GREASED SITUATION

First day of 2014 was very much quiet, and i took that opportunity to repair and do maintenance work of my equipment (my personal working equipment). After all i needed a good rest since Saturdays and Sundays have already been cancelled off no thanks to our beloved captain. I think there won't be any Saturdays and Sundays off until the captain gets replaced on the "dry docks" and even so the superintendents are there so expect that there wont be any weekends for a long time and probably until i disembark. For now the only remedy is to adjust on this harsh policy.  Good thing for me that i just have roughly a month and a half or two months before I disembark on this ship.

Since it was Wednesday and a holiday , almost everyone has free time. As a past time some of us played "Far Cry 2" video game on the multiplayer, there were seven of us playing the game at the same time. Byron, O.S. Del Monte , Mess man Ferdinand , Chief  Cook Olan, me , Fitter Sano and fourth engineer Lamsen. Everything was going fine - that until 4th engineer lamsen screwed up and showed his sore Loser attitude. Mr "anger management" evidently is going bonkers again during the play session and keeps cursing us and taking the game too personally (and seriously). For him , he wants to be always want to be a top scorer even though he's skills do not say so. Totally an arrogant sassy bastard.

During halfway on the game. Byron got motion sickness from the playing and had to quit early (or maybe got fed up when 4th Engineer Lamsen said an offensive word saying "Fuck you" ). Us on the other hand remained, and for me in particular remained for the sake of not having a bad "Public Relations" . As the game session progress , 4th engineer became even more aggressive in his attitude towards us, apparently he's losing on the game and he hates that the most. He got so fed up that he made a "dirty finger" hand sign on me right in front of my computer screen when i apparently shot him in the back in the video game.

Obviously the other people on the room went on an uproar on my defense, fitter sano obviously didn't like on what he say, same goes to chief cook and messman ferdinand as well. O.S. Del Monte uttered a word saying "Ei 4th don't take it too personally, its just a game !".

January 02, 2013 Thursday

So much for the holiday break and back again to the reality, We heaved anchor at around 5am and went channelling somewhere in turkey. The pilot didn't stayed that long - just only a few hours and then he disembarked at around late in the morning.

During piloting , I was off shovelling crude oil sludge from the slop tank starboard together with A.B. Bryan and A.B. Homer. Didn't have any problems going in and round corners teetering with sludge as i was wearing a rain coat. ( Rain coats can in some ways be an improved chemical suit. Believe me from experience), sludge didn't went thru to my coveralls thanks to it.  Actually I just found out on the latter the usefulness of a raincoat no thanks to A.B. Jay, he gave me somewhat an idea and upon seeing him going down the cargo tank and using the rain coat pants.

Earlier before going down on the cargo tank and donning the "improvised" chemical suit, BOSUN Amican saw me wearing it and said a criticise remark that "I wont be able to move properly wearing that thing on" . Didn't paid any attention to it as it's very obvious that he's just jealous over it. Next few hours i saw him wearing a rain coat as well hmmm sassy bastard !!!

A TIME FOR WAR, A TIME FOR PEACE

This is one of the improvised tools sticking out on the cargo hatch , as what the picture suggest its a tripod and wooden derrick 

As you can see on the picture , tons and tons of black plastic garbage bags are filled with oil sludge's 

primitive equipement we have for the sludge removal no thanks to the limited equipement from CSM

welcome to our lovely work place duh !!!

December 24, 2013 Tuesday

For the past two days , most of the deck crew are cleaning the water ballast tank, and for the past two days i was left out and didn't went inside the ballast , So I guess I missed all the action on going down (as in way down) and shovel a mountain load of mud.

Since i was just staying outside on the water ballast entrance and being the look out , i did manage to do my work by providing coffee and a few snacks on the water ballast entrance. Unfortunately for me Mess man Ferdinand Penera didn't like my idea of borrowing the coffee and sugar and lectures me in front of everyone during lunch time saying bullshit like "how about the others and the good for the greater good" . Yeah right , may I remind him about the time he took the cable for the T.V. A few months ago and left the whole crew wondering who to took it and left them out without TV for a few days . Now what does "ferdinand" say about the part "for the greater good eh ??" , Fucking prick preaches something he himself cannot follow , BAH !!!

At night I had a small talk with Byron and copied some movies on his hard drive at the bridge.

Early morning Christmas eve, BOSUN AMICAN was bitchy as always. The starts picking again fights, This time Me and O.S. Del Monte are the unlucky one's as he scolds us , the reason why the scum bag scolds us was that we went to work late, and wants us to work on an early time duh ! I looked at the watch at that time and it was only just 7:40 , way early than even the standard call time of 7:45 and official work time of 8am.

Christmas Eve, after all that dirty work of shovelling all that dirty mud off the water ballast tank on 6 wings and finishing it at around 3pm. I was off again doing the removal of mud on my helmet and equipment, an hour later i heard someone knocking on my door and when i opened it i saw A.B. Homer.

Apparently i forgot that i said yes on the invitation to have a small drinking session on Pump man , So he decided to give me a knock. I did went on Pump Man's cabin and found Fitter Sano, Oiler Rogel, 3rd engineer cranz among homer and Pump man. I decided to hang out on their drinking session for "public relations" sake, Bosun Amican decided to drop in on Pump man's cabin but I find his presence there annoying but for the sake of Christmas i will try to tolerate that bastard. They were talking about Mess man Ferdinand's nasty habit of always using the IMARSAT phone for personal use. Anyway I learned from them that Christmas Eve Dinner starts an hour earlier than expected, 6pm rather than 7pm , so i had to get dressed early - all in the name of public relations.

During the Christmas Eve dinner , everybody was there as expected and even saw the captain sitting on the dinner table on the crew mess. I had a few drinks and got badly drunk on Christmas eve , apparently the Lebanese scotch which "Johnny the boatman" sold during our stay in Lebanon had "kicked" in badly on my system.  Despite badly drunk it doesn't mean that I'm not aware on what's happening, The only bad thing I did was i showed them on how proficient i am in speaking English - but hell I care about it , I don't give a shit whether or not they get envious (specifically people like Zacarias Amican or Renan Olis "Bastard - O" ). Its a good thing that all of the asshole crews before have been disposed of and I don't have to worry about it been seen speaking in  British English in public .Aside from me almost everybody was badly drunk and I left the crew mess at around 10pm

(by the way the asshole crews I'm speaking with are  Xerxes Balagso Hall, Ronald Caldona , Robert Cervantes Peneranda , German Tan 

Totally destroyed headlight equipment and beyond repair. Good thing i have another spare one

Corales , Nilo Pastrana etc. People whom Patrick mentioned to me)

December 25, 2013 Wednesday Christmas Day.

Woke up 2am in the morning having a bad hangover, it was so bad that the moment I opened my eyes from bed , my whole vision was "Swirling" plus the feeling of being nauseous. Totally sick from the scotch I drank.

I did throw up on the toilet at around 8am, which relieved my symptoms of a bad hangover. After that I went back to sleep again till at around 2pm and went down on the crew mess to have a small meal, even though i feel like to don't have one. I checked the crew mail there while I'm at it and received news that this ship will be heading off in turkey first for some slop removal and there will be two small ship barges awaiting to received the crude oil sludge this ship has on the slop tank. In other words its a ship to ship discharge operations  by tomorrow .

For the rest of the day, I just stayed inside my cabin either I slept or just played Civilization 5 computer game.

Late at night at about 11:30pm. A.B. Jay came knocking to my door again and said that he needs assistance in closing all the cargo hatches , apparently there was huge rain that came out and the chief mate doesn't want all the cargo hatches to have rain water inside. I helped him out, aside from me O.S. Del Monte was also closing the hatches. Finished the task according to my watch at about midnight.

December 26, 2013 Thursday

As expected the small ships arrived as early at 8am and as the usual I was busy all day doing all sorts of maintenance work aside from mooring ship to ship task. The name of the ship (or more like a barge judging from its size) is M.T. Kollin 4 . During the ship was along side with another , our work was primary focus on unloading off mountains of garbage onboard our ship. Literary we have to drag human size (or larger than human sized trash) Sacks of garbage to the manifold are for the cargo crane to transfer it to the other ship .

Sadistically expected that Mr. "Frog Face" Amican didn't even bothered to give us O.S. Coffee breaks nor even a decent lunch schedule on all that long hours of work. Doesn't surprise me though how brutal this cocksucker is , expect that coffee breaks and lunch time wouldn't be given and if they do IT WILL BE ALWAYS GIVEN LATE.

At around 10pm the ship, MT Kollin 4 Casted off from the STS mooring.

December 27th 2013 Friday

2am, was exactly in the middle of my dreams when again someone knocked to my cabin door and saw that it was "Amican" and said that i should get ready and that the second barge (ship) will be going along side in a few minutes.

Well so much for nap time , i think even nap time here is compromised due to work schedules and someone's going to knock on your cabin door , even if I'm off duty at that time.

"Kollin" barge wasn't really that difficult to handle and work was not that tedious compared to the first one, The only objective here why this barge went along side was for the collection of the sludges stored on the slop tanks

December 28th 2013 Saturday

Week end rest is cancelled as usual. Work for now is the removal of solid (and semi solid) sludge's on the starboard slop tank, Apparently despite all the efforts put on the previous tank cleaning , some of the solidified crude oil is still accumulated on the bottom of each tank here. Seriously i find this work totally unnecessary if the Russian chief mate would have used the sea clean chemicals during tank cleaning ops. Obviously he didn't and that the reason why were doing this job order.

As expected the slop tank was teetering with sludge's from what i recall i have already pulled out about 30 plus black plastic garbage bags full of crude oil sludge's ( i happened to be on the wooden derrick just right beside the cargo hatch and was pulling it out manually) and we are still not finished on it.

After work, I decided to drop by at the bridge to give the slop chest order slips to Byron and of course get my commission from the months sales on the slop chest. During my short visit , Byron told me that I wont be handling the slop chest anymore and that mess man Ferdinand will take over starting tomorrow.

To be frankly honest , I'm very much relieved that i wont be handling the slop chest and i was very much reluctant when i handled the slop chest. However I can't help but wonder why mess man Ferdinand is so eager to get his hands on the slop chest ? Maybe i could only assume that money is involve here on the commission.  Anyway I'm glad I got rid of the slop chest as i could guess mess man Ferdinand is getting jealous on my work in handling the bond store and probably is spreading rumors against me behind my back.  Very typical for a lower class individual such as himself - and not very surprising at all.

December 29th 2013 Sunday.

Morning brought in a few tensions. As BOSUN AMICAN complained to the chief mate about the chief cook serving only rice porridge as breakfast (in other words breakfast doesn't taste good). Anyway the complaint resulted to a nasty confrontation in the crew mess , right in front of the whole crew , chief mate and the captain.

I felt sorry for the chief cook olan getting all the flak from BOSUN AMICAN, He got all the bitching. Honestly i felt ashamed on my own kind squabbling amongst each other , This ship has only a small provisions left and instead of joining and working together for a greater good ,  here we are Filipino's demanding good food and bickering to each other about food. I don't blame the chief cook if he only served rice porridge ("lugaw" in tagalog) as breakfast as it was the only available supply in the provisions.  It's not the chief cook's fault and why don't they ask CSM on why there isn't any provisions given yet and if they do why is it very limited and restricted ? These filipino co-workers of mine should take a moment and think about that , rather than bitching the chief cook.

Honestly i feel so low on the commotion that happened, I guess this is typical for lower class Filipino's . We wont always agree even on simple things - nor even band together for a greater good. In tagalog this is the only phrase i could say - "wala na ngang makain sa provision , eh eto pa tayo nag aaway away dahil hindi lang masarap ang almusal"

 December 31st 2013 Tuesday.

We have been working on the slop tank for some days now and its seems that removing all the sludge's inside this tank would take forever. For the record all the garbage drums located on the aft part of this ship have already been used up and filled with sludge's and that doesn't include an army of black plastic bags filled with sludge's as well.  Storage of this sludge's is becoming a big problem now given on the huge volumes of sludge's inside, Another thing to add more on the problem is the availability of the equipment needed. Worst is that chemicals needed for removal of sludge's are forbidden for unknown reasons , making the work more difficult.

Anyway i did make a few improvement and realize that even a standard issue rain coat can be modified in an improved chemical, yes believe it or not it can be modified.  Just remember to add a chemical glove for the hands and a few duct tapes here and there and voila !!! A chemical proof suit designed to withstand chemicals.

Unfortunately despite engineering efforts , Politics and human psychology are excluded . When Bosun Amican saw me on the improvised suit, he can't help and keep he's mouth shut and criticized me that i shouldn't be wearing it , the reason he gave was its bulky and hard to move on.  He could say whatever he wants be that doesn't going to stop me on wearing this on work , in fact i could only think he's jealous because i have a better equipment than his.

Believe it or not , incidentally i saw amican wearing a raincoat (the same thiing) a few hours later. Bastard sick old fuck !!!!

from left to right , Koba tsikarede, "bastard - O" Renan Olis, messman ferdinand Penera , Bosun AMican , and Chief cook Olan

OUr beloved captain krasikov

lots of wine and beer during chirstmas day

A little get together during christmas Eve

left to right, Koba , chief engineer and 3rd mate "byron"

Mr. ARs (2nd engineer)

Food , food and more food during chirtsmas day , despite limited provisions

Seems to be a fine typical co-workers , never figured that were always on toe to toe to each other . I guess its cease fire and time for peace even only for christmas day

CHRISTMAS WITHOUT YOU

Behold !!! the typical butter wash machine's always typically used on almost all tankers in the world 

Although Tank cleaning operations in a chemical tanker are common and usually done on a regular basis, Product tankers however are much different even though their also part of the "Tanker class" commercial ships. On my previous two ships both Stolt Strength and Bow Ophelia, it is so common that there is no need to conduct a "special kind of work" and all working schedules are unchanged , Unfortunately i couldn't say much the same on Cape Tallin (my current ship), tank cleaning here is very rare given that this is a full fledge bonafide crude oil product tanker. Unfortunately as soon as this ship left Lebanese port , this ship drifted somewhere near in Cyprus and started tank cleaning ops and that's when all hell broke loose on working schedules . Here's what happened

On December 18, 2013 Wednesday. I started work at about 6am given that BOSUN AMICAN ordered me to do a job to clean my designated cleaning station, the reason why was that this ship is expecting V.I.P. Personnel from CSM visiting at 10am. At 9am This ship dropped anchor near Cyprus (CSM has a main office here) and at about 10:30 , a small boat went alongside and boarded this ship, as the usual procedure we set our "props" (complete ISPS enchilada and costumes etc..) to make the VIP's think that everything in this ship is doing well (even though on the reality it is not), from what i recall there are 5 personnel who boarded this vessel and they are two office trainee's , one ships agent and 2 superintendents . There's also a female who should have boarded this ship however she got sea sick and decided to stay on the

An hour later,  a small ship went alongside on the starboard side of this ship to conduct bunkering operations (refuelling). At about 2pm the VIP's disembark and this ship was left doing bunkering ops until at about 7 or 8 pm. During that time I was off doing either maintenance work or some sort of "Special work" like mooring ship to ship at the same time. It was difficult on the sense that BOSUN AMICAN doesn't have the ability to handle the crew. Me , A.B. Homer Mallorca , A.B. Jay Briones and O.S. Del Monte have been going to a lot of work on the mooring ropes like changing the rope tails and such , down to the filing and arranging them on the winches - enough to make us tired. The whole day was a total chaos on which "Specific" work are we actually doing, We have no idea if it was just only maintenance work for today or were in operations like handling of the VIP's and Bunkering Ops.

At 3:45 pm I was surprised to hear from Amican , that my working schedule will be retained until 6pm. I didn't bother to ask him why I'd be extended , all that registered in my brain was I'd still be on work till night. During the few hours "Retain" i found out from A.B. Homer that starting today there will be a special tank cleaning ops and all of us will be working on 24 hours in a six hour shift. (my shift will be 12 in the midnight till 6 in the morning , then be back again 12 noon till 6pm) , rumor from homer says that the "new chief mate" has a deadlock time of 5 days to finish the job. Found out from homer that Saturdays and Sundays off are cancelled as well. 

After 6pm I went to see O.S. Del Monte to notify him of his working shift , and heard from him that tank cleaning ops was going to start until 9pm upwards.

"BLOODY FUCKING HELL !!!! " I shouted out of astonishment and said again

"You meant all that blabber BOSUN Amican told me about me earlier extending till 6pm was all horse shit ???" , O.S Del Monte replied "Apparently so , and you've been overworked unnecessarily and your actual working shift will not start till it's midnight"

Upon hearing what O.S. Del Monte said , I felt that i was ripped off again by Mr. Frog Face. That son of a bitch never told me that tanks cleaning ops for me was still far out by midnight , from what i heard to him earlier it was as if it was like i had to do it immediately.

Went to rest and did some writing on this blog to update my journal.

December 19, 2013 Thursday 1am.

So much for a six hour rest and I'm back again doing work. Tank cleaning on a crude product tanker was boring to begin with and i had nothing to do but watch and see if the butter wash machines are working or not, the rest of the hour was just sitting around doing nothing at all. For the moment tank cleaning is currently being worked on 1st wings (meaning both port and star board side of cargo tank  number 1).

At around 4am in the morning i overheard A.B. Bryan's conversation and A.B. Homer Mallorca , something about criticism on BOSUN AMICAN's laziness. Apparently from what i heard is that he just overslept and hid in his cabin to avoid work, Strange and very ironic that he does exactly the opposite on what comes out on his mouth , look at him now - the bastard is pretty much lazy doing his work.

For some reason, the chemicals that was brought in during Houston USA will not be used at all and the tank cleaning procedure here will just only use hot water . For some reason i don't understand why they're just going to use hot water , and all the efforts of hauling off the 32 plus drums of chemicals and the trouble of ordering them in Houston were only just put to waste.

December 20th 2013 Friday.

Same old tank cleaning schedule and not much action compared to a chemical tanker, and very same old job in watching those butter wash machines spin over and over again.  By the way the weather was a bit rainy with occasional strong winds but nothing serious to impede work.

Well there's one thing that might have been a bit interesting, me , A.B. Homer and O.S. Del Monte opened up a cargo tank hatch this morning. Unfortunately homer forgot to open up the tank hatch slowly and let it rest for a while to gradually release the pressure of the steam inside, instead he opened it up a bit quick resulting to a strong gush of steam coming out , and guess who got all the bloody heat coming from the steam ? - yeah i took all that steam that came out, good thing i was wearing coveralls and i didn't sustained any burn marks from it and this isn't a chemical tanker carrying acid's otherwise both of my legs could have been burned off in an instant.

Another thing aside from opening the tank hatch is that the laundry room is now finally open after two weeks being closed , Immediately I didn't waste any time in putting laundry on that damn laundry machine. Thank god that the washing machine is open.

December 21st 2013 Saturday

Went to work a bit late for this day, This time it was intentional that i arrived late (well part intentional) after i mistook that the tank cleaning schedule was all over. Now why did i mistook ? Well blame it all when i saw that the ship moved early in the morning.

Anyway it was an honest mistake , apparently i found out on the latter that the main reason why the ship moved was  on the fact that this ship drifted very far from the current location yesterday. So to correct the exact position of the ship it had moved its engines again to the designated "drifting location"

For now the work we did was just drop off the two portable butter wash machines into the residue tank and let those machine clean the tank with hot water .

December 22nd 2013 Sunday

So much for the weekends off , i could just write it in fat air and as expected its cancelled.

We did a lot of work on this day , mostly just inspecting what was the results of the tank cleaning procedure of using only hot water. There was one funny thing that happened during that time and it was when A.B. Jay and Pumpman Liscano entered cargo tank number 4 , as soon as they entered the said cargo tank . A very loud and strong sound came inside it (enough to hurt their ears) and incidentally their hand held oxygen detector / hydro carbon device flashed wildly and then accompanied by a gushing water leak inside one of the pipes.

Both of them wildly went to get outside the cargo tank , as in running wildly like hell was at in their feet .

Later they found out that the cause of the loud sound was the new chief mate pressed the wrong button alarms - WHILE THEY WERE INSIDE . Anyway it was the chief mates blunder.

Late hour on work, there was an oil spill at the bottom of the pump room and all of us went there to cleaned it. I was going up and down on the stairs of the pump room, delivering the equipment used for the cleaning - tedious and tiring. 

NOTING ELSE I COULD SAY

Winter since is already visible here in the middle east as weather drastically gets colder each day. Though its not that cold as some places in Europe, and snow is still not visible here. winter season in Lebanon is still quiet cold - for Filipino standards. (By the way as for general information here the sunset is as early as 4:30pm in Europe during winter time. )

Presently , to adjust on these temperature drops. I had to wear a few more clothes inside on my coveralls to keep myself warm (thanks to some winter clothes left to me by my friend "Pat" before he left the ship). The challenge for me now is how to keep my hands still warm while working given that winter equipment here is somewhat being "Restricted" . Fortunately for me I found a used winter gloves several months ago during summer season (while working here) , i cleaned it and repaired it and voila !! A usable winter gloves - problem is that its only a single piece and for my left hand only and not a pair. For my right hand usage i found a leather gloves then layer it with two cotton gloves as a remedy.  (it took a pictures of what i did on the gloves just to give description of what i made, pictures will be posted as soon as i get back on land and have internet connection).

For now , I'm currently doing the usual routine maintenance work . Sweeping the deck area with a broom.  Paint stuff here and there. Usual routine.

On what's going on onboard well I could say things are pretty much generally peaceful though a few troublemakers like "bull frog" Amican starting up trouble every now and then. One instance is that when the superintendent came by and asked how is the food going , "Bull Frog" Amican says that Chief Cook Olan is not doing his job correctly. I did not exactly heard every word he said to the superintendent but the general idea saying that Chief cook doesn't do his job well is a big question mark to the superintendents' head and probably (and most likely) would stir up trouble later on.

At the morning coffee break i was hell right and apparently from what i heard there was a short meeting that came up , i don't know the details but what came up was that Chief Cook and even the Captain was chewed out by the superintendent and apparently the captain voiced out his disgust over it and even his fury about which one in the crew accused and reported him to the CSM office. ( according to the report , he was accused of manipulation of provisions and "stealing" money from CSM)

Of course i wasn't there when it happened , because I am still technically imposing the "lock down policy" and had been staying on my cabin every coffee break to avoid any further hostilities and harassment from the crew (Specifically from BOSUN "Frog Face" Amican and 2nd officer "Bastard-O" a.k.a. Renan Olis , see journal entry "To Pacify the monster" dated september 2013). I only got to know the details from Mess man Ferdinand Penera.

Honestly I don't think Captain Valeriy Krasikov would do such a thing, He may not be the perfect Ship captain around but I'm most certainly sure he's not a bad captain as what they accuse him of. As far as i know these "reports" CSM gets from the crew (whoever he is , onboard here) are just plain old baseless accusations and if the accuser is man enough and has the balls ( i hope two of them and very large) , He should have shown himself. Since the captain is being accused of such things , he has his right as accused to demand the identity of the person accusing him - its part of any labour laws elsewhere around the world.

Speaking of which , This case of manipulation of provisions and pilferage (stealing) reminds me of the former captain i had way back in Stolt Strength, I think his name was Alfredo Pascual if I'm correct. That I'm sure that i witnessed it first hand on what kind of burglar he is , Stealing and manipulating provisions onboard. Glad I'd never get to see that bastards face ever again.

At night.. While playing the Game Far Cry 2 on the multiplayer along with the other crew members, Chief Mate Sergey Nagornyy came to us at the CCR and shook our hands one by one , to bid good bye for his vacation leave. Obviously He is disembarking along with the superintendent (much to the delight of the other crew members that the superintendent will be disposed now ) on that minute. Frankly and to be honest , he is one soviet guy that I'm looking forward to see again on any ship that I'd be working by in the future. For a soviet guy i do really like this one, I knew that he's a good person , fair and equal treating on other people even to his subordinates ( compared to my own kind ) . In other news related to the disembark of the superintendent , the ban on rest days have already been lifted and we can now relax and enjoy the rest days on Saturday (half day work) and Sunday (whole day no work)

Speaking of the video game "Far Cry 2" , I think i prefer playing that game in multiplayer inside my cabin for privacy rather than on all of us are gathered up in the same room (in CCR). The Wifi connection might be weak when playing in the cabin due to metal barriers on the signal but at least there is some privacy and comfort, aside from that 4th Engineer is getting too personal over this game and saying a lot of offensive rude comments. Honestly I'm getting sick and tired of it hearing those annoying mockery and scorn from his mouth, I'm starting to think that I shouldn't play the game anymore and came up with excuses so they wont notice my disdain.

When this game is being played in the cabin at least I'm spared from his rude mouth and i got some privacy. Tactically in playing the game, i could get a good position and placement as a sniper without the other player snooping around on my computer screen just to determine my location at the map. Being a Sniper would be useless if every other player knows which position I'm located at.

Presently , I read via Ship's email client that another berthing schedule for Lebanon had been put up. Based on the email the berthing schedule will be on December 15, 2013. Unfortunately the schedule lands on Sundays which meant rest day for the whole day will be interrupted. For the moment there is no announcement if the schedule will change, So it could only draw a conclusion that berthing is on schedule. Aside from that the weather is beautiful for the moment (although a bit cold due to upcoming winter season) , So i couldn't see any reason why berthing schedule will be cancelled.

Anyway whether or not there will be changes on the schedule, It is prudent that I remain on "Standby" in case of short notice (which i definitely hate)  and put up some drinks and mineral water on the CCR and the bridge as part of my work on the bond store.

The place in CCR were we play "Far cry 2" video game , showed on the picture are our laptos as well

December 15, 2013 Sunday

Was playing "Far Cry 2" video game in the morning thinking that berthing might be somehow in the 3pm schedule then A.B. Jay came knocking to my cabin door at 9:30 am and when I opened he said that a one hour notice has already been given to crew to be ready for mooring.

As expected i immediately get dress and waited till someone again will knock thru my door (which is obviously BOSUN AMICAN). 30 minutes later , I wasn't mistaken and BOSUN came knocking informing me that were going to heave anchor. Me and O.S. Del Monte hurriedly went to the forward part of the ship to heave up anchor. A few minutes later We heaved up anchor and immediately followed by mooring operations.

Mooring operations were not that problem in mooring with a buoy compared to a standard berthing on a port facility, from what I recall we only used 2 mooring lines (loose ropes) and 1small mooring rope in the winch . Since Oiler Rogel was missing in the winches during mooring , I'm the one who took over in operating the winches for the time being. The remaining two loose ropes where secured on the starboard side by A.B. Jay, A.B. Homer and O.S. Del Monte.

After securing the mooring ops at 10:30am, I quickly lunch and took a rest for barely an hour and a half before finally going back again to work. I wore my usual gear, clean coveralls , helmet and my "sidearm". When A.B. Homer Mallorca saw me on my outfit, he said that i look like I'm competing on Bosun Amican's outfit. I replied that I'm not competing and I'm the first one to wear this kind of outfit.

It was the same old cargo deck operations and i had to report every now and then to the CCR what was the manifold pressure- nothing more, frankly mooring with a buoy is so much easier compared to mooring operations on a berthing facility - less work on the sense that i don't have to worry about the gangway and visitors coming in. As usual 2nd officer Renan Olis is an asshole when it comes to the radio and even A.B. Mallorca and A.B. Bryan is complaining about it. Once instance (and example)on his bitchy attitude was when he still refuses and orders us to ask what was "Johnny the boatman" purpose on why he wants to board the vessel . Good Thing "Johnny the boatman" said that he's here because the Pilot ordered him to come around.

 In other news...

On a brief monkey talk during work with A.B. Bryan , He describes and tells that our former Chief Officer Sergey Nagornyy , was a lazy russian - something close to that kind of bullshit. He even added that some nasty comments like he "can't speak english very well and acts like some ill educated sailor," and shit stuff like that. Have no idea why A.B. Perceives Sergey negatively and I seriously disagree on his comments, For me I viewed Sergey Nagornyy Positively, and he's a good person and has compassion towards his fellow sailors (both soviet or not) compared to our own kind.

December 16, 2013 Monday

Work shift wasn't really that fun this time, and i got to blame "Bastard - O" for ruining it. It all started again when "Johnny the boatman" boatman is boarding this vessel yet again, Of course as the usual I radioed in and asked if we would let him in. "Bastard - O" was hesitant and would not let him in. A few seconds later the Pilot on the bridge said on the radio that "Johnny" should be allowed on the vessel to board because he's ferrying the ships agent.

"Bastard - O" Radioed in and said i should let "Johnny" board and added an unnecessary remark " di mo kasi tinitignan" (translation in english: you didn't even bother to look). Seriously I wanted slice off "Bastard - O" tongue and throw it for fish food when i heard it , Totally no manners at all on radio etiquette , does he think my eye is sharp enough to see who's inside "Johnny's" small boat ? Bastard didn't even bother to say thank you for at least asking on radio whether Johnny should be let in or not.

Anyway i should not be troubled on fury about this and write on what happened today.

I heard from A.B. Mallorca , that while i was away resting yesterday . Chief engineer brought in some few items from "Johnny" , mostly some provisions and food stuff's for himself and was delivered on the poop deck. Well couldn't blame chief engineer that he had to brought all these items for himself, as supplies both on the provision and on the bond store have already dwindled. Problem on chief engineer is that Johnny obviously ripped him off on the money and cost him around 700 U.S. Dollars.

At 2pm cargo discharging was finally over and was immediately followed by unmooring operations. Wasn't really doing the unmooring even though it was only me and BOSUN "Bull Frog" Amican was around on the forward part of the ship. It took quiet a while for O.S. Del Monte to arrive given that he wasn't given an early notice and as  expected BOSUN "Bull Frog" (given on his asshole manners) bitching him for coming in late.

We secured lashing in the anchors both on the port side and star board side at around 3pm and went to the accommodation block to stand by and wait for two hours for the next port.

At around 5 to 6pm we (Me , O.S. Del Monte and "Mr. Bull frog" ) were called to go outside and go to the forward part of the ship to prepare for the winches and standby for anchorage. Seriously it was such a chore lashing and unlashing the anchors , knowing that it was only 2 hours away from the next port and why the hell do we have to lash it in the first place ??? Me and O.S. Del Monte should have kept it unlashed.

Anchored at around 7pm at night, Since there was no mooring operations in these part of Lebanon during at night. We had to wait for another 12 to 11 hours , until morning for the mooring resumed.

December 17, 2013 Tuesday

As expected mooring ops resumed at 5am and we heaved anchor a few minutes later.  Mooring wasn't difficult in the forward side and that we just have to drop two anchors (port and starboard side) via "gravity drop" (meaning no aid of machine to drop it off) , from what i recall we dropped about 8 shackles in the water. The mooring arrangement on this port also is called "spider mooring" which meant mooring ropes on both  portside and starboard side of the aft, well good thing for me i don't have to worry about it since my mooring station is always (and permanently) in the forward part of the ship. Let the A.B.'s sweat it out.

During my working shift (12pm to 6pm) , I received a rumour from A.B. Mallorca that there's a possibility that we might disembark on this ship by January 20. I was thrilled on hearing the news given that , i myself needed to go back home as soon as possible on personal reasons. I asked homer if there is some sort of paper notice , to my surprise he said that it came from the computer and no paper notice yet.  Of course i have my reasons to doubt homer's claims and i wanted it to see on my very eyes proof on paper the specific date and time we are scheduled to disembark on this ship, here onboard its very difficult to trust people words and most of the time - are just totally bullshit.

On my work , weather has gone ill again and rain is falling very hard. I don't mind the rain at all , the problem is that its winter time and chances are rain water is frozenly  cold. The winter jacket isn't really that much of a help since for some reason the material issued by CSM gets wet easily.

At 6pm i was off on my work and went back to my cabin , 3 hours later O.S. Del Monte was banging thru my cabin door , like he's going to crash it down. I was deep asleep and was in the middle of my "dreams" and when i heard in my head the sound of banging the cabin door , i immediately jumped out of bed (literary) and opened the door. It was so sudden that O.S. Del Monte even saw me wiping off the drool on my face.

"What's up ??" that's what i said to him , while wiping my face.

"Cargo Ops is finish, wipe off the drool and haul off your ass then get ready for unmooring ops" O.S. Del Monte replied.

"SERIOUSLY !!!! NO SHIT " i said ...

"Yes no shit at all now move and, I'd be waking A.B. Bryan next" O.S. Del Monte said.

Hurriedly got dressed up and putted on my coverall's and went to the forward part, Immediately soon afterward the anchor was heaved, O.S. Del Monte arrived in late and Old Frog face Amican said another insulting words to him  saying "where the hell have you been ?! This is your mooring station and you should be here first !! "

Del Monte wasn't very happy on what came out on his mouth and i could see in his eyes the annoyance over the insulting remark.

Ship to bouy Mooring in lebanon

The lebanese power plant thats going to recieved this ships crude oil

THE SOUND OF YOU

Much to my dismay and disappointment , Saturdays and Sundays work off (rest day) have been cancelled meaning that everyday is work day here - to make it even worse overtime working hours pay has been reduced yet again from 85.5 hours to 54 hours. To simply say it situations onboard this ship have escalated further and has gotten worse. Imagine more work and less pay, ( Anyway what do i expect from a ship run by soviets eh ? No democracy and more of a dictatorship ) in addition to the worse situation , Provision here are running very low - both on equipment and on food. The bond store has been high and dry now, while on the deck area the equipment there is insufficient , the stocks of paint have been so low that only a few cans of paint are left. There is no paint thinner left on the paint room as well.

December 07, 2013 Saturday

For the moment half of my day on work was spent cleaning my cleaning station, wasn't an easy job and wasn't easy at all now that there's no rest days available (for now i hope) . The other half of the day was spent me painting some black stripes over ramps ,  unfortunately it suddenly rained and wasn't able to finish it , so instead i went to the workshop room to grind some plastic bottles using the trash compactor.

Another thing i might add for this day is that a new chief mate has just arrived to replace our currently one who would be going home (for a vacation ), I don't know his exact name yet but I'd get to look on that in the crew list on the latter. All I could say for now is that the new chief mate is fairly young , as in 29 years old (based on what i heard from mess man Ferdinand saying he's date of birth is 1984). Hope that this chief mate is not an asshole.

Aside from the new chief mate , a superintendent came along as well. As usual when an upcoming vetting inspection is expected on this ship (and to any other ship's , CSM or not) a superintendent board this vessel to assist people (or at least give tips) . Unfortunately Superintendents' are not good news , and usually brings more burdens on any ship it visits , like for example my previous ship and this one where Saturday and Sunday rest days are cancelled.

December 08, 2013 Sunday

As much as i hate going to work on Sunday's , i have no other choice but to go along on the flow of things. This morning I was surprised to see Electrician "koba" to be in coveralls , puzzled i still went ahead in eating break fast at the crew mess. A few minutes later when Pump man Liscano came, it became clear to me what was it all about. Apparently from what i heard for him (pump man) berthing will be this morning and this ship is just waiting for the weather to clear up (weather this morning was rainy). It was bad news for me to hear that berthing will come unannounced and only learned from it on the last hour. Another bad news came when BOSUN Amican arrived and said to us in the crew mess that there will be a cabin inspection today by the superintendent.

Double bad news this morning, Upon hearing the two bad news. I hurriedly finished up my breakfast and quickly went to my cabin to clean up, I hurried cleaned it up and made sure that they wont discover anything on my cabin. After which  then i went back again on the kitchen to take soft drinks and mineral water and put some of it to the CCR and Bridge (as part of my job description in handling the bond store)

When i came out on work , weather wasn't really good and according to what i heard from A.B. Homer that the weather is still being waited to clear up before commencing to berth. We waited for an hour or two , then came in the announcement that berthing is cancelled - For now.  So in the mean time were off again doing maintenance works, like processing garbage and stuff like that . Food waste garbage as what i know is currently being burned , as me and A.B. Homer are the one's who are taking it to the incinerator machine, down at the engine room.

Aside from that , rest of the day i was busy hiding from the superintendent and other senior officers (Captain and two chief mate's ) as they conduct inspections on the deck area. If they're in the port side area , i simply go away and do my work on the opposite direction.  I kept moving a lot around the deck area just to simply not get caught up with the ship officers, like a cat and mouse tactic.  Seriously I think hiding from them will do me no good and the superintendent is here to at least help us up (or to the very least give us tips) on the upcoming Vetting inspections, In other words it wont matter if i crap up now rather than right in front of the vetting inspector.

Surprisingly the work schedule for Sunday is only half day ( I expect it was whole day given that the superintendent was around hovering like a helicopter ).  At 3pm there was a meeting supposedly at the CCR room but since a lot of people are hanging out on the crew mess, they decided that a meeting should be held there rather than in the CCR.  Anyway the meeting was all about what to do in case of a vetting inspection, The practical Do's and Don'ts , like ISPS thing etc. Nothing special really. Afterwards the meeting i asked O.S. Del Monte if there was seriously a "cabin search" after this, he replied that don't ever believe what BOSUN Amican says - its just all a  big fat lie and he's just dickin around with us.

Pretty much relieved it was just a bad joke , otherwise i has to figure out better where i had to hid all my stuff from prying eyes of this ship's crew and officers.

December 10, 2013 Tuesday

The power plant in Zouk Lebanon

Despite numerous delays and setbacks , Finally berthing to Zouk, Lebanon has already proceeded. Bosun Amican knocked to my door at around 5am early in the morning, it took me quite while to open it since i was at "The John"  at that time taking a dump. When i opened the door , there it was Bosun Amican and said to me that its already "standby" and were going to heave up anchor very soon. I hurried got dress , and i dressed an extra clothes underneath my coveralls as an insulation from the cold winter season here at Lebanon.

Heaving up the anchor was no bid deal at all and was finished very quickly, we went back to the accommodation to take a breakfast. Not exactly a full fledge break but a quick meal knowing that mooring ops will soon follow and that the location of the berthing port is very near - as so near that i can visually see it.

The trick in being ready for work and at the same time having a meal is not to eat a huge volume of food. small enough to keep me going in a few hours and not big enough to restrict my movement.

I was correct, a few minutes later. We were immediately put on a standby for mooring operations. I hurriedly went to my mooring station (forward bow part of the ship) and waited further instructions. It was unexpected that Chief mate was the one who is leading this mooring operations on the forward part (usually its 3rd mate byron) but nevertheless I don't mind at all , i have been to too many mooring operations already ever since i was a deck cadet - I'm used to that kind of idea.

Mooring ops was a bit different and somewhat similar to the mooring operations i had during my stay in Bow Ophelia in iskendur , Turkey. Mooring Ops was about this ship being moored on a Cargo Buoy floating in the sea. Anyway i now understand what is the bow chain stopper used for, (located on the forward part of the ship).  The purpose of it was to hold the chain of a large buoy which acts like some sort of function similar to a mooring dolphin appliance commonly seen in any port facility.

Mooring ops on a buoy is much more easier and less workload compared to being moored on a typical port.

After the mooring ops, I went ahead on the usual SOP procedures like preparing the SOPEP equipment near the manifold area , arranging the foam monitors pointing them to which direction the unloading of cargo is, putting up the fire hoses and such etc. One thing happened though when i was putting up the SOPEP equipment, The superintendent saw me wearing a badly tattered coveralls (which I typically use on "day work" times) and asked me a few question. He asked how many coveralls were issued to me by Career Ship management and i replied that they only gave me 2 sets of boilers suits. Latter he took a picture of me in those dirty coveralls , not exactly sure of what the pictures were all about.

It was at about 9 am when i went to my cabin to take a small rest and prepare my stuff. Vetting inspection will come soon, so my equipment and gear to be used on work should be clean and tidy for ship inspections , for obvious reason since this ship is expecting a vetting inspector , I didn't wore my "side arm" tool pouch to avoid any unnecessary discussions on the vetting inspector . Three hours later i went outside for my cargo operations work, When i talked to A.B. Jay - he said that the vetting inspector had already arrived and is now at the ship captains office. He added also that at maybe around 3 or 4 pm the inspector would do some rounds and check everything from deck to the engine department. 

Before i took over , O.S. Jermonick told me that i should focus my attention on the manifold for now rather than on the gangway for obvious reasons.

There was a bad weather brooding up and there's occasional rain showers ever hour or so, Worst was that i don't have any functioning rain coat and had to borrow Pump man Liscano Winter jacket just to keep myself dry. When the inspector came he just passed by , most likely because of the bad weather that was happening and he can't make a comprehensive check around - which is good for me though.

During the watch "Johnny" the boat man came by along side on his boat and wishes to lower our gangway ladder to board our vessel. For some reason "Bastard - O" Renan Oveda Olis says on the radio that he's not authorized to board this ship, Unfortunately A.B. Bryan didn't heard what 2nd officer "Bastardo" said on the radio and by the time he knew what "Bastardo" was saying , He had already lowered the gangway ladder and "Johnny" the boatman had already boarded on deck.  Obviously A.B. Bryan got scolded by "Bastardo" for it and a few minutes later I could hear A.B. Bryan grumbling about it.

30 minutes later "Johnny" the boatman disembarked on the ship on his boat and cast off, 2 hours later he came back again and i radioed in if "Johnny" would be let in or not. 2nd officer "Bastard-O" said that he can board the vessel.  Upon hearing this A.B. Bryan grumbled again on the reason's why he got scolded saying "Eh papasukin naman pala eh bakit pa ako pinagalitan" (translation in english : Then why the hell did i get scolded for if he's just going to let him in ). I just gave A.B. Bryan simple smile and played innocent , a body gesture meaning " i don't know , beats me ?" . Seriously i don't really cared about it whether "Johnny" is authorized or not , as long as I stay out of trouble and remain neutral to these rowdy sailors then I'd be fine. Glad that I'm not the only one who see's 2nd officer Renan Olis as an asshole.

At around 5:30pm. I heard the sound on the radio that , discharging on the manifold area will be stopped and cargo hoses will be disconnected , then followed by unmooring operations. I was in disbelief that the cargo operations was very short, nearly only just 8 hours (started at around 11am).

Unmooring ops started at around 6:00pm and was a very short and brief one , lasted only at least 10 minutes to 5 minutes. Just simply disconnect the bow chain stopper and the two other loose ropes and that's it. After the Unmooring ops , the chief mate Sergey told us that by tomorrow we can take a rest till 1pm and work will only be done on a half day. 15 minutes after unmooring ropes , anchor on the starboard side was dropped . There was a very minor problem when we dropped the anchor, as the some of the chains get twisted . We resolved it by dropping the anchor very slowly.

For the moment this ship is going to stay here in the anchorage area for a week , then go back again to discharge the 2nd parcel of this cargo. In the mean time we may be doing the normal maintenance work for awhile.