Here's the events that happened during the Dominican republic stay.
Monday work
routine was done as usual , I was put on the task of segregation of garbage
along with the disposal of food waste and then on the latter helping out O.S.
Joash and A.B. Ryan Osiang in washing the deck. The whole work took us until
noon time and was expecting or assumed that berthing will be sometime on the
latter afternoon. During lunch time all of a sudden , it was announced that
arrival in dominican republic will be in an hour and its berthing upon arrival
schedule. (meaning this ships gets to dock as soon as it arrives).
1pm exactly
when I was called in the cabin to rig the pilot ladder , then it was followed
by mooring operations. Temperature in domincan republic (and the rest of
central America was humid and hot. I had to bring along three purified water
bottles filled with cold water just in case to keep us rehydrated. Mooring
arrangement from what I recall is 3:2:2 and the spring lines will be wire , the
rest is soft ropes.
Mooring is
tedious and complicated because of the weather and we have to drag one soft
rope around all the way from the forecastle area to the spring line winches .
After that we have to give the spring line to the dock . Since there was no
apparent mooring boat on standby we had to manually give those ropes one by one
via heaving line. It was taking us a lot of time and as a result Captain
Romanuik was already shouting on the radio that were wasting too much time on
that rope.
By the time
we already finished heaving up the third rope , everybody was already exhausted
from the temperature. Good thing for me I already took my anti-heat medications
so at least I have some form of resistance from the hot weather.
SAILORS PERCEPTION ON THE
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Security in
Dominican republic is a bit different compared to the usual countries in
central America , although it's not as tight as in south America or even west
African countries. There is still a discrimination on how we treat them - all
because on the guise of "Security measures" . As expected there no
supposedly allowed at all times to go inside without any permission and if
permission is granted they don’t go around without any escorts. The kitchen is
closed for them at all times and they cannot use any facilities inside.
Despite the
ill treatment, The D.R. guys don’t seemed to mind being treated that way.
Anyway ,
One good thing about the local folks here in the security and gangway watchman
is that they also sell all sorts of stuff , and believe it or not they also
sell "black stone" (some sort of premature ejaculation tablet from
what I heard on the locals) . Earlier I thought that this was only being sold
in the panama area and not elsewhere, it was a surprise for me that they were
selling it here as well. I suppose this tablet is available on the whole
Caribbean area. Aside from selling that drug , some local folk here also sell
the usual stuff , internet SIM card and from my understanding , it's about 15
U.S. Dollars per 750 MB , their mobile network here is either
"Orange" or "claro" , unfortunately for me I didn't saw on
how they registered the whole process - so for now I have no clear records on
the internet here.
One thing I
found out on the port here in Dominican republic is that there's a night club
here called "Manila bar" , and as expected on any red light district
in a foreign country especially central
and south America there's prostitutes and whore's inside it. During my late
afternoon gangway watch shift , I heard on the radio that A.B. Ryan asked me
that he will be coming in late on work and will go on shore leave and I had to
fill him in for a while. I agreed of course. A few hours later (well about 9pm)
, he returned back and showed something in the gangway . It was a panty and a
high heels shoe, I don’t want to get into the details but its obviously he went
there and had some fun.
