THE LONG 90 DAYS

By the time this ship arrived , every crew here was wearing his issued standard "disease and prevention" kit as a prevention on this corona virus thing. Personally I think this suit is somewhat overboard as the area in china in which this ship berthed is relatively disease free and no infections. Still despite being relatively safe., xenophobia here on this ship is way over the top, such instance was fourth engineer being furious that a Chinese is having his pack meal inside the crew mess. He looked on to this people with digust and malice , saying that they're "polluting" the area with their viruses and disease.

Even some of my co-workers avoid , even talking to Chinese jetty men and let them do all the work on the cargo hose connection in the loading arm. For myself I don’t harbor any disgust or xenophobia against them, they're just simply workers doing their job and nothing more.

Xenophobia here is really extreme that sometimes I'm thinking that my co-workers are already being a racist and that they're just justifying it because of this corona virus thing .

After the discharge operations., this ship proceeded to Singapore for its routine bunkering and provisioning supplies. Due to the ship reaching this area within less than 14 days of local quarantine regulations on this country., no crew change was allowed and will have to wait on next port

On the moment that bunkering and provisioning ops was finished , it came the news that this ship will be heading off to Texas U.S.A.  For loading cargo and then discharging it back to south Korea. Apparently from what I heard the whole trip will take about 90 days at least , (35 days going to the area , and possibly another 35 going back , and this doesn’t include the days involved in loading and anchoring) which meant that this will be going to be a very long trip and knowing that south Korea will be in some sort of lockdown quarantine , its possible that no crew change will be allowed for the whole trip.

No crew change means people here are stuck until they sort out this whole shit and allow freedom of movement on ship workers.

EFFORTS WILL BE REWARDED

Its already the month of march now , and a few more months of waiting , all my efforts and hardships will soon be rewarded. If my contract tells me correct , my stay here on this crappy ship will only be up to June and after that - that big plane home and probably deliver that "retribution" thing I really wanted.

For now I have to be patient , and continue my struggle and it won't be long till I get the hell out of this. Aside from the contract due date, There's also an option called "Early Vacation" thing . Although its unofficial, I'm also aiming for that goal to be at least home by May (a month earlier than the contract deadline), I'm not entirely sure If this principal grants it , but I'd take my chances in submitting an "early vacation" request rather than do nothing and endure all that bullying and harassment.

Speaking of "Early Vacation" request, I had already finished making a request letter for it and already gave it to A.B. Noel , so that both of us can submit it to the captain , simultaneously. I'd figured that our claim of having an early request would be more valid if there is more than one person submitting this kind of request. The more people involved in it , the higher the chances that it will be considered and probably be approved.

Initially there were four of us who wanted to have an earlier vacation , Me, A.B. "Noel" , Fitter and Mess man. Unfortunately Mess man's request didn’t materialized because of the schedules we were requesting, which leaves him out . So basically now there's three of us left.

Me and A.B. Noel had been discussing this for several days now and had several delays before deciding to submit it (which I assume that probably "Noel" was not experienced dealing with this early vacation leave thing) , then on the day that were finally going to submit it , it was delayed again because fitter on the last minute decided to submit his request and join up. I don’t mind the delays, besides the more people joining in on this objective , then the better.  In any case hopefully "Noel" is able to submit it by now and honestly we are running a bit late on the schedule of submission., I'm going to check later just to ensure that the request was really submitted