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,