NOTHING NEW IN THE PACIFIC

JOURNAL ENTRY: August 18, 2016 Thursday

Location: Johor Straight (border of Singapore and Malaysia)

 

 

Following to what I wrote earlier , it looks like that the meeting about the five riding crew at the bridge was about asking them if they could make their stay here a bit longer since their  badly needed for the upcoming ship repairs work. I don’t know the other details on their discussion that followed.

 

The following day, O.S. Marder wasn't happy about being told to stay a bit longer and insist that he should disembark in Singapore, after all his contract is already finished and there is no point in staying longer. He submitted another letter to the Norstar Management and a few hours later, In the afternoon a reply was made by the management confirming that he will disembark in Singapore along with the other three "Riding crew" , One riding crew will be left behind.

 

Some of the crew here were not happy about the news that, this ship will be short-handed when ship repairs on the dry dock will come. (short-handed means having few workers to help out). Me on my personal view, Their contracts are already finished and it's up to them if they wanted to stay a bit or go home - it's no longer obligatory.

 

Latest news I heard was that their disembarking on the nearest port , which is Sempawang Malaysia or so it looks like.

 

At about 12:10pm this ship arrived in Johor straight near the border of Singapore and Malaysia. Immediate this ship resumed its unloading operations, This time it was a ship to ship operations with "CS Zephyr". As expected the mooring operations was hard because of the weather, definitely a hot and humid tropical climate - a weather that I really hate most. Although its hot, the temperature here in manageable compared to the apocalyptic proportions of Fujairah. To describe during day time, temperatures are as hot as the Philippines, or a little hotter. While nighttime is very similar to Philippine temperatures, So similar that you don’t get the feeling of working on "another country" , to add more on the ambiance of that is that some cargo Surveyors working here are Filipino,. How I noticed that he was a Filipino ?! Simple he was wearing a "balaclava" a face mask used by Filipino's and the design of his "balaclava" is the one used typically by the transportation /  industrial workers back in the Philippines (like tricycle drivers etc.), oh and of course he also speaks Filipino (Philippine national dialect - a language heavily based on the local ethnic language "Tagalog") . By the way despite Singapore's hot climate it does actually rain here even if this place is at the equator and the movement of wind here is frequent.    

 

Anyway I easily can tell the difference of the national borders between Malaysia and Singapore here since this ships location is smacked in the middle and that the landmark I had been seeing visually is the bridge - the only way in and out of Singapore to Malaysia via land.

 

"CS Zephyr" , from what I heard is one of those other ship storage tankers of Singapore. Basically since Singapore doesn’t have much land space to build an oil depo and factory, it relays heavily on these flotilla for oil processing needs, for short this ship is fixed and is permanently always here in Singapore. This ship based on the small talk I made from the SGS surveyor (which is a Filipino national) is a fully manned Filipino crew , Their agency officer is from jebsen (located near CF sharp shipping office). The crew on the other ship doesn’t talk much about meeting their fellow Filipino's nor at least giving any small chat. NO big deal anyway.    

 

In other news.

 

On Cargo watch, I took the opportunities in testing out my new innovations for myself. Such as new outfits for the hot / warm climate of the pacific, as well as new tools , and a new "cooling" tool I worked out which is just basically a very miniaturized version of an air hose - good for keeping myself cool and comfortable despite the tropical weather. Unfortunately despite the innovation a minor problem had occurred , which is basically the rusty metallic stench of the pneumatic pipe's here stick on my clothes , smelling like a metallic version of body odor. Anyway having a nasty smell is the least of my problems

 

Another thing I had been testing is new methods of washing clothes which apparently for some reason the laundry room of this ship was closed without further notice and left all the crew including myself, finding out a way on how to wash clothes.

 

As for the work

 

There had been a few challenges, like recently "A.B. Alvin" broke the last functioning sounding tape here in this pathetic ship. Can't imagine that this ship is an "aframax" type of ship and yet it has only one accurate sounding tape around - talk about cheap management ! , Good thing that there was still some spare parts from other broken sounding tapes and they cannibalized the parts. Its repaired , but the sounding tape is 11cm inaccurate of the actual measure.

 

Another thing, that happened is that I actually learned something new here. Specifically about hydraulic lines and pumps and how to operate a manual hydraulic pump. Apparently turns out that some of the hydraulic switches on the CCR (specifically water ballast switches) do not work there and we have to literary carry a heavy hydraulic pump (around 15 kilograms) around to switch it on / off , then later check for the ballast vents if its opened or not. Air coming out means that there's an activity going on inside the vents (for short its open) and no Air coming out means most likely the ballast pump are switched off. Although it's very educational, its laughingly pathetic that we have to carry around the heavy pump for just doing a simple task (and a push of a switch in CCR), and this is how backward and pathetic this ship is.

 

 

ALWAYS LIKE THIS

JOURNAL ENTRY : August 15, 2016 Monday

Location : Enroute to Malaysia

 

 

There has been a sudden change of schedule, Originally this ship was supposedly meant to be in the Chinese dry docks for ship repair. Now new news came in that China will be scrubbed out and the new location for ship repairs will be in Singapore.

 

Now here's more of the problem, being in Singapore for ship repairs is a hassle compared to china and the latest news also suggested that the crew here have to enter and clean up black oil residues inside the cargo tanks before dry dock, hinting that the next set of job will be messy and coverall wasting. If so this will be the case then good luck if some of us have enough coveralls left and industrial soap to use for the work,

 

Another thing that I had to worry about is the permanent tropical hot weather in Singapore, Although this is not blazingly hot compare to UAE Fujairah area and the weather here is almost identical to the Philippines (probably around 30 degrees celcius or so on average temperature), it does not mean that its comfortable working outside. Probably I have to bring out my water canteen yet again and use every available "anti-heat" techniques I have at the moment. It's also obviously that I have to wear my safety helmet all the times again because superintendents will be visiting this ship very often from here on till it gets out of Singapore area

 

Anyway its always like this in the whole Asia Pacific area , the weather will be permanently warm till the next ice age, and this is one of the primary reasons why I hate being here in the pacific. If I'm correct the weather will be very warm all the way till japan area up until September to October.

 

Being in Singapore for ship repairs is more problematic than having ship repairs in china, as it meant more work for the crew. We don’t mind the work but the thing is that salaries here will not change and will remain fixed.

 

Some of Co-workers here are hopeful that some sort of "extra" pay will be made available about this "tank cleaning" work, but I don’t want to get they're hope's up on this one because this principal cant compensate us on our "overtime" rate pay in the first place, - if they can't pay us properly on our regular salaries, then let alone the "extra pay" for the tank cleaning work. Seriously I think Norstar will not even bother to pay us at all here, and judging from what I'm looking , they eventually will. Shame that my co-workers here have already been around longer than I had been as a sailor and yet they are dense enough and still don’t know exactly the reality of what's going to happen. Anyway I just keep my mouth shut about this and let them figured it all out,  As for me I'm not enthusiastic nor even optimistic about what will happen on the next few days, the only thing I care about is get the fuck out of here as soon as possible, hopefully at least by December or January .

 

In other news

 

By around late afternoon, I was told by the Chief mate to tell the other five riding crew that they should go to the bridge at 6pm. I have no idea why they are being called by I bet my bottom dollar that it has something to do about their contracts and related to their stay here on this ship.

 

PACIFIC IS STILL FAR AWAY

ENTRY DATE: August 09, 2016 Tuesday

Location : Fujairah anchorage area enroute to the pacific ocean

 

 

Right after unmooring operations , everybody is relived to get the fuck out of Fujairah and unfortunately we won't get out of Fujairah just yet and we still have a bunkering operations that would follow. It was already close to 5am early in the morning when unmooring is finished and obviously were already exhausted from the heat and work of unmooring the ship. We had to drop anchor somewhere near the anchorage area.

 

Soon after securing the pilot ladder and gangway, a small boat arrived and delivered us some engine room supplies. We didn’t even bother tp help out as were already exhausted and let the engine crew do their own business - for us we went back to our cabins and rested until we were called back again in the afternoon.

 

After the bunkering, We went back again and heaved up anchor. This time the anchor winch was having problem heaving up anchor, Possible culprit was that the hydraulic was over heating from the weather (aside from huge amount of leaking) and neither 2nd engineer nor electrician can fix the problem. Can't imagine that this was the first time ever that I had to get a fresh water hose somewhere on the deck to wet the winches and "cool it down" . This is how run down the equipment here on this ship, ( hopefully this won't totally break down for good until I get out of this ship) , Anyway the winches started working again after the "cool down" and the anchor was totally heaved up and the ship started its journey towards the pacific.

 

Whatever the case maybe , I'm glad were already out of the Fujairah area, and the weather will start to cool down by probably as soon as tomorrow.

 

Over the next few days, we were doing the typical stuff of maintenance. On my end I was doing work greasing up mooring wires, together with O.S. Marder, O.S "mark" , O.S. Molina and A.B. Cordova. Apparently we have to wire the whole wires with some black grease, which is kind of messy and in addition doesn’t stick to the wire very well and probably will have to clean later.

 

Aside from that I also put up inside the pump room together with pump man Obina to take out the oily water inside the very bottom of the space, and when I mean oily water as in black oil mixed with water. I also tested a new type of head light equipment while at the pump room, It's much more lighter and maneuverable compared to my traditional head light mounted equipment safety helmet. Testing of the equipment was a success.

 

After the task was done after a few days , I was back doing odd work like the usual chipping and painting of rusted areas, plus cleaning the mess on the mooring wires etc.        

 

During the off days (Sundays), I spent it with just plainly resting and finishing a new set of equipment. One is a new version of my "Side arm" tool holder, and accessories and sewing of the new grey colored coverall I recently found (actually this was a superintendent coverall left behind).

 

Another thing that happened during Sunday is that I ordered stuff on the bond store. (it was a pack of cola). For some reason, Filipino crew here cannot order via salary deduction and had to pay all the stuff we ordered by cash while Myanmar and Indian Ship Officers get away without paying a dime, which is unfair and racist policy (they get charged via pay slip deduction). I'm not exactly sure if this is because they haven't worked out the bank details yet or probably they just don’t give a shit about Filipino's here and are a bunch of racist psycho's . Nevertheless whatever is the case , Filipino's here including me are not happy about this policy and solidifies more the fact that Norstar Ship Management , together with CF Sharp are not equal when it comes to treating the rights of crew here. Be as it may if they're racist ! They can shove off this damn principal up in their asses, and I hope all the crew of this racist principal ditch them out someday.

 

 

LIFE IN FUJIARAH

ENTRY DATE: August 07, 2016 Sunday

Location : Fujirah Oil Tanker Terminal berth 6, UAE

 

Staying in fujirah for a week was difficult, Aside from the temperature scorching temperature of 48 degrees Celsius. I had problems as well on early counter measures in combating the heated environment.

 

Earlier my primary measure in cooling myself was to wet and wore my coveralls, But lately it seems that this countermeasure was not effective in the long run and as a result, skin rashes have been instantly appearing on almost every part of my body and the most rashes I got for now is on my legs. Probably I surmise that prolonged exposure to water and moisture (from my clothes) causes some sort of bacterial skin infection which in turn causes rashes. As a result to this unfortunate side effect from my early tactics, I took in a few antibiotics and stayed away from wetting my coveralls for a while. Despite the setback , it pushed and discovered another counter measure to combat the heat - the "dry method".

 

Basically this new method is more simpler and is generally more acceptable to my crewmates than my first method, however despite its simplicity it too has its limitations - and I shall explain later. First off the "dry method" I had discovered is nothing more than just getting fresh cooler air and this time the source is the pneumatic pipes that is so common on every ships piping system. Basically its just as simple as open a pneumatic socket and put the inside your coverall sleeves and open it then adjust the air pressure , letting the cool air coming out on the pneumatic pipe to circulate throughout inside the coveralls thus cooling the whole entire body without the risk of rashes and infection. Despite the innovation, it has limitations and the most noticeable is the range. Meaning you can only operate within the area near the air pipes, the range can be extended if there's an air hose around but the range is still limited and there's a chance it might get snagged while moving around.

 

The third method revolves around a combination of my first and second method , however I haven't tested it fully and only the first and second method have been tested. Anyway aside from that this ship is also plagued with a problem , the most simple and yet the most important of all - clean drinking water. Apparently this ship's so called water purifier is overworked and cannot support the water needs of 27 crew members, so in the end - most of the time this ship doesn’t churn out fresh drinking water , leading to speculation that if this stay in UAE will be longer , the whole crew will have dehydration problems later on. To complicate matters our lovely Myanmar captain is such a dick and refused to give the crew extra water rations , resulting that most of the crew had to buy supplies on shore and nearby duty free shops. I myself bought some extra supplies to keep myself away from dehydration / starvation problem.

 

Thank god that the visiting indian superintendent , kicked his Myanmar butt earlier when he refused to give us our salaries. Now that we have some money , it would have not been possible at all and basically I could be dealing serious problems aside from the problematic weather here.

 

During the shore leave , I discovered one thing useful. Previously I thought that having a BDO dollar debit card was useless, well turns out that this dollar debit card was not useless at all as earlier I thought it was and in fact CAN BE USED IN STORES THAT ACCEPT VISA / MASTER CARD. To simply put I can use it for shopping , as in cashless transactions. Thank god and I'm relieved that this piece of plastic card is not only a decoration to my wallet and could be used to shop some stuff off on duty free stores.

 

I wonder if I can use this to purchase stuff on the airport ?

 

In any case . I bought some badly needed supplies around for me, Some chocolates , Gatorade (as anti-dehydration) along with shower gel soap and of course the most important of all was internet sim card and top up load. I also bought a few non-essential stuff (actually low priority stuff) to upgrade my existing working equipment, some of these are a new Stanley multi tool pliers, a new "wenger" tumbler, a multi socket electric travel adaptor and a brand new binoculars (which replaces my obsolete CDR-king one).

 

Some of my crew members also bought in essentials like water, Gatorade, shampoo etc. toiletries that are missing here on the ship (and there is no bond store), Given that our pitiful myanmar captain doesn't bother considering crew welfare. Shame that some of my crew members have to result in buying their own necessities out of their own pockets to get things around, NECESSITIES that Norstar ship Principal and its Captain should have provided in the first place and according to MLC .   

 

Anyway this discovery on visa debit usage opens up an opportunity , in a way that it means that I can order stuff not only on shops that have VISA / MASTER CARD - but also order stuff online as well. To make it simple I don’t have to wait for a long time to get imported stuff or wait that any ship I will be assigned with goes to Europe or America, Now I just simply look for the online order like ebay or stuff like that and search the item I want there and presto ! . 

 

In relation to my recent shore leave. Bosun Hector Rodrigo borrowed some cash from me via debit card to buy a computer, well actually half on the actual money and the other half was debit card. Well I don’t mind lending a hand anyway to some of my crewmates and besides they're not a threat at all here, So lending them some cash is no big deal for me - as long as they pay up before I leave this place. Actually I was going to use the money to buy a new tablet office computer for my sister, but it ended up the money being borrowed first before I could actually buy anything at all.

 

As for the work related news

 

Given that this ship is already 20 years old by now, its now surprise that during loading operations a lot of piping systems has been having problems and literary leaking on its connections , one such example is the hydraulic system which one of its pipes had a huge leak near the manifold area. The leak was so huge that small buckets would quickly be filled up with hydraulic oil  and we had to use a full human size SOPEP drum to contain the leak. Aside from the hydraulic leak, Pneumatic pipes have been leaking as well and on one occasion the pneumatic pipe used to heave and slack the gangway on the starboard side burst leaving the gangway stuck for the time being until deck fitter Amiel lorzano fixes the problem.

 

It's amazing that this ship still passes vetting inspection despite being a floating rust bucket. I mean - everything is falling apart here and the only thing keeping it from being totally scrapped is because of its Filipino crew efforts in maintenance (which is not being treated fairly and being discriminated by these Myanmar whore captain). Probably i suspect that the only reason this ship passed is because the vetting inspector was Indian and they somehow bribed it.

 

Anyway lastly during the unmooring operations I made a few mistakes because of the confusion this cocky Indian third mate was yelling at me to do this and that which result in me getting uneasy on work. To add more problems on the matter is that not only is the third mate annoying but Pump man Obina is also making the same bitchy attitude as the third mate, I simply can't focus on my work and concentrate if these cock suckers keep yelling at me. So in other words I had two problems dealing with aside from un mooring operation, . I had been on six ships already and people like that are one of the worst people to work with - they are really pathetic, certainly lacking of civil manners and simply cannot teach or lead people. Their tiny idiotic brains simply think that the whole work is a competition and not cooperation, Anyway as a result I will keep in mind  to stay out of them as far as possible when it comes to mooring / unmooring operations.

 

      

HOT AS HELL

ENTRY DATE : July 29, 2016 Thursday

Location: Fujirah Anchorage area , UAE

 

 

Life is getting difficult here by the day and the latest of my troubles here is one of the most basic things here on planet earth, - WATER, fresh clean water. Since that this ship has already arrived in fujirah UAE, The temperatures here skyrocketed to blow torching proportions as predicted. Hot temperature means crew get to consume more water, Unfortunately availability of water here is scarce to the point that everybody awaits the purifier for water (take not PURIFIER, bottled mineral water is scarce) and that purifier cant supply water to all 27 people here onboard, so it's obviously someone here is bound to be thirsty or dehydrated soon if this continues.

 

Actually the main problem here is the extreme temperature of Fujirah which is very hot. To complicate things air-conditioning systems of this ship is very poor according to oiler Lester Suarez and has something to do about the compressors age and sadly all the areas in this ship have no air-condition as of the moment. Again another first on my sailing career that it’s the first time I encountered a ship that has no decent air-conditioning.

 

Recently my friend Oiler Allan Sta. Maria disembarked all of a suddenly early in the morning. Unexpectedly he received a notice informing him that he will be disembarking within an hour, Not even enough time to say goodbye. Anyway at least he's now relieved of the troubles being here and it will be easier for him if it will be that way, besides who would want to stay here on this cursed ship anyway ? A lot of people here thought that Oiler Allan didn’t had in him to resign on this ship and when he did - it was a slap on their faces. He has a lot of valid reasons why he had to resign and it's no secret or surprise that conditions here in this ship is terrible. Oiler Allan was my friend and the only one whom I talk to without any hypocrisy added , as in total honest talk around here. The rest of the people I talk here are just for plain professional reasons, not the kind of stuff that friends really talk about,. 

 

Later in the morning, It was also a surprise that a safety meeting began on the bridge. Not exactly a "safety meeting" but more of like a grievance meeting. It was discussed there that from the words of another superintendent that some supply would be headed this way , and assured us (for now I hold my judgement on this matter and "to see is to believe"). Another thing that was discussed was the "Cash Advance" matter which didn't end up well, and made our dick head Myanmar captain lash out in front of everyone that he wasn't interested in giving salaries of the crew. So basically what happened there was that all that talk he was saying or two months now about cash advance and shore leave was plain horseshit , It only showed his true colours that he was never interested at all from the start to give our salaries. Thankfully the superintendent despite being indian (or probably because he's indian and indian officers are involve as well) that he decided to scold the Myanmar captain to give "cash advances" (salaries) to the crew.

 

An hour later, We had received an announcement that ship will be berthing in fujirah, immediately this ship heaved up anchor and prepared the pilot ladder., To date this is the most difficult task I encountered because of the heat and hot weather I encountered . I'm not so sure of the exact temperature but if I recall correct its somewhere about 40 plus degree's Celsius enough for me to wet my coveralls and wore it wet just to keep cool. It helped a lot to keep my body temperature to be lower enough for me to work without any problems. As expected most of my crew mates, were exhausted on the heat and were soaking wet with sweat. One of the worst berthing operations work I made on my whole career.