Journal
Entry: August 26, 2016 Friday
Location:
OPL Anchorage area, Singapore
Every
now and then since this whole tank cleaning operation began, we have been
jumping work from one segment of this ship (called wings) to the other. The
lasted news is that 2nd wing of this ship has been finally finished on the
"hot wash" (meaning wash the whole cargo tank
with hot water) and were now moving in
yet again on 5 wings on the same "hot wash" phase. As usual and no
big surprise, the cargo tank cleaning machine are not working properly, its
automatic version is broken and have now resorted to being operated manually using
a 19mm wrench (term
called "manomatic" in filipino)
, and thats not the only problem plaguing the tank cleaning machine here in
Eagle Boston. Hydraulic is frequently leaking on some machines and one machine
even has a hole on the pipe from severe corrosion, spewing water riddled with
black oil on a small portion in the deck area.
Manually
operating the tank cleaning machines here is such a chore, to the point that
the whole automatic function of the machine had disappeared and we had to turn
those dials very slowly just to make that machine (barely) work at all. Aside
from the faulty equipment here, the Indian officers add more complication to
the problem and always buzzes around our walkie talkie's , saying to do this
and that and we have to report to them every detail of the work done - very
chore some gum flapping. We haven't even finished the previous work given and
another one comes , too much unnecessary work !
Today I had
one minor incident to write about which I apparently got the metal end of the
sounding rod cut off , while I was making a sounding on 2 star board tank. It's
not clear why the metal end of the equipment got cut while inside the cargo
tank but A.B. "Enrique" , suggests that the apparent cause was that
it got sucked by one of the suction pipes. According to him normally sounding
of the tanks would be made a few minutes to an hour after the tanks has been
finished from the "hot wash" phase, but since our indian officers are
always in a hurry to find results fast, they ordered me to drop the whole damn
thing inside the cargo tanks without even considering that fact - which
eventually lead to my situation.
A.B.
"Enrique" says that it’s a good thing that I only broke the cargo
sounding rod and not the UTI equipment and finding a metal replacement rod
attached to a string rope is much easier than a whole electronic equipment
sensors being sucked out to the suction pipes.
(for the public information, a cargo sounding rod
equipment is a very crude version of a ballast sounding tape and is
specifically used for making soundings on the cargo hold tank)
Anyway
the good news is that 5 wings have already been cleared and so is the 2 wings
area and now only slop starboard tank is being worked out on the hot wash - for
now. While waiting for the slop starboard to be finished, A.B.
"Cordova" had a little small
talk and asked if this is my first time in the dry docks like mistaking me for
some sort of newbie idiot. I replied that it's my third time just to dispel his
thought of me being lesser and said in details my two other experiences in dry
dock (ship repair) operations,
end of story on his pathetic thinking. Anyway our little chat also mentioned
about keeping our cabins always locked while in the shipyard , just to avoid
any dock workers that have the potential to steal stuff from the crew.
After that
small chat , I went on a coffee break on the crew mess.
Honestly
I shouldn't be drinking coffee in the first place, it messes up my stamina and
tire easily when I drink this, it has all sorts of nasty acute side effects on
my body - but I don’t have any much choice on what beverage I should drink just
to keep me awake on late night watches, there's not much selection either on
the kitchen (or food to
begin with to eat) and if there is , I'm
not allowed to order stuff on the bond store if I don’t have any real money
around - because I'm a FILIPINO. Damn !! Talk about discrimination !
Anyway
the most effective drink for me to stay awake without any acute side effects is
drinking soft drinks which I could purchase on the bond store , but like I said
before on my previous entry the "bond store" here onboard is almost
non-existent as if like the captain here is intentionally starving the crew and
what's more on this ships wretched bond store is that anti- Filipino policy
were i can only purchase stuff if i have real paper money around (in
U.S. Dollars currency),. So basically to
make it short I'm drinking this poisonous coffee with no or little choice - not
really a comfortable working place, (the discriminating policies here do not allow Filipino's to
purchase via payroll deduction) .
The
following morning
My working
shift started in just less than 10 minutes and immediately I was met with more
work than the usual. This time this ship has some sort of clogging problem in
the manifold area, and we have to sort out the problem in removing some sticky
black oil that accumulated there, really messy work ! And more difficult to
accomplish because of the humid weather.
While doing
work , the radio keeps chirping like a bird on channel 1, because our Myanmar
captain, Indian chief mate and second mate keep on ordering people now that
have each a radio on their disposal. On my end while I was on deck , I haven't
even finished yet doing the previous work , then comes another either one from
those three people and literary every three meters or so walking away from the
area I get pestered by these trio.
Thankfully
despite the radio clutter, Pumpman managed to fix some of the tank cleaning
machines, which meant reducing people babysitting those defective machines, now
its mostly a 1:1 ratio compared to before having a 1:3 ratio. (One man babysitting 3 machines)
During the
end of the working shift
Bosun
Hector Rodrigo informed me that there will be changes on the working schedule
immediately from 6 to 6 hour shift, it will now be reduced to 4 to 4 hour
shift. I didn't even get to bother the details why management here changed the
schedules , but its most likely they want to save money by reducing the
overtime pay since recently the overtime pay shot up to 200 percent excess.
Nothing wrong with that, just the typical mind thinking of a typical company
dog like the Myanmar captain.
