May
22, 2015 Friday
10.30 pm
the berthing operation of this ship commenced, and much to the annoyance of
BOSUN Diosana (and most of the crew). Captain Sorin is rushing people to heave
up anchor A.S.A.P. thinking that starting up the hydraulic system is just as
simple as like opening a water faucet.
During the
transit , after the pilot has already boarded and me and O.S. Keith are at the
crew mess. I heard on the radio that Bosun Diosana asked both of us to come to
the aft area to help him out in clearing the soot off. When both of us came to
the aft area I found out that Bosun Diosana wasn't referring to a small spot
but the whole area of the aft part was covered with ash and it was an inch
thick. We tried to use a broom to clear it off but with the strong winds and
was totally pitch dark we made little progress , So basically it ended up to
open the fire pump instead and wash the whole aft area before someone notices.
We washed the whole aft area in short notice and effectively cleared off the
ash.
We haven't
had a 5 minute rest yet on the crew mess when again another message on the
radio came in and ordered us to standby on our mooring stations. So as again I
was off at the crew mess and went to the forward area (my current mooring
station) and stayed there for almost an hour.
Mooring
operations didn't have any problems even if we were mooring in pitch black, My
headlight was pretty useful in times of mooring in night time as it provided
illumination on hard to see spots. After the mooring it was pretty much the
usual routine, Place the fire safety equipment near the gangway, prepare the
gangway items needed etc. It was about 3am when everything was prepared and had
an hours rest, eat and take a shower before my working shifts starts
When my
working shift starts, first few hours was normal and had helped Pumpman
Sepulveda and A.B. "Lyndon" in connecting those cargo. After that
fatigue starts to kick in and I started to lose focus especially on keeping an
eye in the gangway. More that distracted me was that when the operations to
discharge cargo started - cargo hose number 3 started to show sign that it was
leaking. The leak was huge enough that its looks more like a gash and Naphtha
was flowing like water on a faucet at a pressure bar of 2.5 , A.B. Lyndon was
quick enough to notice and immediately grabbed the small SOPEP drum and placed
it underneath the leaking cargo hose. Immediately the new Chief mate and pump
man Sepulveda was notified of the leaking cargo hose. Pump man immediately went
out to determine what was the cause and later found that it was the Teflon
gasket. The new chief mate asked if there are any more spare gaskets around to
use but Pump man informed that there are no available new gaskets around and that
NSB is stiff in issuing these needed materials, as a matter of fact he added
that his predecessor didn't ordered any new gaskets at all.
The leaking
of the cargo hose was solved when it was decided that two gaskets will be
placed rather than just one.
Soon after
the leaking cargo hose problem was solved, Pump man Sepulveda noticed that the
gangway was having problems and was already being pinned on the concrete.
Immediately me and A.B. Lyndon corrected the gangway position and heaved up a
little bit. At first the gangway wasn't basically responding and A.B. Lyndon
had to go down on the shore jetty to see on what he can do. After forcefully
heaving it up via the gangway motor , it pop out with a sharp jerking upward
motion and there it was , the gangway was now free from being pinned down.
It was
plain luck that these problems were corrected before captain cobra noticed ,
and more fortunately "Cobra Captain"
was asleep went it happened, otherwise knowing his nature of hysteria
and being meddlesome - He'd spin like a twister and spit venom all over us, if
he would knew. As what Pumpman Sepulveda jokingly said to me after resolving
the gangway problem " Looks like angels are on your side "
After my
working shift had ended , I went to the accommodation area to take a rest but I
didn’t went directly to my cabin yet and stopped by first on the ship's clinic
to take a piss for the random drug and alcohol test. When I got back to start
my working shift, the cargo operation (discharge) was near completion. At
around 9pm this ship unmoored , everything was going fine but by bad luck our
neurotic captain decided to dumb us more workload and said that we should
secure all mooring ropes and stow them.
We weren't happy when we heard this and asked ourselves that this work
could wait in the morning and why the hell does he want it now ? It was already
close to midnight when we finally finished securing all the equipment.
