CLASSIFIED DETAILS

JANUARY 23, 2016 MONDAY

LOCATION: UAE , Fujairah - VOPAK TERMINAL BOUY

 

 

 

Now that the jokes regarding O.S. and Me have been cleared and is now official that I am the first batch who will be going home.

 

The latest updates about this matter is that apparently disembarkation on UAE, Fujairah is inconvenient for norstar - they reasoned out that disembarking crew here in Fujiarah is "expensive" and that this ship (and us) have to wait until this ship get to a more cheaper port for disembarking crew. Norstar even threaten us that if we insist on disembarking even thought our contracts with them are already near finished (as in less than a month left) , they will have to make us liable for the cost of our return home. - Geez what a total bastard company !!! Hope they get bankrupt soon !

 

To simply put the facts , I am not returning home soon and that disembarkation in UAE is impossible.

 

Despite the annoying news, it's not entirely bad for me. Given that not disembarking in UAE means that I don’t have to go thru the uncomfortable luggage searches, No luggage search for me means I can easily smuggle out the Motorolla GP328 walkie-talkie device without the worry of being discovered. That device I had been hiding on my bags is highly classified electronic equipment that I will need for my work later on in future ships. So having them in my luggage and smuggling it out is a must and top priority for me. I'm glad that I don’t have to go to the trouble in hiding it inside my luggage. Aside from that I can also easily get the extra accessory equipment inside the ships office on that walkie-talkie I had been eyeing now for months and slip it thru my bags,

 

Aside from all the secrecy , I will only post here on my blog and not on my face book . Probably because of the fact that it can be used against me by CF Sharp , and I do know very well that this company is just waiting for me to make a mistake to permanently shut me down.

 

Recently I managed to make a contact with one of my fellow co-workers from previous ships. We had a chat about the post , I published on my Facebook account about the shitty details norstar has been giving me for my departure this ship. Apparently from what was revealed on the details on the memo - they cannot assure that the crew will be repatriated in Fujairah , UAE on the fact that it was too expensive for them. Which boggles my mind in the sense that UAE is a free port and almost all shipping companies in the world knew that any sailor can join / disembark there with ease.

 

In relation to this My co-worker warned me that the fleet manager of CF sharp and Some short lady , apparently another manager was furious about me on my posting against CF Sharp and Its principal Norstar Ship management (see "dark side of united filipino sailors" post ) and that they have gathered enough screen capture evidence against me on my bad mouthing against them on facebook  , Based on what my co-worker said - they invaded my FB account (which I was posting publicly at that time, Sept 2016) and got anything they can grab against me . My former co-worker said right now, I should be careful in publishing anything against CF sharp and that if he was me on that position , I would not dare even show up ever in cf sharp office ever again, He said that before he was deployed , he was suddenly called in the CF sharp office and was asked if he knew personally my user name, he replied "YES" and that’s when the Fleet manager and Some lady manager went ballistic. Based on what he said , those managers were making Death threats and intimidation - saying that "they'd had me murdered onboard " and that all my activities are being monitored in case I plan to cause trouble , and the worst threat of all is that there are saying that they will have me blacklisted.

 

He also added an advise that if I don’t have anything important to get on CF Sharp office, I should run as soon as I get in the Philippines and never show up ever.

 

This info bothered me a lot and I never knew that CF Sharp will be bringing up this issue again. I already said my apology to "Mr. Lawrence" about this matter last sept - oct 2016 and figured that this issue was all over , However apparently I'm wrong and that it seems that CF Sharp is not content on my apology and wants to hunt me down for being perceived as an active threat.

 

VIDEOGAMING

January 10, 2016 Tuesday

Location : United Arab Emirates, Fujairah

 

 

 

 

New year's day just came and went , and up to now there is still no clear answer on the specific day on which I will disembark on this ship. Norstar hasn't given any details yet on when and how are we going to disembark . The only detail given as of the moment is "last week" of January. Apparently this has been my case, which norstar had made it clear and that if we were going to disembark earlier than a month left on the actual contract , were going to have to pay for our own repatriation fee. In other words, "Early Vacation" was a total lie from the very beginning and that "Finished contract" is still going to be the overall status on how are we going to get out on this ship. Anyway this is not surprising for me given that Norstar from the start was a total bullshit from the very beginning we started this contract.

 

Aside from the annoying situation , it is rumored that disembarking in Fujiarah UAE is not exactly the most comfortable port for off signer's. According to what I heard from oiler Esguerra, sailors here have their luggage's searched and have to manually take out each item on their bags and then putting it back in one by one. For typical sailors this would not be a problem , but in my situation - I have some "special" equipment that I "permanently" borrowed from this ship like Motorola gp328 radio's and some other stuff. (Not to mention numerous electronic equipment). In any case this is extremely uncomfortable on my situation and have to resolve on other ways in hiding this in my luggage.

 

In the meantime while I'm trying to solve this problem - this ship has left it's anchorage in UAE is now bound to go to Al jubail in Saudi Arabia to get some cargo., Latest news up to now is that there will be two loading ports for this, after that its either this will be unloaded back to UAE or will go to Singapore.

 

In other news

 

It has been 17 years since I last played any console video game, and finally after that very long absence, I am now contemplating on whether or not I should buy a console to resume my old (childhood) hobby which I abandon almost two decades ago. I remember during that time that the leading video game console systems back then was Nintendo 64, Playstation 1 and Sega Saturn. Obviously a lot has changed during my very long absence and videogame systems now are more complex than ever before.

 

I had been planning for now on what kind of video game console system to buy,  whether it should be a home console like the nintendo switch or a handheld type one like the playstation vita.

 

Here's my dilemma

 

I needed to buy a hand held gaming device for my video game hobby, since my PC, has its capability reduced on the battery life and there is no assurance that it will replaced by a gaming computer anytime soon. On top of that I need to reduce the bulk and weight of my luggage for future work

 

If I would buy a Nintendo switch, it's a home / handheld videogame console hybrid , which meant I can play games on the go even if I'm onboard - which is a plus for mobility. Bad side is that the system console is too underpowered in today's standard and a bit overpriced compared to today's Home videogame consoles , and the library of games for Nintendo is somewhat limited compared to playstation 4 and microsoft xbox, my guess is that it's always first party games and little third party game developers. The initial Videogame titles announce to open alongside its launch is only around 5 games, which has little to choose plus consoled get outdated and replaced every 5 years or so.

 

If I would buy a Playstation Vita , which is a handheld video game console, The Device is already considered "legacy" category which meant it's an old system, library of games would be fixed and probably no / or little new videogame titles would be produced in the future, but the pool of games is already large even before it was considered to be "legacy" . As for the price its basically almost the same 

GUNSMOKE

December 28, 2016 Wednesday

Location : enroute to Fujairah UAE

 

 

Lately I had been diverting my attention and loneliness to social activism.

 

recently the events in the maritime community at the moment have been turbulent, or more like a "social media civil war" amongst Filipino sailors . It all started when a Worker Union leader named "Nelson Ramirez" (the person I mentioned on my journal entry February 2015) made an insulting statement and declared that "people who used a referral / backer system , to get employed are nothing more but a Pathetic class type of people" and that "only people who came from elite maritime schools like PMMA, MAAP, Nyk etc are the only ones worthy of being a sailor" 

 

This caused a huge uproar on maritime college students in the social media, and immediately the topic in nelson Ramirez face book group became trending. He received lots of criticism and from these kids and, as a retaliation he tried to suppress the freedom of speech by kicking out / banning FB users and critics on his Face book Group - which eventually lead more outrage not only to college students but to other Filipino Sailors as well.

 

And that was the start of the first internet social media gun smoke, and a few minutes later I saw a post on another Facebook group , saying to the public that maritime college students should rise up against Ramirez. Although I'm not a college kid anymore, I do personally support their cause and probably because out of personal vengeance (as what happened to me by the hands of UFS and Ramirez, when I complained on CF Sharp, see "the dark side of UFS entry" ). I was the first to respond on the call and immediately drafted out a propaganda speech to be posted on any known seaman's Facebook group that is not controlled by nelson Ramirez. The propaganda speech I made is just basically baseless accusation, but in some extent maybe even half right.

 

As for safety of my identity , I Figured that I should use a dummy account instead, and use one dummy account I haven't used in a long time and as soon as I was finished with the speech, I posted it immediately, My main goal here is to fuel the desire of kids for revenge against the insult Ramirez said in Facebook . After a few hours , I received a positive feedback to the readers. Everybody in the social media is in an uproar, and was motivated and continued to bombard nelson Ramirez with hate remarks in the social media, even on his FB group "TINIG NG MARINO". In fact I may have even given some of the other FB user the basis on why they should hate Ramirez and gave them an impression that he is an extortionist / Mafia kind of guy. The speech was perfectly brilliant, and made him very infamous to the angry crowd.

 

Of course Ramirez responded on his FB group "Tinig Ng Marino" with a brutal crackdown on his critics and summarily kicked and banned scores of angry fb users, even people with neutral comments were not spared on the crackdown and also ended up being kicked or banned - which is good in some extent that it added more numbers to the angry people against Nelson Ramirez. The more he indiscriminately kicks / bans people - the more the numbers are added on the people rebelling against him, very beneficial in spreading all the hate.

 

This continued on for a number of days and I was busy also in spreading my speech in almost every seaman fb group I could find. To add more as an extra effect, I made a simple poster to cement the impression to the public to make him look like he's a traitor - it was just a simple poster made from MS paint program nothing special and not too complicated to use. I spread it using a dummy account and make it viral as much as possible on any known FB Filipino seaman groups out there.

 

The public effect when I posted it on the social was a tremendous success and soon gained public attention and infamy amongst UFS fanatics. Nelson Ramirez was so furious that he was posted on his public group an announcement challenging the person behind it to face him in the open and show evidence of the accusation on the picture, Of course this was only a ruse for him knowing that he can't clearly identify who is behind it - total protection on being anonymous.  Whatever he did was already too late and most people who already saw it , had recognize the accusations and implanted it on their minds to  be a fact. Total character assassination, He was so disoriented on the attacks that he was indiscriminately pointing the blame to anyone he saw as a threat like college students , critics - anything that’s opposed to his idea's

 

For me vengeance was very satisfying and totally nailed Ramirez to the core, Obviously the black propaganda I was spreading was short lived but successful victory. A few days after I spread the speech and the picture , the dummy account I was using was disabled - probably UFS fanatics have to report to face book to permanently shut it down. Although that the dummy account was totally destroyed in the process, it is considered to be a calculable loss and worth the trade rather than the enemy will know my personal details and use them for  retaliation on my private life. 

 

Given with its success, I'm planning to create a blog - one which is totally "Unblockable" and out of reach on any jurisdiction of Facebook. Realizing that facebook has limitations in propaganda such as post or dummy account getting destroyed. I plan to use a blog as a means on spreading propaganda.

 

 

 

 

 

 

INCOMPLETE CHRISTMAS

December 25, 2016 Sunday

Location : Enroute to singapore

 

Much has happened from my last entry, Christmas day has arrived, this day has to be a day of celebration but I can't exactly feel happy and to be honest its empty , very empty and incomplete. Probably because this is the first Christmas that my parents are gone, and I had a lot of flashbacks every now and then of the life I had with them before I came this ship. Now the feeling is just simply empty knowing that they're dead and its only me and my younger sister around.

 

Probably id be having a lot of adjusting at the house when I get back, trying to move on with life and see how things work out for me. I just don’t feel like smiling at this moment, but again merry Christmas.

CATS OUT OF THE BAG

December 05, 2016 Monday

Location: From UAE going back to Saudi Arabia

 

It's now official, after much thinking and analyzing the situation I had passed to the captain myat my "early vacation" leave. I submitted my letter last November 28 and took the opportunity that Captain Myat was around his office. Good thing Captain was kind enough and didn’t ask any further question on why I was submitting the letter.

 

Originally I was planning to submit it on the 26th , but on that day I wasn't about to make a good timing and by the time I went to captains day room it was already closed - so I planned to go on the next day. On the following day again it was interrupted on the fact that the ship will anchor, so Its simply postponed and finally on the 28th around 7pm I finally got the good timing.

 

Felt so relieved in submitting my "early vacation" letter , as if like a big rock has been lifted to me - after all this company, principal and ship has been very unpleasant and I desire only to end this contract as soon as possible. Now I'm assured that I will be leaving this ship , of course the final word will still come from the CF Sharp but I hardly doubt they will disagree on my departure after the disagreements I had with them.

 

For the blog (and public) information , writing an "early vacation" doesn’t have to be fancy an printed on a printer - the only thing that is needed is a simple paper and pen (or pencil) and can be made via hand written.

 

Here is the sample I drafted

 

    ******************************************************************

 

Dear Mam / Sir

 

Good day,(state my full complete name) Undersigned on this letter would like to inform your good office that I request a reliever and get repatriated for early vacation, So that I can renew my expiring papers this january 2017. I am now going on my 7th month this December and will be on the 8th month on January next year. 

 

I hope you would grant my request and ask for a reliever this 3nd week of December onwards or any week of January. Thank you for hearing my request and appeal for your consideration

 

(my name and rank)

Crew of "Boston Eagle"

 

   ********************************************************************

 

A few days have passed and during that this ship is berthed on UAE Buoy , Information came to leak on the ship that I was trying to achieve "early vacation" . I basically have no idea on how that info leaked and only surmise that some A.B's here simply can't shut their mouth or even bother not to look or someone else's paper and respect privacy, anyway this behavior is typical among Filipino's and it's true that I did request it anyway. Besides, what is it to them if I did made a request ?! For all I know I had already qualified on the minimum set of requirements

 

During Sundays safety meeting, it was finally disclosed to by the captain about my true intentions on having an early vacation - IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CREW. For me its "cats out of the bag" and it's no more secret to almost everyone here that I'd be leaving early and now official. Initially I was the only one who planning to have an "early vacation" but during the discussion on the safety meeting , it was a surprise that Oiler Lester Suarez and Pumpman Obina Mondiego expressed their intention of getting an early vacation as well - totally unexpected for me , but whether or not folk here joined on my stunt show, I will still go ahead of it anyway in pursuing to getting out of this ship. Seriously I'm glad that I'm not the only one who desire's getting out of this ship, it add more validity of my claim in getting out of here as soon as possible.

 

In other news

 

The Fujairah mooring is a bit different this time, instead of the traditional dock waiting for us - it ended up mooring in a buoy. The thing here is that mooring in the buoy is different and very easy , just simple attach the chain from the buoy to the local bar here on the deck and that’s it. I took the liberty in taking pictures on the mooring in a buoy

 

After the discharge on Fujairah. This ship headed out in Saudi Arabia again to load some cargo    

 

 

THE KINGDOM

Journal entry: November 22, 2016 Tuesday

Location: Saudi Arabia

 

 

With a snap its already going near to the end of the month of November, and as what I had been long awaiting for is that I will get to finally submit my "early vacation" request to CF Sharp. I think it’s the best that I go ahead and hesitate  no further in submitting this request , and besides the working conditions on this ship are not that comfortable enough for any Filipino seaman.

 

So far the news on work is that after a brief loading operation in Saudi Arabia, this ship went back again here in Fujairah to await "For Orders" . While in Saudi Arabia , everyone here in this ship was distress to learn on the telex massage coming from the Saudi government that some sort of team will be boarding this ship as soon as it docks and that this "team" will be searching the whole ship for any signs of contraband to the Saudi Government like for example Magazines, DVD , Cd, Hard disk - any storage device that contains pornography and any anti-Islamic materials , aside from the usual contraband of drugs and firearms.

 

Immediately the whole crew of the ship deposited those related stuff to the bond store. On myself I deposited 2 hard disk drives that I had and left one disk drive to hid in my cabin, as a backup. Fortunately the said "inspection team" never arrived and basically were free again to get back those materials from the bond store. Sadly it turns out that depositing my hard drives to the bond store was a bad idea and that I couldn’t get back my hard drives yet, according to "james" the deck cadet I spoke with and in charge of the bond store,. They said that they can't release my hard drives yet from the bond store until this ship leaves the waters of any Muslim countries. To my annoyance, I recalled that this ship is permanently stationed here in the middle east gulf area and most if not all the countries here are Muslim - so expect that my 2 hard disk drives won't be returning anytime soon. 

 

Despite the annoyance, I'm glad that I didn’t deposited my third hard drive to the bond store - or else I wouldn’t have any entertainment media at all on my cabin to enjoy myself with. It was scary and risky at first to keep one hard drive inside my cabin and had to hid it extra carefully, I was not very comfortable and even  had second thoughts of depositing it just to make sure. But now recalling back - it was a good idea that I had kept one.

 

In other matters,

 

For now the weather in the middle east gulf area is very comfortable even on noon time, no thanks to the winter season from Europe. So I consider myself very lucky on this situation that the middle east has a cooler weather right now, for now the latest weather forecast is that the temperature is 15 degrees Celsius lowest and something about 30 degrees Celsius the highest in noon time. It won't be a problem for me working on this time of the year at the deck - well at least the only thing I have to deal with is the sand storm in this area.  

 

In another news

 

A couple of days ago, a surveyor visited this ship to conduct some sort of audit on the ships performance and safety regulations as well. We were busy as usual sorting out all sorts of matters related to the ship, apparently I wasn't called out during the arrival of the said inspectors and probably they figured that it would be best I was locked inside the cabin. During noontime I resumed my usual work routing and wore the standard PPE for the time being since the inspectors are still around.

 

Late in the afternoon I was surprised to learned that , the inspector would be conducting a one on one and private interview on each crew . We all knew what it meant and that the inspector is asking us confidentially if there is some problems that we would like to discuss with him privately.

 

When it was my turn to be interview, I didn’t mentioned anything and simply played defensively - a no tell, no ask policy. Another reason why I kept silent was because on the fact of trust, I cannot simply take the chance that this surveyor will reveal the names of the people who complain about the management of this ship. Luckily my interview was very quick.

       

FAREWELL TO MY PARENTS

Journal entry : November 18, 2016

Location: en route to Saudi Arabia

 

 

I Haven't wrote anything on these past couple of days , Probably because I was busy pondering things and received news from my sister that mom has passed away. I was totally devastated to hear the news and wasn't in the mood to do anything even on work - to me everything seems meaningless now, and there's no point in being a sailor anymore. I haven't asked the exact details on how mom died and was in no position to ask, I was simply too grief stricken to know what happened. The only known details I know on mom's death was she died of cardiac congestion, a result from too much creatinine levels in the blood from kidney failure. Before learning of my mom's death , all that I know back home was that the kidney dialysis machines of Amang Rodriguez Hospital broke down and mom was advised to transfer to another hospital for treatment until the machines were fix, the next news that came in after a couple of days was that mom implants and vein "died" and my sister was in a frantic race of either constructing a new implant on mom 's left arm and putting an "IG" cut connecting to mom hearts as a remedy while the new implant is being constructed. Then after that , there was silent communication between me and the house for almost a week.

 

November 10 came by and was busy doing a lot of stuff back home, when I opened my face book page - I was immediately greeted by my younger sisters message informing me that our mom just passed away. There I felt a cold chill upon hearing the news as if some part of me just died, I was grief stricken and couldn't focus on work properly. I was lucky that I always wore a mask and some protective shades , part of my face protection or else they would have seen me having tears or watery eyes.

 

No Words can express my loss of both my parents this year, 5 months ago dad died suddenly now mom died on the same year. My sister and I are now both orphans and alone on this world, so we have to be strong to face what lies ahead in life.