PIRACY WATCH OVER

Piracy watch keeping is now officially over and I don’t have to be problematic about the lack of sleep over this. Although the piracy watch is just roughly a four hour shift every 12 hours, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the only work I was doing on that time. With cruelty and brutality our Indian officer's had us doing day work - worst part is that this so called "O.T." doesn’t even get paid at all.

 

Anyway it’s a good thing that I'm now living on the 21st century, and social media is already invented. I can now chronicle my experiences as a sailor and let the public read it one day, it's for them to know the inequalities, and viciousness of this line of work and to show that being a sailor is not "living in the lap of luxury" as what it was always portrayed in the Philippine Public.  

 

Going back, Since this ship will be now arriving very soon in Fujirah U.A.E. , we have now removed the anti-personnel razor wire throughout the whole ship and started cleaning up, also the Armed guard helped us out in removing those wires and they will be disembarking soon when this ship arrives in U.A.E. or Oman.,

 

(There are three armed guards here on this ship, Team leader is Greek, the two other are Indian nationalities)

 

 Aside from the removal of anti-personnel equipment. We had the usual routine of having a drill, actually it's more like a familiarization of a life boat, Boring stuff and despite the boringness of it. Our annoying Indian officers here had time to Brag and ridicule me, saying that I know nothing when it comes to lifeboats. Pathetic ! This smelly Indian's don’t have an idea that I had been on five ships before and its very obvious that I'm already familiar on the procedures of launching a lifeboat, What makes them think I don’t know it ? This narrow minded Indians have never thought that I was just playing along on their game, besides that I'm not simply plainly interested in learning anything at all in this company and why should I bother ? CF Sharp and Norstar is simply just full of shit from the start ) 

 

 

FALSE ALARM

Entry date : July 26 016 Tuesday

Location : South of Yemen

 

 

For the moment, I had been thinking for several days now on using the public satellite email this ship has - actually it’s the email used by the captain to send messages to the company , turns out it can be used as well to send to messages to emails. The catch is that privacy of messages is zero and that there's a possibility that someone (or even the captain) can read to those email messages and read it. I'm not really comfortable sending an email that has no privacy - a lesson I learned way back on "CAPE TALLIN" a few years back.

 

Most likely if I'm going to send an email here, I had to set some rules. First is that the language in email will be the local dialect of Filipino's which is called "Tagalog" , since ship officers here do not understand that language fully and I don't know any other foreign language to code my messages. At least using that  language minimizes the possibility of someone trying to read my email messages. Another thing is that I won't use this email is to update my blog, and cant risk that my blog will be discovered just because of it.

 

Anyway while I'm still working on the details , here's the news about work.

 

This Tuesday morning , I was suddenly surprise to see both Chief Mate and Third mate went to the bridge 3am this morning and discussed something to 2nd mate. I didn't hear the conversation given at my distance from them and I was basically on the bridge wing when I saw it, I didn’t even bother to figure it out as well because I'm simply not interested thinking that it was a work related stuff. I only found out on what the fuzz is all about on 4am when O.S. "mark" told me that the general alarm bell suddenly tripped off on below decks and made everyone ran to the designated muster station. I was on the funnel area at that time and didn’t heard a thing , only thing I remember was that 2nd mate asked me to check the B and A deck and tell anyone I saw there that they should go back to their cabins to sleep, fortunately I didn’t saw anyone.

 

 

RETENTION

ENTRY JOURNAL DATED: July 20, 2016

Location : Somewhere Far east on the Somali coast

 

 

"Just for the record this is a bad idea , if I ended up being hostage by Somali pirates because of negligence of these blockhead Indian ship officers we have here, I swear to god , I'm going to play Judas and help out the pirates on how get to the citadel and open it myself"

 

 - Unknown Filipino Sailor During G.O.A. Somali Piracy Transit, July 2016 -  

 

As expected despite the anarchy reported and hostage taking, transiting Somalia area is generally peaceful and nothing to worry about, and what's more to add to the assurance is that we have an armed guard around to cover our asses.

 

But despite all the confidence and assurance. Our Indian ship officers here exploited this and wants us to do day work - WHAT THE FUCK !!!! Go outside and do our normal routine of day work ! Right in the middle of a Somali pirate infested area ?! You got to be shitting me ! Just for the record , this is a terrible and stupid idea coming from our Indian chief mate. Now what kind of person in their right mind do a day work on that kind of situation ? - I don’t know but it boggles my mind on logic why the fuck , this Indian chief mate wants that. What is exactly  the fuck goes on in his mind ???

 

Honestly I don’t see the reasonable judgement on why I have to go outside and do a routine day work in the middle of a pirate watch besides that it's definitely unsafe to be outside on the deck lollygagging on unimportant matters. These block head Gandhi's didn’t realize the possibility that if ever there is a real pirate attack and somehow they got lucky , one of us crew could end up being a hostage.

 

Although highly unlikely but , if I ended up being hostage by Somali pirates because of negligence of these blockhead Indian ship officers here, I swear to god , I'm going to play Judas and help out the pirates on how get to the citadel and open it myself - So we can all go to hell -WHOLESALE !!!! (Geez I'm starting to think Oiler Allan Sta. Maria was right quitting this ship early.). Cant end up me being the only hostage do I ? I'm going to be relieved if all us end up being hostage (imbecile Indian officers included) .

 

Anyway so much for all that , so called Safety meeting and briefing shit yesterday - practically useless talk and irrelevant now. I just hope that the three armed guards would do their job in safe guarding this ship, while doing a day work.

 

Can't imagine that I'm here right now on one of the worst possible places on earth and on top of that , I'm not even getting paid for it.  Fuck you Norstar Ship management and fuck you too CF sharp for putting me here and changing my original ship assignment.

 

Speaking of which, about the Irrelevant "Safety meeting" - Turns out that the location of the beloved "citadel" (panic room) is the steering gear room, worst place to pick if you ask me. Why ? The whole area has no decent ventilation to start with and pirates can literary access the room easily starting on the steering gear door and "skylight" hatch above, Were secured on the sides entrances but not above entrance. In other words it's basically a death trap and if any crazy ass pirate would be smart and desperate enough to figure this out, he could just basically blow up any of the two entrance door right on top of steering gear room and delivery death from above. Luckily Somali pirates are not known for such mindless carnage and usually (if not almost all) instead prefer capturing sailors alive for ransom, Besides what's the use of a dead sailor anyway compared to a live one ?  If it were not considering the safety of armed security escorts here,. I could say that were all doomed.

 

Incidentally, a small fishing vessel when straight ahead towards this ship Thursday afternoon. Everybody dropped everything on what are they doing and went inside, even the armed guards got alarmed and hurriedly went upstairs from the mess room to the bridge and wore their bullet proof vest and armed themselves.  The small fishing vessel went in close proximity and incidentally had the stereo type appearance of a "pirate mothership" (dilapidated rundown look) and small skiffs a few meters just beside it. Fortunately the small fishing boat didn't change direction and just passed by, and the skiffs never moved at all. In other words it was a false alarm and was just a typical fishing boat in the middle of the sea or maybe it saw that this ship has armed guards (via telescope) and decided that attacking was a bad idea - who knows ? . In any case this scared the shit on most of the people here, including our neglectful Myanmar ship captain. At about an hour after, we all went back to our usual work. Me on the bridge as a lookout for pirate ships and the others were on day work chipping rust.

 

   

SWAPPING OF VISITORS

ENTRY LOG: July 18, 2016 Monday

Location: Nairobi, Kenya

 

 

Although It was highly unlikely that our Myanmar 2nd engineer would quit on his job, He did pass his repatriation request - and what's written in his letter is disembark on next convenient port. Up to now it's not clear what is his reasons why he quit his work, but it's obvious that maybe he quit the job because this ship is not a comfortable working environment to begin with and almost all of the crew agree on that matter.

 

In any case, this adds to the list of the number of people who are supposedly going to disembark.

 

In other news

 

Other anti-piracy measures have been put up such as dummies' (though highly ineffective because of the material used to make it) which had toy guns and fire hoses (doubtful on the fact that most of these are broken) , anyway despite the ineffectiveness of these measure's , I'm relieved that there's an armed guard around so in cases of any pirate gets smart enough to try to even board  - the armed guards will be happy enough to pepper them with bullets. Of course for us sailors, when that happens - we will be rushing to our makeshift "citadel" (actually it's called a "panic room" on land) , cowering like helpless civilians. Armed guards are really necessary here, since this ship travels at a very slow rate like a 17 century wooden one, slow as a damn cow and chances are, without any armed security this ship could easily be captured by would be Somali pirates 

 

At about 6pm July 18 , the DNV inspectors disembarked and was swapped in by  armed guards boarded this ship. It was a chore hauling off their heavy luggage's , but I did little of the work and let the others do most of it. After all I'm not in the mood and had little motivation to work on this pathetic ship (because of salary issues) - I just made it to look like I'm doing something. By midnight , I went to the bridge and asked third officer if the pirate watch will start, lucky for me it wasn't and was told to go back to sleep. 

PATCHING UP EAGLE BOSTON

ENTRY LOG : July 14, 2016 Thursday

Location : East of South Africa

 

 

Working late as usual - worst part is that I'm not being paid for the extra hours Norstar is dishing out on their old pathetic ship. To keep for the record, they had me working up until 6pm on regular working hours. Geez what a total dick !

 

Recently we have been putting up some razor wire and barbed wire as anti-piracy measures , The stuff that was widely used during world war 1. Typical stuff now a days and still being used up to now. Razor wire isn't really a problem installing in this ship - No thanks to those thick leather gloves that was issued as hand protection, So basically punctures and razor cuts on the arms and skin are a thing of the past now (well as long as any company would issue those types of gloves) - but incase a company is cheap enough not to issue those , I would be grabbing fitter's welding gloves which is thick enough to repel those nasty spikes of a razor wire, It’s a good alternative.

 

As for the transit on GOA region (or anywhere near somalia) Luckily Armed Guards have already been invented now on my time as primary anti-piracy measures, and will be boarding this ship probably in Nairobi, Kenya after the surveyors disembark there. So the chances of being held hostage by Somali pirates is lessen compared 8 to 6 years back, and I don’t have to worry being waken up in bed that some Ak-47 is being pointed right in front of my face.

 

On work, after finishing off what's left (or a least a majority) in installing the razor wire. Some of us crew here had to go down the ballast tanks to assist the DNV surveyors and technicians. From what I recall BOSUN RODRIGO, PUMPMAN OBINA and O.S. "Mark" had to go down on the ballast , while the rest of us were left doing assorted stuff. Lately Pump man had discovered a crack somewhere in 2 water ballast tank starboard and had all of us on deck on standby helping them out from outside the tank. Chief mate Douza also came in to the tank to help the two, which lead to the predicament of me being up on work till 6pm. I do understand the importance of patching up the leak , but it doesn’t cover up the excuse of "not being paid" on our efforts. This is the part were norstar fails miserably - the most important part , on compensating workers on their working hours. Anyway not a day goes by that I grumble in this.

 

The following day was pretty much the continuation, and moreover a lot of patching up to do for the Riding crew especially fitter and A.B. "Bong" . The rest of the day was just basically cleaning up the mess. During the lunch break , I overheard in the locker room that the two recent technicians that arrived were complaining about something, Most of us assumed that A.B. Paulito Cordova and O.S. Marden Luib were basically just sat around and crapped on their job to assist the two technicians.

 

I'm not surprised that this was the case, given that these two riding crew are basically cheating on work. I don’t really give a shit if they cheat on work actually but the problem with these two is that not only do they cheat on work but also have an offensive behavior especially paulito cordova , who give fucking lecture's like he's some sort of feeling high and mighty over his co-workers - basically a total dick. One incident was I was guarding the entrance and meddles with my work about my problem with the handheld radio, that dick even has the nerve to lecture me do something about it, First off its my problem not his and second I hate lectures , that cocky son of a bitch. Hope he falls off this ship and gets eaten by a squid ! Bastard !

 

Aside from that annoyance, Another unfortunate thing happened on me. My Stanley Cardboard box cutter got lost - not by me , by it was A.B. "Alvin" . Apparently it got lost somewhere on the huge area of 2 starboard water ballast tank.

 

Later that day, the DNV surveyor was furious about Chief Mate Douza over the issues about "enclosed space permit" , which unfortunately for him didn’t signed up before we entered the water ballast tank.

 

("Enclosed Space Permit" basically is a paper work done by the chief mate authorizing the crew to enter a space inside the ship that has a possibility of toxic gases or low oxygen. Basically more like an assurance that in case we die inside those pockets , its CHIEF MATES FAULT AND NOT OURS )

 

 

FOUR VISITORS

Entry log is July 11, 2016 Monday

 

Location : Port Elizabeth, South Africa

 

A lot of people have been dissatisfied on recent developments on our working condition here and it's no surprise that there are grumbling a lot as well, I can't blame them , seeing that I myself is dissatisfied over the conditions here and it’s a far cry from the good treatment I had received when I was in Career Ship Management on NSB "Conti" Ships. Shame that I had to leave on my former company due to very long "Waiting time". Anyway now I know why CF sharp is not included on my list of possible suitable companies to begin with, Working Conditions here and Company policies are not suited for a seafarer and not built for long term employment. Frankly my employment here is a big setback rather than progress on my career.

 

Despite the battery of consecutive disappointments that plague working conditions here, life goes on and so does the never ending process of work. I'm not in a good mood to work but I had to keep on going, knowing that a few months more and I'd get the fuck off on this ship for good which is my main goal. I still have at least 6 months to complete the exact contract here.

 

About work, currently this ship is expecting 4 visitors from some sort of "DNV - GL" and rooms to accommodate them have already been prepared. Some of them will be occupying the hospital and some on actual cabins ( and on my disappointment me and "O.S mark" are compressed on one cabin ).

 

For now my work involves helping Pump man out down below on the pump room. Apparently recent events had the bowels of the pump room flooded again by water and we had to scoop and take out the water. On that work I had to bring out and use my safety helmet that has a headlight with it , but while working I found out that it was too bulky and too heavy for my head plus I can't maneuver and do a mouse look because of tight spaces and large pipes above my head. All the time I had to crouch and bend in taking out the water because there's not enough leg room. (which added stress on my neck and back)

 

Thinking of that scenario, I needed an equipment that can get my headlight on tight spaces without bumping my head into something and can make me move around a little bit easier while working. The end result of it was that I had made and developed an equipment similar to an NVG frame (night vision googles), actually it’s made out of the inner plastic frame of a safety helmet, the plastic straps placed to keep the head in place on the helmet and using some of the equipment I had with me on the luggage and some equipment I saw here, I made a little tune up and modification and tweaked it. I haven't tested it yet on my equipment made but hopefully soon it will see action on the actual working conditions here.

 

Going back about the visitors, It looks like that this ship is having another rumour about altering its course away from Kenya and Madagascar, as in way beyond the waters off on this countries. Perhaps probably away from GOA Somali area (high risk piracy area), in order for the company to save money and not hire a security team to protect this ship (mercenaries). There's no specific yet detail if this is true or not, The only thing known is that this ship will alter course because of "bad weather" according to the captain.  

 

At about 6PM a small barge came in for bunkering of this ship (refueling), a few moments later another small craft approached carrying the four surveyors followed by another supply barge that carries razor wire supplies.

 

During the loading of supplies, BOSUN Rodrigo was in the crane when he saw something smoking on one of the plastic bags , and yelled out that we better get the way out of those bags. Chief mate Douza saw it and yelled that I should get the fire hose ready. I immediately came grabbing one of the hoses and putting it on the water pipes, when I came to the location , O.S. "mark" was already dousing the huge plastic bag that was making a smoke. Turns out later when it was thoroughly searched that one of the car batteries inside the supplies ruptured and spilled acid , Anyway it was just a false alarm in the end.

 

After the brief minor incident, Chief mate Douza said that we had to take out all the razor wires out which we did only later to find out that he changed his mind after taking out all the wires on the plastic bag and said that we should store it on the starboard midship store, ( Hmpf !! What a total indian dick ! He should have told us earlier about this to save us the trouble).

 

At about 8pm I had to leave on the workplace, along with BOSUN Rodrigo and O.S. "Mark" and head out to the crew mess to grab some grub since we skipped out dinner and left the "riding crew" to finish off the work in the razor wire.

 

Midnight , Me and O.S. "Mark" was awaken again on the cabin.to heave up the anchor after the bunkering ops. Heaving anchor was fine and got delayed when the chain was tangled up a big on the anchor , fortunately it was resolved quickly after two hours.

DELAYED SALARY

Entry log is July 10, 2016 , Sunday

 

 

Weather has been very beautiful and comfortable over the past week, now that this ship will be in south Africa in a few days - reminds me of summer time season in Europe.

 

Sadly despite being comfortable now , next week and so will be very uncomfortable as this ship approaches UAE area. As what I recall a few years back during my deck cadet years, the weather in this area is blistering hot and surely the last place I had in mind in visiting. I still very much prefer and like the weather in Europe than in Asia or in the middle east. If I had known earlier that this ship will be trading on the middle east and Asia , I would have simply avoided and turned down this contract from the start. Anyway I didn’t discovered it only until latter - and besides that CF Sharp lied to me POINT BLANK about this contract.    

 

In other news on work

 

Finally have completed sewing all the pockets needed for the coveralls, at least all the pockets for my weekday coveralls (Mondays to fridays), So that brings a total of 5 coveralls - I still need to sew one more pocket for the Saturday coverall.

 

For the record, this is the most numerous coveralls I had used on all of my previous ships. I had now a total of 14 coveralls inside my cabin and this excludes two more inside my luggage. To break down , I had seven "active" coveralls I use currently (one's which have pockets on the shoulder area) and another seven which I kept as reserve or for emergency uses. So why all the numerous coveralls ? Simple - since laundry here has a schedule and there is no assurance that it would open up anytime soon , I figured that boosting the number I had on my equipment makes better chances of being always ready and equipment will always be available for me to use. It's all just about numbers of how many I have on my arsenal.

 

Another thing, people might ask is why the hell do I sew pockets on the shoulder area of my coveralls? The reason is very obvious that it's for functionality, and that I don't normally carry stuff inside my pockets around in the pocket chest area of coveralls , somehow putting things there makes me carry stuff in a bulky fashion and I had a hard time moving around with something heavy on my chest area plus the fact that equipment's I place on my chest pocket tend to "slip up" and easily fell off. So I figured by accident way back on CAPE TALLIN ship that putting pockets on my shoulder would make the weight unnoticeable - and it did and in addition it never slipped out or fell on that area.

 

In other news.

 

Dubai dry docks is cancelled although the ship repairs will not proceed in this area, it doesn’t necessary meant that this ship won't be going there in Dubai for a loading and discharging operations. Problem with the cancellation on the ship repairs is that this ship will not be equip with internet access, which meant no access means no contact on the outside world especially with direct relatives - a major bummer and set back on the communications part.

 

Lately there has been a ruckus here on this ship about the home / special allotment not being forwarded to our relatives. In other words to simply say, our salaries have not been paid on time. This caused an uproar amongst almost all the Filipino crew - knowing that our hard earned salaries for a month's hasn't been paid yet. According to our principal Norstar , they have not been informed yet by CF Sharp that they were supposedly to pay the crew of their salary thus resulting that no money was forwarded. As for CF sharp , they have no comments or words yet release about this said "delay" and just kept quiet adding more to the confusion and bewilderment on some of my crew mates if they're doing anything at all to resolve this. My crewmates have already made a letter and we all signed it about the issue on our delayed / special allotment predicament, probably to inform the Norstar or CF Sharp that they have a problem regarding our payroll.

 

It’s a good move made by our crewmates but there's no guarantee that CF Sharp will even bother to listen or take action.

 

On Other news

 

the safety meeting on crew did not exactly resolved issues about this ship which includes the payroll, even the bond store was not even discussed carefully and leaves much doubt and skepticism. Apparently the "bond store" here was not exactly a bond store at all and turns out that captain was implying more of like a "personal purchase order" rather than a tradition bond store, heck it was not even discussed clearly about what kind of payment will be the purchase - if its either by personal pocket money or via salary deduction. Nevertheless whatever this turned out on the "personal purchase" it's very obvious that bond store here is totally non-existent and certainly will not be available at least towards halfway on the contract - making living conditions here more troublesome with the lack of proper supplies.

 

With this left and right consecutive disappointments, a lot of my crewmates now are grumbling openly about the policies here in this ship and in general in CF Sharp. From my estimate at least more than half of the crew are very dissatisfied on what's going on and the treatment CF sharp gives to us here, A majority of us even decided that after this - we don’t even consider making another contract on this worthless pathetic company, and would be better off elsewhere on another company. Most of us here say that there is nothing positive to talk about on norstar and CF Sharp.   

 

On my end here for now I'm doing well on the fact that I came here fully prepared and fully supplied, my supplies here is at least sufficient enough to last for months.

 

In another news

 

O.S. "Mark" will be moving in on my cabin AGAIN, because this ship will be expecting visitors which resulted to him being booted out on his own cabin (his cabin will be used to accommodate visitors). I don’t mind having a roommate around although I still prefer being alone on my cabin due to privacy issues, but for now there is no choice and having a double "decker" bed on my cabin gives the impression on our chief mate that it can accommodate two people - bad and unfortunate for me.

 

Good thing this will only be temporarily at least until this ship reaches fujirah U.A.E. which is three weeks away (estimate is end of july) 

 

  

GOT 85 MAX

Entry log is June 28, 2016 , TUESDAY

 

Latest updates about this ship's "dry dock" repairs was rumored to be sooner and will be dubai instead of somewhere in china. Although this info has not been confirmed yet by our Myanmar captain, so for now if there's no final word from the management - I'd just consider this info to be moot.

 

If the rumors were indeed true however, I'd bet that next month's weather will be difficult for me and will be a "blow torch" for me in Dubai. The encyclopedia I looked about UAE's climate are very clear that temperatures in that area spike to as much as 49 degrees Celsius, and with me having a no effective means or counter tactics against high temperatures, I'm not exactly sure on how things will turn out for me there, for the moment THERE IS NO EFFECTIVE WORK TACTICS AGAINST HOT WEATHER, compared to cold weather environments.

 

In other news…

 

Official pay slips just came out regarding our pay and as expected there is no actual cash handed out, just a paper slip and details saying this amount of money is deposited on our bank account. Obviously there is no certain way that I could verify if what the paper slip says is true or not - not without internet. A lot of my crew mates are even speculative on the pay if it did or did not even deposited the salary immediately. They're worried that CF Sharp might "hold" the money first until they arrived in the Philippines (which is still 8 months at least in estimate) and deposited it later. True or not on the speculations , it is evident that CF sharp has a possibility (as like any other manning companies out there in the Philippines) of conning people. This shows the fact that even if the company has already been around for some time (75 years or so) and legal doesn't necessarily guarantee that they will not do something that is illegal and do a work that’s exactly a snow job.

 

Like I said there's no possible way to tell at the moment if the pay did reach out bank account. The only thing certain is that they're no handling out cash here on this ship.

 

In relation to this

 

It now official on how much did we got from all our work efforts and sadly much to everybody's disappointment. The overtime pay was pathetic to every angle. The lowest who got the overtime pay was the engine department, and the highest was the galley department. The deck department was only mid-tier. The highest overtime pay rate was only 24 hours total for a month and the lowest was only about 7 hours.

 

Main culprit why the overtime pay is low ? Simple answer ! They had us maximized the whole allotted 85 hours stipulated on the contract before they can pay anything extra, We literary had to fill all that working hours for the whole month - sticking to what the paper contract literary tells. If this was the case, we'd be better off in a fixed overtime pay and that its best to underperform rather than over perform, because being over perform doesn't pay as much as underperforming - simple as that.  

 

I recall on how much disgusted mess man Christopher Cemania says during lunchtime saying that the pay was a total rip off and Norstar / Cf Sharp is ripping us off on our salary. He added that 7 month's work here is more than enough, anything beyond that is torture.

 

More and more people here are joining in the "dissatisfied" group which only started loosely on just three people. Me, Oiler Allan and Fitter Amiel and from the start us three we not even talking to each other. With now more recently two O.S. submitted their "repatriation" leave, the only question now is who among crew will stand up and have the balls to leave the job ?    

 

As of the latest news O.S. Molina's request was turned down by the office apparently his excuse was very lame (quitting his job to get married) , which I admit has very poor reasons why he wanted to go back home, as a result he became the laughing stock for the whole ship, at least for a week. As for O.S. Luib, Marder's reasons , there is no word yet if it was accepted or not.    

UNEXPECTED JOINING

Entry log is June 28, 2016 , TUESDAY

 

More and more are joining in on the "Unsatisfied" band wagon and wanted to leave this ship due to undesirable working conditions here. Recently I learned that two of the O.S. riding crew here on this ship has submitted his letter of repatriation and will be joining Fitter Amiel Lorzano and Oiler Allan Sta. Maria in disembarking in Singapore. To what reason why O.S. will be disembarking is still yet unknown as of this moment(thought Oiler Allan is still undecided as of the moment), but its not surprise to learn that the reason might be something to do with the working conditions here. After all that's the main reason why most of  people here are unsatisfied and disgruntled , including myself because not all (in fact none at all) that they promised was met here on this ship.

 

As a matter of fact, I myself was planning to disembark here but I screwed up after St. Eustatius when I didn’t submitted my letter of repatriation. So my only hope now is this so called mystical "early vacation" leave - if ever it is true on what Cf Sharp tells before we got deployed here. The moment I can only do for now is to sit tight and relay on my skills to last at least a couple of months before I bust out of here. I can only hope by that time , this ship is somewhere in the Asia pacific region and the airfares are not that high in case of an emergency.

 

Now the question on those two O.S., is if their reason are valid enough to earn them a ticket home?

 

In other news.

 

Looks like that O.S. "mark" will be moving in again on my cabin, and I have no idea why they keep compressing him on my cabin. Just as this ship will be expecting at least 3 more visitors (possible is 6) doesn’t mean he'd be booted out of his cabin and be thrown into mine. It's annoying on the fact that I don’t have enough space here and second , I lack the privacy having a roommate. Don’t get me wrong I'm not angry on O.S. "mark" in anyway , but what I'm critical about is the MLC standard of a sailor having a 1:1 ratio on accommodations. It's a big hassled for both of us O.S. sharing a same room.

 

For the info on this journal the visitors will be expecting will be some sort of superintendents probably from DNV-GL , and another three armed security personnel for the transit in Somalian area.

THE BOMB SHELL

Entry log is June 26, 2016 , Sunday

 

 

(FOT / GOT - means fixed overtime / guaranteed overtime pay , meaning you still get the paid for the work done outside normal working hours. Common term used here as a sailor is "open" overtime and "fixed" overtime. )

 

It's now confirmed that FOT / GOT won't pay that much, for them it’s a surprise but for me it wasn't and was anticipated weeks before it came out. Basically the FOT / GOT pay was based per rank of person on this ship, so the higher the rank goes the higher the pay, but for me since I'm one of the lower rankers then its pretty obvious that this pathetic company named norstar will just give scraps. From what I heard the GOT / FOT for the O.S. given on this month was just a total of 17 hours, yeah 17 fucking hours !!! All that hard work that was put for a total of a month without rest days and excess working was just put as toilet paper. (total of only 53 U.S. Dollars all in all, WHAT THE FUCK !!!). When I was a deck cadet I only had 40 U.S. worth on overtime pay, now what's the difference between norstar and my past employer during my deck cadet years eh ?!  Just only 13 dollars difference but total bullshit !!!, might as well that they should have put it on a fixed overtime rather than open overtime - pathetic !!!

 

So all that propaganda bullshit CF sharp has been to deceiving its sailors so that they can sign up for the norstar principal was just plain hoax and to lure unsuspecting victims to ruin. Anyone reading this on my writing SHOULD NOT PROCEED ON EMPLOYEMENT IF CF SHARP OFFERS YOU THE NORSTAR PRINCIPAL. As much as possible avoid it at all cost , otherwise you're in for the ride of your life and will be put directly to harm's way. The Ship is very unsafe given with its age (built 1996) which is by the time writing this is 20 years old now.

 

But the biggest part here about this news is that some of my fellow crew members don’t even have the slightest idea that this will happen on the start., I'm somewhat amused that they're IQ's are not that high when it comes to this and  they have been around sailing longer than I was and yet they are as clueless on the actual situation that Norstar will be conning its way. It was a big surprise for them to learn about this and yet it's not for me and Oiler Allan Sta. Maria , - PATHETIC ! They should have known better that this will happen, To be perfectly honest I was thrilled to see the look on their faces on how disgusted they were when they heard the news.

 

In other news related to work.,

 

Currently were still chipping off huge chunks of corrosion and rust on the aft winches, The rust here is so thick that even using a "jet chisel" tool is useless and will take time. As on me I'm not using a chipping hammer , instead I use a claw hammer , the hammer which a carpenter typically use to smash nails. Each smash I make on the hammer literary chunks and chunks fell off like broken stale crackers. Before the end of each working day my coveralls are covered with pulverized rust from all that hammering and chipping in the winches.

 

Another thing why "jet chisel" equipment here works on a limited basis is because also of the weak outdated compressor from the engine room. To everyone's annoyance four "jet chisel" equipment cannot work simultaneously, if it does pressure from the air socket weaken and thus the efficient "jet chisel" is nothing more than just useless equipment.

 

More Recently …

 

Me and O.S. "Mark" , had been order to work on the "garbage segregation" which meant rummage the garbage and reorganize it. Good thing for me this work meant like scavenging any useful I can find, and I did find some useful items like an mp3 player which I can use as a clock, a few nylon straps and a spare coveralls. Scavenging trash may be degrading for the most part but if a person is  stranded and left for dead by his employers (like in my case in CF Sharp) this could be a life saver in finding items that matter. It's not something to be proud of but definitely it’s a must if I'm going to stuck here longer.

 

Speaking of which , I had found one particular item on the trash , specifically it was a pack of "Kisses" dark chocolate and given with the situation here of the lack of food and other essential items including the fact of "NO BONDSTORE" , I had thoughts of keeping it and hiding it on my cabin and eating it on the latter but of course to my dismay it has been in the trash for almost a month and there's no assurance that it can be riddled with bacteria and fungi. well There's an option that I can use the microwave to sterile the food and blast it with radiation , but I can never be certain that all bacteria (or other organisms) will be purged in the process, besides knowing that working conditions here are very poor and they won't even bother to send me to a doctor if I get sick because the Company matters more to them than human lives. I decided not to proceed on my plan on eating that pack of chocolates and instead threw it to the sea.  I just can't simply risk myself in getting sick here. Besides I maybe inoculated from cholera , but that doesn’t meant I can't catch something else like dysentery, E. Coli bacteria or "God-knows-what" from eating that chocolate - yummy as it may look but I had to pass . It's for the best despite being hungry. 

 

The reason I had thoughts about it in the first place was because of the lack of food here, I had been on five ships before and this ship (my six one) is the poorest working environment I've met of all so far. Practically no food and nothing decent to eat, especially during nighttime. I'm not sure if chief cook's working practices are bad or is the ship restricting its limited food supply. Either way the conclusion here is food is scarce even for Asian standards.

 

In other news

 

Another disappointment came in on this so called "safety meeting" last Saturday. Apparently any attempts that bond store would be put are met with disappointment when our Myanmar captain said that bond store is not exactly needed on this ship and that if we ever need something like toothpaste, lotion , soap etc. We can get it easily elsewhere on land (if the ship berths) specifically when this ship dry docks in china for repairs. WHAT THE FUCK ?!! WHAT THE FUCK ?! How am I supposed to get stuff on a situation that is still a few months away ? Besides that there is no assurance that we will get out of the shipyard at all after work. Moreover even if by some chance we could get out , we don’t have any money yet and we haven't been exactly paid and given cash money. I had been given here more than a month now and I haven't been paid on my salary yet (at least given cash) and only some paper slip with numbers saying that some cash was deposited on my bank account.

 

Either way the situation is that the bond will not exist and if does its not reliable, which will be a problem for me later since I heavily relay on it for food, soap and other essential stuff.    

F.O.T. / G.O.T. ISSUE

Entry log is June 22, 2016 , Wednesday

 

There have been news that came in lately, not exactly bad news but definitely not good news.

 

First off, the overtime pay that almost everybody is awaiting here has been approved and from the looks of it , a few have been happy about the excess overtime working hours but of course not all. From the rumours Deck department had an excess 25 working hours, so that means the total of working hours will be something close to 105 to 110 working hours from the standard GOT / FOT on our contracts (guaranteed overtime / fixed overtime). This may sound sweet but doing the math may not be so,

 

Based on my contract I had a net pay for a month is just 1,000 U.S.D. which includes the GOT / FOT , If I add my excess working hours then multiply the excess working hours to my rate per working hour - it only adds to 78.25 U.S.D. ,

 

Hmpf !!! All that hard work for just 78.25 U.S.D. ??? I had already been working even on weekends on this pathetic ship , not to mention had a cleaning schedule of every hour everyday plus TAKE NOTE of extended working hours during mooring / unmooring and a 6 hour long shift every time this ship goes to port and all this stinky Norstar Ship Management / CF Sharp Crew Management can add is just 78.25 U.S.D. ??? WHAT THE FUCK ?!!! Honestly 1078 U.S.D. pay barely scratches my previous salary of 1268 U.S.D. and does not even impress me  at all.

 

Most of my co-workers are joyful about the increase , but I'm not sure if they're just ignorant or they haven't been employed previous with a good company with a better principal. Either way I'm amused they're still smiling even if they're giving us shitty pay.

 

As for the Excess overtime pay, thanks but this doesn’t change anything on the way I think about CF sharp and Norstar Crew management.

 

In other news ….

 

Had heard that fitter Amiel Lorzano did pass his repatriation request and it was only hand written, From what I heard it was passed after ST. Eustatius loading and from the looks of it he will be going home once this ship reaches Singapore somewhere late July or early august. Oiler Allan Sta Maria is also thinking of passing his repatriation request , despite earlier having second thoughts and didn’t passed his repatriation request. On my end , I had already missed out the opportunity in sending a repatriation request which I should have done right after St. Eustatius loading operation, Despite the setback because I hesitated - I will send a request sometime in late November. Hopefully I had at least enough money to go around with that time period by that time to cover up huge losses of income on this contract.    

LONG VOYAGE

Log entry: June 15, 2016 Wednesday

 

Typing and sending Oiler's Allan Sta. Ana's message was troublesome but I had to send it anyway since I owe the guy in helping me out sending a message to my sister via putting TOP UP's on my phone. His personal message was very long and was absolutely littered with " blessing for us and pray for me - religious gibberish" which complicates my SMS sending given with the limited amount of time I had to squeeze those SMS before the menu refreshes.

 

His messages looked more like a standalone email than simple 150  character tweets for an international SMS standard and cramming a four page note on it was frustrating, Anyway I did manage to get it done because I owe him a favour. Oh by the way just to write for the record , the nearby mountain was blocking the cellphone signal and I had to smuggle on the workplace an instrically unsafe device because the only area that has a signal was on the forward part of the ship, everything else is dead spot and I had done that while I was in the middle of working shift. 

 

Speaking of which , On my equipment - it looks like that I had broken another set of expensive equipment on work,. Alas my kata mini tablet worth 5,000 Php I bought way back 2013 now lies badly inoperable and destroyed from getting soaked on sea water. Apparently I'm partly to blame why it got destroyed , I was looking for an effective device as a clock and being handheld decided that my kata was enough for "work operations" , Now that its commissioned and being used for work, Indian ship officers of mine , one day decided that I was to be put on work while in the middle of the rain and sea splash. As a result my kata mini tablet got water logged and never again functioned, a piece of expensive and usable equipment now lies destroyed. - Fucking Crows !!! 

 

In other news

 

Looks like the St. Eustatius berthing will drag now for 5 straight days from discharging to unloading of its cargo and it's not a surprise that fatigue signs are now showing on my work. 5 days straight of 6 hour long working shift and total of 12 hours a day, total that and fatigue will really show up on my part. If this "over worked" working schedule drags on for a long time, I'm not sure on how long can I keep up with this kind of environment. Working environment here is a big drag, imagine practically no rest days !!!

 

After work on St. Eustatius is finish , I'm sure I'd be dragged on again in the unmooring for again, meaning extended working hours. I'm having doubts that this ship and the principal norstar ship management is complying with minimal rest hours, I figure it is below 10 hours. 

 

During the whole berthing work, the ship made a few leaks on its cargo - all of it signs of poor maintenance and severely bad corrosion. Even some hydraulic Valves and pumps are leaking like in the winches for example, we had to get buckets to collect those leaks just to prevent them from spilling on the deck floor.  Plus not to mention the problematic gangway and pilot access ladders which sometimes work and sometimes doesn’t work.

 

When Unmooring time came, an unforeseen scenario happened. Turns out that the Indian 2nd officer had a heated conversation with Pumpman Mondiego Obina from pilot access gangway safety - actually indirectly related to that. It started when one of the bolts on the gangway ladder went missing, 2nd Officer notice that and told pump man about it. Pump man ignored it and said its of little importance , 2nd officer insisted and that’s the trouble started.

 

2nd officer told Pumpman that he should tell me to get some bolts , Pumpman refused on the fact that I'm not one of his "men" . In the end 2nd officer just told me to get some bolts in the starboard deck store, couldn't figure which size he wanted so I grabbed some few and when I returned they were still arguing. I just kept the silent on the whole ruckus to avoid any flak from both sides.,  A.B. Enrique Antiporta joined on the side of Pump man Obina.

 

It didn't bother me , after the two broke off and was busy securing the pilot gangway , problem is that O.S. Marden Luib seems to not help me at all on the work and just tells me on what to do, - tsk ! That lazy old tart ! Trying to cheat his way off on work again !!!! I wonder how he got that promotion he brags about in CSM ? Anyway he's been with CSM before so I expect that people who came from that origin on my previous company doesn’t have good manners compared to people from NSB principal. - Asshole doesn’t even know how to open a mast riser properly during work ! Pathetic !!!

 

Once the pilot ladder was secured , I got a few hours rest and back again on work on the following morning.  

FINAL VERDICT

Journal log entry : June 13, 2016 Monday

Area: St. Eustatius , (Somewhere in the Caribbean)

 

After much deliberation and thinking, I had finally made a verdict and I think it's best for me to sit tight and ride this whole contract out. Now the only problem I have for the moment would be notifying my sister, that I had changed my mind and will not go home by August.

 

Maybe surprising by now that a couple of weeks ago, I was blabbering about going home and all that shit. As a matter of fact I still do because I was deceived and coerced by CF Sharp in signing unfair contracts. However despite my reasons , I cannot set aside logic and reason that land base jobs are more easily constructed / deconstructed with minimal whiplash compared to overseas job. Basically having a land based job is more secure and the worker is more protect by law than the overseas one, As an OFW I have to consider that once I'm outside the Philippines, It's every man for himself - and that I'm at the mercy of my employer quiet literary. So its more complicated to quit a job overseas than quit a job locally because of this because Phil. Labour law doesn’t apply elsewhere. In other words I'm avoiding the risk of my whiplash if I don’t finish my contract

 

As for my teeth, apparently I had to endure this for a couple of months for now and imperatively need dental repairs as soon as I get back in the Philippines and hope that the damage sustained is not that extensive enough to made me lose my teeth. 

 

In other matters , ship has recently reached and berthed in St. Eustatius , an island somewhere in the Caribbean and began loading in cargo. As usual I'm off again on my usual task of the gangway watchman , and helping out in the manifold area. Honestly I'm not in the mood or even excited about my work , and the stinky contract adds more to my dissatisfaction here.

 

Speaking of which, I overheard Oiler Edgar being cheerful about the overtime pay, saying that there's a bonus or some sort of extra pay for the long working hours we had been working with. I could just giggle and smile about how stupidly naïve and clueless this guy is, and how he is ever falsely hopeful on the situation. It’s a surprise that my co-workers are idiotically blind about the contract we signed with that, they didn't have any idea that we signed on a FIXED OVERTIME PAY and that CF sharp / Norstar Crew Management has been deceiving us all along. - Pathetic Fools !!! It took me only a couple of days to figure this one out and them , up to now are still figuring out the situation. If I could only tell them on their stupidly tenaciously unwilling brains that they should wake up and do a reality check then they don’t have to realize first-hand about what is actually going on here.

 

There is no absolutely no chance that this ship nor Norstar Crew Management would be paying our excess overtime working hours. Why ? They put up a rude gurgle tongued PRO-COMPANY Myanmar Captain in charge of the whole damn ship ! And applease Norstar crew "fucking ship" management this Captain has been pushing the limits of comfortability to the limits, just to save money. Shipping companies nowadays like Norstar don’t care if the ship is comfortable of not and their the stereotypical money hungry company , they only thing they care about is the statistics that they're saving money and whoever does that has a ship's captains smelly spring time fresh name on it. Bottom line I don’t absolutely think that our beloved gurgle tongued captain would pay the excess overtime salaries they owe us, for the rest of my stupid crew member's - they'd just have to figure it out later this month about the real deal.

 

THEY COULDN'T MAKE THIS SHIP COMFORTABLE IN THE FIRST PLACE AND HAD TO LIE TO US POINT BLANK TO BE HERE, SO I DON’T EXPECT THEM AT ALL  THAT THEY WILL BE PAYING OUR SALARIES THE RIGHT WAY  

 

Despite all the misery and ignorance this ship has to offer, I had some relieving news that I learned the tedious procedure of "SMS TIPID" promo of smart roaming service on the cellphone, convenient in the sense that cost of international SMS is reduced drastically as low as 2 Philippine Peso. The drag is that I have to numerously type a set of numbers plus have to keep in mind to type in my SMS fast before the menu that pops up refreshes. The annoying part of this is that the service is more of a menu mania ,  but the overall point here is to send message internationally cheaply despite the cumbersome menu's

 

From what I recall here is what I have to Dial on my cellphone, first of course is that I have to subscribe first.

 

Dial *133*<amount of top up load, 100 , 200, 500 PHP> followed by #

Example *133*100#

 

After that , a message will pop up on the cellphone informing the number of international SMS available

 

After that the next thing to do is send a message and again I have to dial a set of numbers

 

Dial *133*<followed by the number of the receiving cellphone> followed by #

Example *133*09204785463# press call button

 

A menu pops , to type in the message then followed by the menu send text and voila !! International text in low cost served !!!

 

In other matters….

 

Since most of my contract will be spent on this hell hole Asia pacific , I had decided to make changes on my equipment as part of my "adaptive tactics". As I had been writing on the past few months, my equipment is suitable in European environment (i.e. cold environment) - this maybe good on European setting but troublesome and terribly uncomfortable in warmer (if not hot) Asia pacific environment (i.e. warm to hot environment). Basically the designs of my equipment trap body heat , and if to be put on Asian temperatures it would just basically roast me to death.,

 

Fortunately for me , I bought along the trip some stuff that have thinner clothing suitable in dispersing body heat. Although the equipment I had with me is few but certainly it will be invaluable for my work here, and will provide protection and comfortability at the same time. It’s a blessing that I had been a pack rat and it really paid off despite receiving a lot of criticism on a lot of ignorant people saying that I was carrying too much "unnecessary" luggage. Glad that I had proven them wrong and despite the hardship work here on this hellish "BOSTON EAGLE" ship , I am confidently saying that I'm well equip and more of a match on the rigors of work.      

COMPLICATIONS ON PLANS

Entry log : June 12, 2016 Sunday

 

Yesterday's talk with Oiler Allan Sta Maria had been fruitful on planning but it reveal some complications about our situation on getting out. Apparently my reason is valid, so there's little complication about my predicament, however regarding Oiler Allan's situation on "refusal to work" it’s a lot more complicated. From what I heard from him is that there's some sort of 4 months professional reason for any resignation, which rendered him to - if he submits his resignation to somewhere in August. So it means bottom line is that if I ever decided to proceed in quitting this job - I have to go thru it alone. If I submitted my "letter of repatriation" it's up to the company anyway, if they will approve it or not. For me the difficult part is going to it alone on this plan, But Oiler told me that it's not an issue with him if I went ahead first - If I manage to pull this off.

 

Aside from me and Oiler, another person on the race to leave this ship is Fitter Amiel Lorzano. I haven't talk to him about my plans, and never plan to, probably because I don’t want any screw-ups on some loud mouth guy like him, and Oiler Edgar is right that I should go on this one alone, Besides from my understanding bereavement reason / compassion reason is the best sure way to get home / escape this ship, without ruining my so called employment records as a sailor,. Although it unfortunate that somebody has to die first namely a direct relative in order to get this first.

 

For now I'd attempt to pass my letter of repatriation , after this berthing / loading operations on ST. Eustatius (somewhere in the Caribbean) or something and see what happens next. Of course I'm still thinking if I will submit it or not.

 

In other news

 

Fortunately since it's a Philippine holiday, It was whole day rest - well almost. I was  again put to work to assist Pump man and an A.B. in some forecastle business which went all up till 10am to finally be resolve. The rest of the day was spent with me getting my clothes lineup on the washing machine (which had a lone line since almost everybody on this ship haven't had their laundry done for a week) and either putting back all the stuff, I took out on my luggage in prep for what I mention earlier and checking out / repairing the equipment I had been using.

 

UNREST ON WORK

Entry Log : June 10, 2016 Friday

 

 

Looks like the environment here gets uglier and worst each day that passed. Latest update is that the laundry room will be rarely opened from now on, as in one a week to wash clothes, so basically it means I have only that chance to clean all my numerous coveralls and clothes on that very single day which I know will have a very long line. I have no idea about this illogical water discipline but its sure that life here will get worst as the time goes by. Anyway according to what I heard, fresh water production of this ship is very slow. Really now ?! And am I supposedly to believe on this kind of shit ?! Ha ?! For all I know I had been taking all the shit Norstar Ship Management has been giving me since day 1 when I arrived here. I think they're just saying that to make my life here even more miserable.

 

Just to add more insult on injury on this matter, I had only received an issued box of tide powder soap for the laundry ( 595 grams to be specific) until this ship arrives to china, which if my math is right while writing this takes more than 50 days' time to reach it. Wow very insightful of the management here, and how the hell am I supposedly to budget that kind of limited resources eh ?! Anyway no matter how much I grumble and complain about this , I'm sure it will only fell to deaf ears. The only possible way for me to this is to get out of here.

 

In other news

 

It looks like two crew members here fitter Amiel Lorzano and Oiler Allan Sta Maria are very open about leaving this ship. As a matter of fact, most of the crew are been talking about them resigning to this ship, which I overheard. I'm not sure about fitter but about oiler I think he's dead centered as I am in getting out of this place and we have been talking very meticulously about it a couple of days ago. Anyway who would want to stay on this place right ?! Everything here was deceitful from the start. No Internet, NO sattelite Phones, No bond store, Bosses are Indians , working hours are very long, Low pay, Resource onboard are scare and limited, food is also limited, etc everything that I pictured in my mind that I hate to be, has materialized here. So I can't blame the two for wanting the same to bust out of here. But for now the only thing we can do is sit tight and wait till the next payroll comes and hopefully will be enough to send us back home. Oh and for the record, the only person who knows that I'd be leaving this ship is Oiler Suarez - I don’t plan revealing my intention to any other crew aside from him and let's say I have trust issues with the rest of the crew.

 

In other news

 

Currently the laundry rooms floor have been repainted with the colour green, which looks better and nicer than its previous look, But like I said despite it new cosmetically changed look , the laundry area isn't opened yet and some of the washing machine there are still broken.