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.
