Journal
Entry: August 31, 2016 Wednesday
Location:
OPL Anchorage area, Singapore
There's an
old saying by psychologist that if you can't talk something about it, then at
least write something about it. I live on that saying given that sailors even
up to nowadays still don’t have the freedom to talk freely, if one does - he /
she will be subjected to an onslaught of retaliation either from the persons,
foes, co-workers, organization, affiliation or any other group that was
mentioned negatively. Opting also on the Social Media to discuss something is
as dangerous as well, Basically there's no more secure place on the planet to
talk about something other than inside a person head, On my case of course I
cannot depend my safety on the having a journal on my computer and blog on
cyber space. If I do wish to write something openly , I have to consider
writing within a minimum safe distance from what I'm discussing to avoid the
"social fallout" that will come after ., And there we go ,I am
writing about something.
I'm glad
that my blog is not that popular in cyber space , so there's at least some sort
of privacy maintained and that the overall risk of back firing what I discussed
or posted is lessen. I take full responsibility on what I post on my blog
whether it will reflect me in a positive or negative way., either of both no
one can order me around or make me retract what I post here. They can coerce,
harass or blackmail me all they want, they can even fire me from work or
outcast me socially , but it won't make me stop telling my story and the truth,
and like I said on my introduction "I'd do it my way, and I'm old enough
to get it my way" . Of course I know and fully aware that this publishing
blog may lead me to "blacklisting" from the POEA or Manning agency ,
but that’s not the end of the world for me - the end of my seafaring career but
not my life.
For the
moment, this whole epic tank cleaning operation is getting near now on its end,
probably it is only a few days till the whole enchilada will be finished.
Frankly it's about damn time they did finish this whole thing, it's already
about two weeks and still ongoing. I wonder most of the time of on what goes on
in the head of these people that it took them this long to clean up a few cargo
tanks , I remember a few years back when I was in the chemical tanker,
"tank cleaning" operations only lasted a few days to a few hours.
Anyway it's their style and I'm just riding along on what they’re doing.
Recently on
work …
Some
water on the cargo tank are being pumped out and directly thrown at sea,. If I
thought a couple of days ago pumping oily water out of the pump room was bad
enough, then wait till I get a load on what happened on the following day. They
are seriously pumping out above the deck and into the sea The water riddled
with oil inside the cargo hold, and for some reason maybe out of stupidity ,
they think that the water inside those cargo tanks is clean and clear. Jeez
what a total set of imbeciles !!! , I sometimes wonder how did they get their
chief mate license in India and ship captain license on Myanmar. I mean with
that kind of thinking ???, I'm seriously thinking that these retards will get
the whole crew and ship in trouble with the authorities one day. (and when that day comes, I'm going
to be as far to them as possible and renounce any association with these
Mongoloid's)
Midway
along the work , I even got an ugly insult from his lordship Chief mate Dsouza
when I was unable to immediately understand on what he was pointing at on how
to cleaning the floating smidge of oil in the water, The whole insults goes
saying that "Do not have any oil tanker working experience - something
like that" even implying that he's lordship is "superior" . On
my saying Inside my head, I don’t give a fuck on this insult and berating ,
Funny on the fact he insults me by telling that "I don’t have any oil
tanker experience" and yet when I look at his decisions in work tactics ,
it looks like he's was just a new comer Chief Mate, most of his decisions were
impractical and a majority are pointless, and I don’t have to need a license
just to tell how stupid his work tactics are. To make is short , he doesn’t
have any idea on how to manage people, let alone on how to properly done and
finish work. Now I'm starting to wonder why the Europeans (and generally the "whites") hate Indian workers, even my late dad said the same
thing, that they are a lower class of people with lower class mentality and
manners - very crude even for Asian standards.
Be as it
may - that he's his Indian lordship thinks he's superior, as far as I'm concern
I'm no company dog nor a company whore like him and the captain. They can shove
Norstar company up on their ass, and for the record on his primitive brain - THIS IS MY THIRD SHIP ,
THAT I WORKED IN AN OIL TANKER !!!
In the
afternoon , Pumpman Obina asked if I could tag along with him down below in the
pump room ., Blindly I said yes and was relieved that he asked, Seriously I'm
glad that I could get some time off from the "toxic" berating
environment on the deck and a little change of working scenery would do the
trick, a breather from all the annoyance from the Indian chief mate.
As usual
the Pump room is flooded again with water mixed with black sticky oil, and it's
no surprise that we had to pump it out a thousand times by now. It's basically
the same old routine work, and for now the water below the pump room is more
colored black than the usual., as in coffee creamer black.
The
following morning …..
I was
awoken on the vibrations from my cabin, and felt that the ship is actually
moving. Immediately I looked outside and saw that indeed the ship was moving ,
but at a very slow pace. The ship must have heaved anchor and moved when I was
asleep, and was not informed. Anyway I'm glad they didn’t , because if they did
- it will only result that I don’t have any decent rest and they're ruthless
enough to let me suffer from over-exhaustion.
At about
noon time , this ship dropped anchor still somewhere in the anchorage area of
Singapore to wait for the De-mucking crew that will arrive to clean up the
remaining sludge inside the cargo tanks. By the time I ended my working shift ,
I heard from O.S. "mark" that they have already arrived and is now
setting up shop on the deck area. When I got back on my midnight shift, these
de mucking crew were resting for the big day of work for them by tomorrow.
On noon,
Chief mate Dsouza made a deck crew meeting on the ships office to inform us on
what to do. It was discussed that the working shift will retain to be a four to
four hour work shift , instead of being originally intended by chief mate to be
a 6 to 6 hour shift. Pump man Obina and BOSUN Rodrigo will remain to do day
work , Despite Chief mate insisting that Pump Man will go on watch work (good
thing Pump man talked his way out).
On the
first day , things were doing well. Regardless that I had to wear the lame
orange norstar uniform because the superintendents were around and have to tag
along with them on their inspection with those cargo tanks. The De-mucking crew
were doing their usual business in removing oil and muck on the cargo tanks and
such, as a matter of fact they were so busy that they looked more like built a
makeshift town above the deck area.
Originally
we were not supposedly to enter nor meddle with the affairs with the De-Mucking
crew. We were just there to basically watch and see them work and of course
guard the accommodation space so that those guys don’t steal anything inside,
Unfortunately recent update told us by Chief Mate Dsouza said that we should
now check the progress of the De-mucking crew and enter the Cargo tanks
frequently every now and then, even added that if we have any complaints about
this then we can kindly ask the superintendents about this. The details why we
have to meddle is that apparently one of the superintendents that came in
complained that the "De-mucking" crew were working very slowly and
that nobody in the deck even bothers to make rounds and check to see what are
they doing. Of course that is "according" to the superintendents, or
am I mistaken and thinking personally that this is just a personal excuse made
by our "company dog" Myanmar Ship Captain (perhaps even the Indian Chief Mate) just to make our working routine more difficult. When
asked by Bosun Hector Rodrigo if entering of these tanks and meddling with the
affairs of the De-mucking are "paid" , Chief mate Dsouza replied
"he will still consult the captain about this".
"STILL
CONSULT ?!!!!" What the fuck does that mean ???!!! Excuse me do I come
from their country and order people around to work for free ?! This just simply
meant that they want us to do more task on our work FOR FREE, - what a pathetic
excuse !!! I think they're just telling this to us because they want to impress
the superintendents and having their presence around gives them a big hard on.
Damn Company dogs !!!
Anyway
despite all the negative, it does come an opportunity for me to gather data on
how inside the cargo hold tank looks like. It would be great for me to take
pictures or even a video inside one of these cargo tanks. Since the public is
already familiar on how a deck area looks like but got only a few glimpse on
what is inside in the cargo tanks.
In other
news
Looks
like that O.S. "mark" will be moving in again on my cabin
temporarily., as usual the reason is the lack of available cabins for the
visiting Superintendents for the dry dock. From what I heard this ship will be
expecting six superintendents (and this
includes the annoying superintendent "Si thu Thwin" ), Well there's a vacant room being left behind by
Fitter Lorzano when he returns home but it looks like that BOSUN Rodrigo has
already got his greedy eyes on that space - So it leaves "Mark" no
other choice but to tag along until Ship repairs on the ship yard will be over (which is for a month). Anyway I don’t mind having a roommate around and got used to the idea
here that I'm sharing a room,. Besides Mark is a easy to get along with and I
have no problems with him.
