NEGATIVE NINE

For the past few days this ship has been sitting its fat ass out here on the anchorage area , probably waiting for the next destination. There hasn't been any word yet on the next unloading operation of this ship, but what I'm certain is that this ship is waiting for bunkering operations (refuelling).

Winter season here in eastern Europe is harsher than i thought, with temperatures ranging negative below zero - it would be really unwise someone would go out in the deck area without winter clothing even for less than 5 minutes. For the moment the temperature now as while i write this already hit on the negative 9 degree's Celsius and possible could get any lower within the coming of days.  Rule of the thumb here in winter is that its not the snow that is actually giving the cold , but its the wind. Get caught on a small cold breeze or blizzard , and you'd find yourself (or any body part exposed ) frozen within less than 5 minutes.

As for work, most of it is now on indoors like going to the pump room painting on something or inside the accommodation cleaning on my cleaning station. Going outside on the deck area is almost nearly as impossible as the whole area is covered with ice especially on the forward part. For now my latest assignment is painting some sort of heating machinery in the pump room and i have to paint it with an aluminium colour paint afterwards i have to clean all the oil residues with a chemical known as "Aquatuff" (some sort of heavy duty alkaline chemical , in the words its a soap). Aside from that i did also helped out Pump Man Liscano in changing rubber gaskets off from this heating machinery.

On January 29th Wednesday...

At 9pm, I Was busy playing Far cry 2 in multiplayer mode along with my co-workers. When suddenly i saw BOSUN AMICAN came to my cabin door (my door was open to let a clear signal from the WI-FI  modem) and said that " its time to heave up anchor" , at first i thought that this ship has spent too much time in anchorage and maybe its about time this ship has left in Ukraine and go to turkey . As usual i immediately put on my winter gear and headed straight to the forward part, Immediately when i opened the water tight door, I was totally caught unexpected on the weather - The winds were blowing very strong and furious like a hurricane and i nearly slip a couple of times because even the main deck was covered with ice (not snow) . Even O.S. Del Monte was caught by surprise on the strong weather and slippery deck floor, he said that i should go ahead cause he's going to get something first and change foot wear.

I tried as hard as i could to maintain my balance while walking as i could easily lose balance from the wind and the slippery floor . I walked on the middle side of the deck as their isn't much ice in there and the pipes break off the blow of the wind, by the time I'm almost at the forward part area, i saw A.B. "Jay " going on the opposite direction and said that chief mate Bezruchko said that our presence in the forward part of the ship is no longer need. I asked why ? He replied that some small ship nearly collided with us and just passed a few feet away from the bow , now that the ship has passed by without ramming us then there's no reason why we have to heave up the anchors 

Upon what A.B. "Jay " said, i finally figured out why me and O.S. Del Monte was called in the middle of the night to heave up anchor. Immediately i went back to then accommodation and saw O.S. Del Monte going in on the same direction as i am earlier. I just relayed the information I got from A.B. " jay " and both of us returned on the accommodation.

As for A.B. "Jay", last i saw of him was that he was talking with pump man Liscano over some heating valves that need to be opened at 3 portside

On January 31st Friday...

I was busy continuing the usual job of painting when this ship suddenly gave the order to heave up anchor, To the reasons why the anchor is being heaved up , i have no idea why. Nevertheless to whatever reasons , as part of my work as an O.S. Here onboard i have to go to the forward part of the ship and assist (and operate the winch) the heaving of the anchor,

Before we heaved the anchor, we chipped the ice off from the winches - the whole machinery was envelop like an ice cube. Took us at least 3 hours to get the ice off and we used a couple of tools we have in the work shop, some of the crew preferred the fire axe to chop off those chunks of ice, others the "Ice Pick " (a handheld stabbing tool)  , me on the hand preferred the chipping hammer as its ends is a bit pointy (not sharp)compared to a typical hammer. Its very good hand held tool and there's no danger of it endangering myself (or others) if it ever slips on my hand.

Seriously it was a bad idea that they heaved up the anchor at this day as winds were quiet strong and to make it worst the temperature dropped to negative 11 degrees Celsius, and on top of that there was this huge sea spray going on and off at the forward part of the ship. Obviously all of us (BOSUN , O.S. Del Monte, A.B. Bryan, and chief mate Bezruchko ) were all wet with freezing sea water and the whole forward part in the deck area are already covered with ice.

It was a very tough anchor heaving operations because of the wind and the temperature. My whole winter clothing was wet from the sea spray, then shortly it gets frozen from the low temperature , I was very much covered with ice that i couldn't even put the hood on my winter jacket as it was already frozen. I didn't even knew that it was already frozen until O.S. Del Monte told me that it wasn't stuck on my jacket- It was frozen.  Aside from winter jacket even the red goggles i use became frozen and its plastic lens broke.  Both me and O.S. Del Monte take turns in operating the winch every few minutes or so , if I'm the one operating the machinery, O.S. Del Monte is the one who warms his hands using the steam pipe on 1 starboard side - and Vice versa.

the whole aft part area is covered with ice

The steam pipe was really helpful in warming the hands during a blizzard , though i have to keep in mind that steam pipes are so hot that it would be best I'm wearing my gloves  while touching in , so it wont burn my hands.

After the anchor was successfully heaved we received orders from captain slabada that we should hide somewhere as the anchor will be dropped again in a few minutes via gravity type drop. Without hesitation all of us went to the bosun store below as it is the only safe place from this kind of weather. After a few minutes we went out again as we need to drop the anchor. A.B. Bryan was the one who dropped the anchor via gravity type. 11 shackles was dropped over the water and soon after the anchors were drop, I was told by BOSUN AMICAN to go back to the accommodation as the weather is already getting worse. Me and O.S. Del Monte hurriedly pulled away from the forward area and used the catwalk in going back to the accommodation because there was less ice on that path and its not slippery at all.

at my back is what used to be our deck area ,  fully littered with ice

BLACK AND WHITE

JANUARY 18, 2014 Saturday

After a successful dry dock operations in Varna Bulgaria, this ship is headed off again picking up cargo in the Baltic area. For the moment the next destination will be somewhere in Ukraine and its a ship to ship loading operations probably on the same size with this ship.

Now that Christmas and new year has come to pass along with the dry dock operations as well , the big question now is when am I going home ??? . For now the only answer to could come up with is  just plain horse shit rumours coming from 2nd officer Renan olis oveda "bastard-o" , rumours that are just obviously his paranoid delusion grandeur. Anyway for the information of all. Apparently his delusions of disembarking as early as February on this ship has already reached record high , worst part is that its just all in his head and there is no proof notices whatsoever coming from CSM about the crew change. In other words , were stuck here until further notice.

For the moment before this ship arrives, my work is consisting of just cleaning inside the accommodation area and putting back equipment here and there - nothing special and just the regular maintenance work typically done here onboard.

JANUARY 19, 2014 SUNDAY

Should have known from my gut that Sundays rest off are cancelled yet again, For some reason the new chief mate is getting a nasty habit of putting the people on the working thread mill on weekends, Ignoring the typical modus operandi here in cape tallin that weekends are off work. Honestly i find it quiet unnecessary that were still out here doing work and all , i mean all the crew are still basically tired from the previous operation of dry docking this ship and haven't recovered yet from the rigors of fatigue. Can't they give us at least a break ? At least a day of rest ??? How can the chief mate be so ignorant about the basic needs of people here ? They should have at least considered that fact an be humane. For a Russian this new chief mate is doing a good job being cruel to his crew, and i don't like it.

As usual we were doing the regular maintenance work of putting back all the equipment on its storage for the whole day.

Late in the afternoon this ship arrived in Ukraine, and dropped off anchors in the anchorage area. The difference was that the type of procedure that the anchors will be dropped by will be via "Gravity" type meaning its not assisted by a winch. O.S. Del Monte is the one who dropped the anchors this time on the starboard since he has a better handling when it comes to gravity type drop rather than me. My only role there was to count the number of shackles that was dropped (which by the way is 7 shackles)

Early at night , O.S. Del Monte knocked to my cabin door and said that new equipment (as in winter equipment) was being issued now and I must go to the smoking room to get them. So what did i get ??? A new pair of winter coveralls that looks more like a gardeners coverall (you know the one being worn by "super Mario" mascot in Nintendo), plus an orange coloured ordinary coverall , a winter bonnet and a pair also of winter gloves, not bad eh ???  Some of  my co-workers are joking that i might put it on my luggage when i go home, but i assured then that i have no intention of bringing this equipment along with me. It stays here and i will leave it here (except for the orange coverall, which i plan to modify when i get back home)

JANUARY 20th, 2014 Monday

Still feeling tired and fatigued from yesterdays work , Honestly i still think that yesterday should have been a rest day.

For the moment rumours are still spreading that there's a possibility that , our batch might disembark on turkey, on our way back to be specific after this loading situation in Ukraine . I don't mind at all if that was the case , but the problem is it appears to be just a paranoid delusion of 2nd officer Renan "bastard-O" and there is no substantial proof yet showing any memo regarding on the crew change , whether in the ships email (via MS outlook) nor via paper notice.

Sweet as it may sound that I'd be going home soon enough after this loading operation cargo in Ukraine however relaying on somebody else word is a bad choice here , as i do know very well that people here have no sense  "word of honour" and its a poor choice taking their word for it. I'd hold my judgement yet until i get a paper notice about a crew change - for now i could only dismiss the rumours as a wild bitchy ass paranoid delusion of 2nd officer "bastard-O".

That asshole is so eager to get home he disregards logic and fact , first before he makes statements - we need a written proof of "crew change" list  otherwise "bastard-o" is just horse shitting people here.

Late at night , even though i wasn't in the mood playing multiplayer "Far Cry2"i decided to accept Chief Cook's invitation to play the game , after all according to him  he said that were going to play in inside our cabins and their just going to bring out the modem somewhere near the alley way on B deck (the deck were all rating cabins are located).

JANUARY 21st, 2014 Tuesday

The whole day work was only spent on scrubbing the deck area with chemical known as "Sea care" on 6th wings and 5 wings deck area. I was holding the water hose and was basically rinsing the washings. By the way i did found out one thing , that a raincoat has more practical uses during winter time, this time i used the raincoat as a form "Thermal insulation" (given that raincoats are made of some form of rubber) and it worked perfectly fine , as in no problems at all.

At dinner time, O.S. Del Monte and Mess man Ferdinand had a nasty conversation which eventually led to Mess man Ferdinand challenging O.S. Del Monte into a brawl. Good thing that O.S. Del Monte isn't going to back down on this one and that stood up against Ferdinand. I applaud what Del Monte did and its about time somebody teaches this mess man a lesson on manners.

DEN OF DESIRES

January 14, 2014 Saturday

Things have been quiet been very busy lately and I didn't got the time to update my journal for quiet sometime now. Ok so were shall I begin first ?

First off this ship arrived on the ship yard at the 4th of January 2014, but didn't exactly went ahead on the shipyard facility. First this ship was berthed nearby on  some sort of "Pre dry dock" facility , This ship stayed there for at least three days to conduct some inspections made by the CSM superintendent on which engine and part will this ship be repaired. Those three days were pretty much busy, as usual there were the usual dock workers who would come in and out to do some maintenance stuff and the like, and even board up their maintenance tool needed for the repairs.

On the first day was pretty much quiet no work at all and I was just basically on the gangway watch and putting up notes on the ISPS logbook on who came in and out onboard this ship. Much to my dismay the work schedule that was given to me (and O.S. Del monte) was the six hour shift (12am to 6am , 12pm to 6pm) , Honestly i find it very unnecessary that my working shift was like that. It should have been on day work like from the rest of the deck crew.

On the Second day there wasn't any action at all that happened but one notable thing i did was i get to have a shore leave and see the surroundings. We went out in a group during shore leave as it is much safety going out in groups rather than going solo here in Bulgaria . From what i recall , there was both oiler aquino and oiler rogel, Fitter Sano and fourth engineer lamsen , and electrician koba on the engine department. The ones that went on shore leave on the deck department are me, Bosun amican, Pump man liscano , me, A.B. Bryan and chief mate Evgeny Bezruchko.

O.S. Del Monte was the one intended to go on shore leave rather than me on that time, However he declined when he found out that bosun amican will be tagging along on this shore leave. The security guard on the nearby post was very lenient and friendly towards visitors and didn't even demanded to see our shore leave papers or our seaman's book . We just simply went ahead and he didn't bother us.  Outside we waited a few minutes and a local cab came in to fetch us. Good thing that the Bulgarian taxi driver was kind enough and can exchange our US dollars for Bulgarian leva (local currency here)

On shore leave the first thing that went on everyone's mind was to visit the local mall and see what stuff are being sold there. We went to Grand Mall to see how it looks like, the mall there's isn't as big as the one's in the Philippines but its sufficient enough to provide entertainment and even the outline of the place and design is somewhat similar to local malls here in the Philippines (theaters and cinema are located on the upper most floors while supermarket and groceries are at the bottom) . What I bought on that place is another external Hard drive (Samsung) and a local brand travelling bag for my luggage. Anyway my main objective by the way why I went on shore leave is to buy a travelling bag to put my extra luggage inside it, Having a travelling to put my extra luggage inside it is much more classy and convenient rather than putting my luggage in a cardboard box (most of the Filipino workers, uses cardboard box to put their luggage inside it, nothing wrong with it - though it has become an iconic habit to most overseas Filipino workers ).

Just to add the food in Bulgaria is cheaper compared to other European countries, the price is somewhat very similar to the prices of food here in the Philippines. Although the food and clothes  are cheap , i could say much the same on the prices of  "electronics"

After the brief shopping spree ,and it was already 10pm at that time (local mall shops here are open until 10 pm, same business hours like in the Philippines) and the shops here are already closing. We were picked up by the cab outside the mall and some of us decided to drop by on the local bar, probably because they were not content on what they saw and wanted more. For the taxi driver , he had something in mind and immediately he suggested some bar nearby.

When we went there, We were greeted by a girl in the entrance. The thing that caught my attention was that this girl is in bikini's, even though the temperature outside the bar is just only 2 degree's Celsius at nighttime. I said to myself "oh boy i could see where this is going" it was very clear that this bar is obviously a sex den and the girl who greeted us in the entrance is no ordinary waitress. As we entered we were lead to a room that has a red lights and in the middle was a pole. Most likely i assume that the room was a strip show and in fact i was correct, a few minutes another girl in bikini's went in the middle of the room and did a pole dancing, the only difference from your ordinary pole dancing is that she was dancing half naked (she took off her bra's) .

For me i didn't mind at all if she was dancing half naked , as long as we keep it that way . Well after her naked strip dance she went to one of our guys (specifically Oiler Aquino) and asked if Aquino could put her up in a private room which obviously an invitation on sex. Oiler Aquino turned down the said offer. The other girls offered the same service to other co-workers of mine but ended on the same results like oiler aquino did. The only one who had sex with those girls was Old bull frog amican.

TIN CASTLE

January 03, 2013 Friday

Moment finally came that this ship had to transit it's way on from turkey Istanbul to Varna Bulgaria. As usual we heaved up anchor early in the morning and waited for the pilot to board the vessel . It was a very short transit lasting only for at least 3 hours and then the pilot disembarked, As for me my work on the whole day was only securing a couple of stuff , mostly stuff inside the deck store locker on the port side.

This is the pictures i took during our transit,

This is me overlooking on the nearby city

a few small boats passing thru

A lot of people might think that being a sailor is a very cool job and that i do get to see places where no typical filipino might ever even see for a life time, But i do remember that i only get to "See it" not touch it or step on this foreign soil and live on it.  Indeed this is a good and wonderful place however being there and living there are two different things. Most tales from the previous sailors i heard when i was a kid couldn't differentiate the story they told about ""being there" from " Seeing it"

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.