspect that this fucker will spill in the beans and damage my reputation when I'm really having a bad day. Regardless it’s a good thing that NSB ships have only a life span contract of six months maximum and after that I'd be starting again on a clean slate, So whatever the damage this might incur, it will only be temporarily and will not hurt a lot in general.

For the flora and fauna around Conti Agulhas, basically this ship is just almost an exactly replica of CONTI Greenland, the piping systems , the arrangement of rooms and even positions of equipment are very much the same. Based on the rumours I heard about Conti ships, it looks like that indeed their claims are correct and each of the six Conti Ships are exactly alike to each other. The only difference is that this Conti Agulhas is more of a Chemical Tanker rather than a Full fledge Oil tanker like in Conti Greenland

For now my general observations on life in Conti Agulhas is that there is a present danger but not enough to make my hairs stand given with my experience , But in the meantime as a friendly warning I better be careful and watch my back.

In other news….

Certainly took me a while to finally get used to my surroundings, For the moment my data and analysis is still incomplete on the flora and fauna of Conti Agulhas and I can only give the basics of my situation here.

On the moment Conti Agulhas structure and layout is very similar (if not alike) on Conti Greenland ship. From the individual cabins - all the way to the piping system and railings , as if like I was totally warped back to Greenland. I had no trouble in memorizing the surroundings , the only difference is were equipment's are supposedly to be located. 

In the meantime , this ship is currently in Tarragona, Spain discharging Naptha. Some sort of "white" petroleum products, (though I'm not exactly sure if this is a poisonous version of naptha ). Discharge operations were finish on the span of only two days and the next port is still in Spain with only a six hour difference, Soon after the discharge I took care of the essentials like washing my civilian clothes and take a bath (haven't cleaned myself up until I left the Philippines)