ONE MONTH TO GO

As the name of my entry says , I had literary one month to go before my contract gets finish and possibly go back in home. I had already given a though on what will I do back home and most likely I'd be spending a lot of my time (and money) on taking another sets of seminar trainings to replace the soon to be obsolete ones (damn STCW Manila Convention 2010). It’s a shame that I didn't bagged a lot of money on this trip given about my predicament back home, but nevertheless I don’t regret my actions and in fact it was necessary.

Given a thought, I'd be making a few changes on my luggage arrangement specifically on my back pack. I had to make changes given on the rumours I heard going about lost luggage in airports on joining crew and that Career Ship management doesn’t even bother returning or sending it back to the crew on-board the ship.

Basically the changes will be the my back pack luggage will now include 4 pcs of T-Shirt, 4pcs of underwear, 1 pc of shorts, 2 pairs of socks, 1 sewing kit, 2 pcs empty cardboard box cutter case, 1 pc facemask, 1 pcs goggles and 1 set of headlight equipment. Aside from all the electronic equipment , documents and other miscellaneous items. Overall my hand carried luggage on the plane will be a bit heavier.

Main reason I considered why I had to distribute the luggage is in the event of an emergency that my two check-in luggage gets lost on the airport, I can still continue to function normally on work even with the most minimum of supplies.

On other news

On the night of November 13, 2014. 3rd mate Vergel Abalos formally gave the keys of the bond store to me and said that I am now the one to be in charge of the bond store after O.S. Ronnie Macalawa disembarks. He told me the basic rules and the ins and outs of the bond store handling, basic stuff really.

I was feeling lax that I could handle myself in the bond store, Unfortunately a day later things turned out for the worst and I was so confused on which of the two should I take (bond store or promotion) and ended up being an O.S. - O.T. (promotion for short). Honestly I'm not happy on how things turned out and It's my fault that I got myself on this situation and I should have damn turned down that fucking promotion - now I'm scared shitless on the consequences of my mistake, I should have insisted about being on the bond store rather than being an A.B. . Now I had put myself in harm's way and I'm now responsible in driving the ship and doing more work on cargo operations than ever before. I should have been a simple O.S. doing nothing more than guard the gangway - least there my life is simple and carefree, as long as no one escapes my watch on the gangway , I won't have any problems.

Seriously , I could kick myself on why I had to accept that promotion. Now looks like that I'm in very deep trouble. Why oh why this had to happen ?!!! I'm in totally in crisis mode :((

In other matters…

Messman Montoya approached me during lunchtime regarding about giving an early notice to the company about our soon to be finished contract. He said that  we have to give the notice to the company mid-week on November and would request that our relievers arrive at 2nd week of December, The part that I didn’t like about messman montoya's idea  was that we had to omit BOSUN Payopay, which basically means leaving him behind. Honestly I don’t see any good reason why we should leave him behind or even omit his name on the request besides I don’t have any quarrel with the BOSUN to do such a thing. BOSUN Payopay is an ok guy compared to my previous BOSUN in Cape Tallin,( I had observed BOSUN Payopay for Three months and come to the conclusion that he's an ok guy)

Messman Montoya reasoned that it's necessary that he should be omitted given that our Bulgarian captain wants BOSUN Payopay to hang around a little bit longer (at least till January until captain disembarks). In any case I'm not going to stop Messman Montoya about his idea though I admit not agreeing on about leaving BOSUN around - I just find it in some ways disrespectful. If the situation was different and if the BOSUN was the infamous Zacarias Amican , then I'd let Montoya do as what he damn pleases and even be the first one to urge to leave the BOSUN behind - it will definitely be "EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF" for sure.

PARADIGM OF A MARINER

As soon as cargo operations began, I still have a few hours left to prepare for my shift. I immediately went to the showers to change my dirty grease stained coveralls, and as soon as finished I heard the ship's PA system announcing that a random drug and alcohol test will be conducted by the shore doctors and everyone must proceed immediately to the ships hospital room. Unfortunately for me I already took a piss on the toilet and there's nothing left inside my bladder for the moment. Good thing the test wasn't a rush-rush and I drank a litre of water and waited about an hour and a half before going to the hospital room. Random drug and alcohol test isn't really a big deal, just piss on the small container (60ml to be specific), sign a piece of paper and voila.

When I took over and went to my work shift as gangway watchman , I was seriously feeling the effect of fatigue and sleep deprivation. Had difficult time of concentrating nor even staying upright and awake, and had to endure the 6 hour long shift before crashing to my bed. During my shift , I had a chit chat with O.S. Dinglasa and found out that there's no internet provider here and the agent doesn’t sell internet sim card or even top up cards - well I guess this port sucks was hoping that I'd update my blog here or check my face book and do all sorts of social media stuff, Anyway turns out that this is just another boring port.

At about 9am in the morning I was awaken by the sound of my alarm clock and quickly went to my laptop and write. At about 12 noon I was back again on my working shift and was just basically guarding the gangway and was told that the vetting inspector will be visiting this ship to conduct inspection, So I had to keep my eyes peeled and notify them immediately if I see the inspector. As what was agreed I had to wear a different coveralls and gear , one that is totally unaltered (No headlights, No belts, No Zippers and extra pockets on coveralls) to avoid any misunderstandings on our incredibly skittish Soviets ship officers and very long discussions with the vetting inspector just in case. I keep my word anyway , after all its just only for a day.

It was about 5pm when the vetting inspector arrived, not much to tell about him. Just some friendly old guy with a helmet. After my shift I went back to my cabin and didn’t sleep and just killed the time playing videogames on my laptop (fallout 3). At about midnight I went back in again for my shift and everything was already on the finishing phase and after an hour , Me and A.B. Layos started cleaning the place up. Putting all the SOPEP equipment to its locker and waiting for the ship pilot to arrive. Unfortunately for both me and A.B. Layos , Chiefmate Bayev dumped us a lot of work , ordered us to do this and that - even rig both the pilot ladder and gangway ladder and rig both the fire wires on the forward and aft side of the ship. He dumped us in so much work that he even had me ignore being a gangway watchman and leave my post. Hmpf talk about ISPS compliancy eh !! - worst part of the job was that during that time the rain was quite heavy.

After that , I was put up again on another task, this time to put on the canvas of the rescue boat and I had to literary crawl done on the wet floor to get those damn lashing. So after securing the rescue my coveralls was damn wet and to make it bad , unmooring will start within 10 minutes.

Unmooring wasn't really that bad , even if I'm  doing my job with a totally wet coveralls and being covered yet again on wire grease - just part of the work I guess on always being in a difficult situation.

After Unmooring a small boat came alone and delivered two long steel pipes , and we had to haul them off using a provision crane. Apparently these pipes will be installed in the latter on the engine room in preparation for some modifications that will be made. (from what I heard this ship will switching to diesel kind of some sort of fuel and will be always in low sulphur thing)

By Sunday I just spent my whole day sleeping, I was so worn out that I didn’t even bother to get up on my bed, the only thing that got me out if was only during meal time and after that I directly went straight ahead to sleep.

The following day, I was back on regular maintenance work of chipping , polishing and painting primer paint - this time it was the winch machine on the forward area that were doing maintenance work. At night time this ship , stopped going adrift and went on its next destination - Sardinia , an island west of italy

In the next few days….

Basically after the discharge port of Algeciras, we were back again doing the usual maintenance work. This time the usual chipping, polishing and painting stuff on the forward winches - pretty basic stuff and that’s the reason why O.S. and deck personnel are here for anyway.

On November 11, 2014. All of us deck people are surprised to see that, all of the accommodation doors have been set to closed intentionally, we took a look on the doors and all of them have the hooks removed. All of us are figuring it out what's the motive behind these sudden shutting of doors, Usually we only shut accommodation door's when were just expecting a vetting inspector and such. Now that the vetting inspection is now over , we don't see any reason why these door had to be shut.

In other news…

Since its now confirmed that O.S. Ronnie Macalawa, A.B. Ruben Ganub and 3rd Mate Vergel Abalos will be disembarking (finished contract) on next port and O.S. Joseph Dinglasa will be moving up on the promotion ladder as A.B. , a big question now stands who will replace the position left behind Joseph as O.S. - O.T. ? Certainly the next most logical to the line is me since im the next senior O.S. around for the time being , however I'm not exactly sure if I could perform well as an O.S. - O.T. , Well I could certainly drive a ship or even do the usual deck watch keeping thing , but the problem is I haven't been exactly been on the bridge as main stream for some time now. Last I had been on the bridge for watch keeping was way back 2011 and it's been almost five long years now - My skills probably have gone "rusty" on the time lapse and will definitely need some refreshing (which I failed to do so). I still have up to now a lot of self-doubt about myself on staying in the bridge as part of my work, somehow I'm not comfortable and uneasy that I'm the one to be selected as O.S.- O.T. , Honestly I'm very much content in being an O.S. (like the name of the position implies "ordinary seaman")   rather than being an O.S. - O.T. , I think things will be more complicated for me If I'd be that.

Anyway being an O.S. - O.T. is still being decided and Chief Officer Bayev will have the final say on it and will find out on the latter. Aside from the "promotion" , I had already accepted that I'd be taking over Ronnie's work on the bond store thing (thought relunctant) , I had no problem taking care of it given that I'd had already have experience in handling (and delivering) the bond store items way before and on my previous ship. The general rule on that is that make sure that nothing is missing and everything is in check and accountable.

I think handling the bond store will be much easier, and I needed the extra 100 euro's per month anyway in buying extra presents for the folks back home.

In other matters ….

So much for the unloading operation of this ship at Algeciras Spain, only took one and a half day in finishing all the work and not enough time to go on shore leave and see the surroundings. Speaking of which I had been holed up here for 5 months now and haven't even set foot on any land that this ship has visited, I'm just simply trapped here on this rust bucket till I finish my contract.

Sometimes I wonder if the management here has some issues regarding shore leave - I mean come on !! , way back when I was still in a chemical tanker. I went on shore leave a lot of times even if the schedule was a bit tight .Now I'm in a product tanker (more like an oil tanker) which has a much lighter workload, the shore leave here 

I guess a lot of people might think that being a sailor meant to visit other countries like a tourist or so, but in reality sailors are nothing more than a construction workers stuck in a floating rust bucket in the middle of nowhere - and totally stuck. The time I'm living at is very awful for a Filipino sailor (the least to say) , This isn't you're grandfathers happy-time-in-la-la-land when he was a sailor, things have changed a lot since then and for the worst.

Anyway there's so much propaganda and bullshit going on that it clouds the harsh reality of this job. Hard to believe that a lot kids are still being fed with that kind of bullshit that being a sailor is like saving the human race ! Ugh !!! 

TROUBLE AT THE HOMEFRONT

News has just arrived via ship's email. More personal problems as what my sister emailed to me. To keep being professional, (in some extent too professional) I will not discuss minute details. I can only write that me and my sister are in a lot of financial trouble lately - not directly but indirectly, Bills, debts and financial matters have been piling up in huge overwhelming waves just to keep mom alive and maintain her dialysis treatment. Worst part is that my sister is taking all the "wrath and all of its fury" on the situation, I have no exact news on how is she holding up nor how bad it is - but from the looks of it and analysing the situation, my conclusion is - REALLY OVERWHELMINGLY BAD.

It is my estimated that by the time I finish my contract, I would be arriving in the middle of a shit storm back home and I'd be having my hands full clearing it. Honestly I'm already starting to picture myself in a bad situation by the time I finish my working contract here on conti Greenland and got back in the Philippines. For now I feel totally helpless and could only read the house news via ships email and hear my sister take all the beating on the financial trouble. Regardless of the situation , My sister has my full support , whether it be financial or other related matters.

In other news …

On October 25th, Captain kolev called in a short meeting at the bridge - deck department personnel only. The meeting was all about what happened on the recent flag state inspection on St. Petersburg Russia, obviously he wasn't happy that the port authorities found some inconsistencies on the visitors log. The first three entries to be specific on which it was only written that immigration officials came in and their names were never written down.

Captain Kolev and chief mate Bayev insist that under all circumstances , that visitors logbook must be properly identified and all people coming on-board should be inspected and identified. May sound very easy for them , but in reality its more complicated than what these soviets think. In anyway gangway watchman has no "police power" to hold anyone on the gangway entrance , especially if it's a Russian immigration official that has a 45 calibre hand gun placed on the holster - in actual practice , you'd just let them thru and write down their name in the visitors log. It may all sound proper to question and hold people but let us remember that this was Russia and Russian's aren't the nicest of things compared to the Dutch , or even the western Europeans and hate being put hold on one place, chances are they might point the gun at us , Captain Kolev should remember that it will be the gangway watchman that will be shot and not them . Probably there's a rumour going on that the reason why the port state authorities was very critical about this was because the captain never even bothered to be generous nor offer any drinks (for short bribe's) to the authorities.

Going back, it was a good thing that the time it was written down it wasn't on my work shift or else , I would get all the flak.

Following day.

There was a fire drill , the drill was very typical and we didn’t do any actual drill at all because of the bad weather and freezing temperature. Basically it was just simply a standard lecture about a SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus) equipment and testing it out. Before the lecture started chiefmate bayev noticed the appearance of my helmet , apparently questioning the safeness of my headlight and ask if I could show some sort of "safety certificate" of such on the equipment. Of course I said yes and even added that I have a manual over this equipment, and its certified to be used in tanker ships as what it says on the manual and on the pamphlets in sunny euro brochure. Anyway to avoid any more chatter, it was agreed on the conversation that I won't wear this gear when the Vetting inspector is around as a precaution.

Soon after the brief conversation after the drill, few of my co-workers started telling me that I shouldn't use the damn thing at all (whether deck maintenance or at port). Despite what some of my co-workers tell me about it, I'm not fazed at all on using it, and if must I'm willing to put the extra effort in arguing on the use of my "PELI 2640 ATEX Category 3 certified " headlight if needed.

For the ignoramus co-workers of mine, I specially selected that headlight for use because of the characteristics being an ATEX Category 3 Certified equipment and not on the fact that it looks good around on my safety helmet.

The incident is caught also in video as evidence, (it was recorded on the last part and good thing I was wearing a "Spy Camera" during that incident)

Problem with us sailors is that , most people often (and if not always) get jealous on other peoples equipment especially if I'm wearing unconventional gear. Stuff that is not commonly used by a typical average Filipino Juan, like I said and posted several times on my blog the equipment I used does not in any way contradict the "safety working" guidelines . The only problem here is the nasty nature called "Crab mentality" (or simply say human jealousy).  I find it rather ridiculous that they had been around for decades and yet they haven't developed any tools or equipment to make their working conditions better. I find it surprising that despite being in the 21st century , a Filipino sailor hasn’t evolved anything beyond a simple chipping hammer , coveralls and a helmet , hmpf ! Most probably us Filipino's are busy using our grey matter in creating rumours and  defuncting other people works rather than inventing something. Filipino's are genius in respect but not in the way of inventing something like scientist or engineers do.

Years back I remember that most Filipino sailors told me that I can't use any ordinary flashlight around for work and it has to be "instrically safe", if it's going to be a privately owned flash light it should be the expensive "PELI" brand nothing more. Years fast forward - now that I got a "PELI" brand and took the efforts of acquiring it despite the cost , STILL people around me tell that's I shouldn't use the  fucking thing at all. GOD DAMN MOTHER LOVING COMMIE !!! What the fuck is the problem with Filipino's eh ???!!! Clearly and without mistake it only shows that Filipino human nature of jealousy. If their own kind gets a better stuff , they get angry. 

After a few days …….

Couple of days have passed since my last entry and the ships current position is now drifting somewhere in the middle of Gibraltar waiting for company orders on which country will it discharge its cargo. In the meantime, deck maintenance personnel (myself concluded) are doing the usual routine work of rust chipping, polishing , Painting primer paint to the area.

Speaking of maintenance related issue , I haven't discussed yet that even a simple maintenance related work could be so complicated here. On the big fact that there is only one functional (and working) jet chisel and Cup brush on the whole entire ship. I had no idea why the management doesn’t even bother buying an extra or two on maintenance tools at all, personally I think the management can buy those tools if needed be , but the problem here is that ships officers here namely the soviet chief mate and captain are more interested in being a schmoozer in the company and isn't exactly interested of even mentioning to the company the needed tools and spare parts. Probably they figure that if they can push the workers here "beyond the limit" of working with just the most primitive tools,  they'd get some extra nice flowery perfume on their name in the company.

As a result , were stuck here using the old and un reliable chipping hammer to get the rust off by banging it. Really primitive way of working for the maintenance. Anyway what do I expect from this soviets eh ? Their more interested in achieving goals and skipping out (and perhaps totally ignore at all )the smaller important details - the ones that really matter.

In other news

Officially my stay and expiration of my contract is just only around almost less than two months from now. If my memory serves me correct my working contract will expire by December 27th this year but being home before Christmas or perhaps before new year would be skeptical due to CSM / Careers company policy. Anyway I don’t really mind at all to be hanging out here for a little time longer maybe I could make something beneficial out of it after all my finances are really bone dry for the moment.

On November 7 2014, this ship has finally berthed to Algeciras and in such short notice. It’s a good thing that bringing up all the mooring ropes (loose rope) are much easier on storage rather than being stored. It took us only as little as an hour in pulling all the eight mooring ropes in standby (both forward and aft) and at around 3pm we've finished all the equipment that will be needed. As payback for the aft mooring team about what happened last time (I mentioned on entry "Snow Flakes" )It was decided that we leave the canvass cover on the aft winches and let the AFT mooring crew remove it themselves.

At about 6:30PM , despite the initial information that berthing will be at 10pm or to the least expected that any activity regarding berthing will begin at about at least 8pm, I was surprised that I was  "ringed" on my cabin phone that early. Upon answering I was told that we have to heave anchor in a few minutes. I heard that after heaving the anchor , our lovely pathetic soviet captain was too anxious to start the work - much to my annoyance. Damn Bulgarians !!!

Had a minor problem on the middle part of mooring operations in the aft, a slight confusion to be specific about connecting those lines. Apparently O.S. Dinglasa keeps saying that there was no need for me to connect the other heaving to the other as the length was sufficient enough to reach the other side (mooring wharf) , while the 2nd mate, pump man Sepulveda and A.B Ganub kept saying that I should now connect the lines while there still time. Adding more annoyance was that these people can't make their minds up and keep saying contradicting orders like for example I should tie the other end to the monkey piece end , while the other says I should connect it on the other end - resulting to more confusion. Damn fuckers can't really make up their mind. To my annoyance after that , I left O.S. Dinglasa and others on how to figure things out on the heaving line and grabbed my metal hook and just stayed position near the winch along with fitter Chaingan.

On the forward mooring team has its own share of problem during that time as well, From what I heard over the radio. Our Bulgarian Captain keeps pushing around the crew there and saying that there too slow in mooring , enough to displease the folks there. Like I said the problem with these people is that they're saying things that are "easier said than done". Bulgarian dumbass thinks that mooring wires and rope are "hand-held" equipment but in reality it's so heavy that it takes both hands and at least two persons to drag the damn thing.

Things got really messy to the point that aft mooring crew had arrived and assisted them on the mooring. From my perspective by the time we arrived , the breast line (soft ropes, mooring arrangement 3:2:2 ) was the ropes that were being moored. We assisted them and finished the job.

When me and A.B. Layos got back on the locker room to change coveralls , I briefly went outside to get my gloves and saw 2nd engineer Maksym Plokhotnichenko and asked me on what happened on the forward mooring and what took them so long, I replied plainly without giving any details that there some problems encountered. After hearing that "Maksym" said a nasty remark saying that these "crew" are lazy and took them a long time to finish. I never said any word on his remarks and kept quiet but it was clear to me that it was very rude to say things like that , I was there and helped the forward mooring crew finish the job and does he have any idea on what kind of shit storm people are handling there ?? How could he say that ?!

When I went back to the locker room and A.B. layos ask what 2nd engineer Maksym was talking about, I said "you don’t wanna know, You'd just get pissed about it" .

Size of actual mooring rope in comparison with an adult human hand, do they have any idea on how heavy this shit is ??? 

I COULD MAKE YOU CARE

European EMSA audit is causing a lot of stir lately on the Philippine sailing community and some huge changes on how things are run. Apparently from what I heard in the news is that EMSA is really determine to wipe out every Filipino off the face of any European flag (or owned) ship, but come to think of it lets say that indeed Filipino's get kicked out by EMSA ( all the 80,000 plus Filipino sailor  which equals to one third of the entire active Filipino sailor population - TAKE NOTE ACTIVE , DOESN’T INCLUDE THE INACTIVE SAILORS) . Now who do you think will replace the vacuum that we will be leaving behind when that time comes eh ? Europeans ? Hmpf ! For all I know Europeans have a much a higher salary value that putting them on the workforce thread mill bracket would be 21 flavours of stupidity for any "European" shipping company who are budget conscious, plus European sailor's don’t like the idea that their salaries will be haggled by any shipping company and doing manual labour - only us Filipino's are stupid enough to accept those kinds of terms .

Alright so how about other "Asian's" , like say Indian's , Indonesian's or better yet the Chinese were they have a much lower salary bracket and they come on bigger pool of numbers than Filipino's ??? (just check the statistics on their population) hmm well I don't think so. Well there was an incident that happened eons ago were I was still in grade school learning how to write , that Filipino's were actually being phased out by (surprise !!!) by European companies. Heck they were so determined on exterminating us for cheap labour that they even invested in putting up a huge number of "quality" facilities outside in the Philippines just to replace us. Apparently it ended up less than they wanted to, facilities turned out to be in tattered condition in a couple of months and companies just ended up throwing their money to the grand canyon. To make the story short , Filipino's sailors are still around and those installations are not.

Personally I think EMSA is not the kind of thing that could be bargained or reasoned with , They'd still try to put us out of business no matter if we even complied on their terms. So it's basically this decision is already rigged from the start and even if they try to phase us out again , they can't exactly exterminate us all , Filipino sailors are too many and too widespread, that they'd have a very difficult time trying to get rid of us and most probably they'd be begging us back in a couple of years or so.

For Marina (Maritime Industry Authority ) , This agency It Isn't exactly the best solution out there but it is definitely better than dealing with multiple government agencies for maritime related affairs. Unfortunately this will be the only sole heir left on any maritime related needs of sailors in the near future (as of circa 2014), Bad for us Filipino sailors in the sense that their giving a despot too much power and I had serious doubts that their dealings will be fair and just like what the fiasco they did on the COP's document, let alone handling of the professional license of sailors nor handling of the maritime schools in the country. The thing here is this -  things will start to get worse than it is getting better before we even know it. 

Anyway that's not the reason why I'm writing about this. Recently I came up on the list about "the official maritime schools" sanctioned by the education department called "CHED" which has a  connection on the upcoming ban of EMSA , unfortunately when I looked on the list - my school was not included on the 2013 (or 2014) list of qualified schools. The school I graduated from is already been on this business for nearly half a century , and that’s the big problem . Since they had been so long as people could remember  , they started to lax and become complacent , to the point that they never adapted anything or made innovations to their facilities - nor even improve at all. Overtime their system of education rot and got the attention of the education department, If I recall correct CHED sent a warning to them way back in 2006 and basically they just ignored it and it was only up to 2012 when CHED decided that it's about time they get slapped in the head.

Obviously when it got to the public that my school got closed , no one could argue the reasons why it got closed - they knew basically that my school deserved what it got . Last I heard from the school was that it was still in business but only a court order prevents its closure. I'm not exactly sure on how long my school could hold out that long with only a piece of paper as a life line from being shut down PERMANENTLY, eventually I'm not going to be surprise one day if that happens. The school management knew it had it coming ,

Maybe somewhere along the line , my school made a lot of poor decisions along the way, Things that proved to be fatal to them in the long run. I still remember the days during college that my school was heavily investing on propaganda rather than taking care of the welfare of their education system. They always blabber about how the schools founder discovered some islands on the ass end of west Philippines. They were on so much propaganda that I sometimes think that they're building a "cult of personality" on the schools founder. Yeah sure there is no doubt that my schools founder has some achievements during his time but those accomplishments he made during his life has no relation at all on the schools situation. The worst part is that almost all of their instructors are corrupt and ruthless, to the point that a college students lunch money end up being on the pockets of these instructors. Even the descendant of the schools founder was ruthless enough to practice these (which happened to be an instructor as well on this very school).

One of the worst instructors there on my school was this person named Mr. Malacas (translation in English "Mr. Strong"), he was a viciously ruthless sociopath in any way a person can think of - he was pure evil incarnate. Aside from using coercion to force his student in handling over their money, he's infamously known to bring a 45. calibre hand gun in the classroom while literary counting the loot he got in his students and even arrogantly shows it off openly on the teacher's desk and makes threats that if any NBI or police shows up (or any law enforcement) the first person right in front of him will be shot. Hmpf I guess that's how he got his rank of second mate , shooting innocent 15 - 16 year olds teenagers. Aside from that he is also infamously known to harass any student he comes across, doesn’t matter what time or place as long as he was in the mood of harassing people , he do whatever he can think of to cruelly harass people. Now What kind of a fucking teacher is that eh ??Another incident is that apparently he coerced a female student in another college department to have sex with him , sad to say the student really ended up a local motel with him.

Going back. my school never made any progress in improving their facilities hence as a matter of fact as time goes by , basic facilities and overall look of the school campus deteriorates beyond any passing rate to the point that  even a public elementary school looks even better than my college maritime school at that time.

By the time I'm writing this MARINA will come up soon on the list of "EMSA" qualified maritime to verdict CHED's decision, Unfortunately my school's  fate will finally be decided by that.

Don’t get me wrong I support my alumni school PMI, I came from that place , but I'm not some blind, Flag saluting , founder worshipping do-as-they-will PMI Lover, Their family like a kid brother, but let me tell you what family really means .  You ever had a kid brother ? Some dumbass delinquent younger brother, say, who banged up the pastor's daughter, can't hold a job, and his home away is a jail cell? - that’s what PMI is. All I'm saying is it’s a good wake up call for them that CHED kicked them in the nuts , I just wished that sometimes MARINA should slap the heads of PMI school official instead and tell them on how really a maritime school should be run.

SNOWFLAKES

Ship is currently proceeding eastward on the north sea and just passed by on Denmark. During the transit a two ship pilots came in for the 24 hour long channelling (they boarded sometime near midnight and disembarked at around 1pm the following day), I'm not exactly sure on which direction in Denmark this ship went to but I heard that this ship is passing thru some sort of "short cut" trip . I looked on the geographical map on my installed encyclopaedia program (Encarta Microsoft) and saw that there is indeed some sort of river or canal running all across Denmark. I assume this ship went there.

It’s a good thing that these pilots has a side business in selling sim cards (both internet and call cards) and I was able to buy some of those stuff for personal updating of this blog and as a plus they were polite enough to give me a change for the U.S. dollar bills I had on my wallet. Seriously this Danish pilots are a life saver - I badly needed the internet connection cause I need to check out my sister and see what's mom situation on the hospital. Anyway I'm very happy they're selling these as a side business and not Danish cookies :D

By the way it’s a good thing that Danish people speak clear English and I had no problem with them transacting sim cards. I sure hope that I could get to use fully the internet sim card on the way back to Rotterdam Netherlands

In other news  , temperatures here are pleasant and somewhat a bit chilly cold for Filipino standards. Based on the thermometer I had brought along on the trip, it registers at about 15 degrees Celsius and possibly might get even lower when this ship reaches St. Petersburg Russia.

On October 20th this ship finally reached that place at about 5pm and as early as that I along with O.S. Macalawa and BOSUN Payopay are already station on the forward part of the ship waiting for any orders to drop off the anchor via gravity. Weather temperature already dropped at that time to somewhere between 8 degrees Celsius and according to what I heard from the radio , chief mate Anatoliy Bayev wants us to drain the fire water line and fresh water lines as soon as after we finished anchoring, Evidently to prevent those lines from being blocked by ice. (no water inside means no ice blockage) . To add he said that temperature outside will go as low as negative 1 degrees Celsius at around mid night.

Took us at least 30 minutes to finish and secure the anchor and a couple of more  minutes to drain the water lines.

The following morning , this ship proceeded to berth in the morning at around 10am and the pilot came in at around 7am.  No problem for us given that we were already awake as early as 5am in the morning. During the mooring operation , the weather was getting bad - snowflakes were falling off the sky and the temperatures have already dropped to negative one degree's Celsius , worst part of the work was that this ship has no proper supply of winter gloves nor winter boots and I had to run around on the aft area using only standard gear (which is not suitable for winter). Fortunately for me I'm more resistant to cold weather than a hot climate - but of course that doesn’t necessarily mean I'm immune to it, my hand was so cold that it felt numb as well as my two feet during the mooring work.  I kept in mind as a tip that if a person charges  into work ill equip during winter time , just keep moving to make the blood flow and lessen the chances of my feet and hands from getting frozen. Good thing for me that there was plenty of work around to keep me moving as there are no mooring boats around in St. Petersburg Russia, no mooring boats means that mooring wire had to be moored in the dolphin on the wharf via heaving line (usually throwing the "monkey piece" end to the wharf and the other end of it tied up to the "eye" of the mooring wire)

Before we got to finish the mooring , I had to take from the tug boat some piece of paper which happened to be a receipt for the tug boat services. I recovered that piece of paper using only a heaving line and the tug man eventually tied it around with a piece of string. I immediately took it to the bridge for the captain to sign it up and stamp it then afterwards take it bringing it back to the tugboats the same thing I mentioned earlier.

F.Y.I. --> Tugboats and mooring boats work alongside during mooring operation, function of tugboats is to either push (or pull away) the ship in getting near the berth. While mooring boats role during mooring operation is simply deliver the ships mooring line (or mooring wire in our case) to the dolphin wharfs - nothing more. Aside from that Tugboats are larger than mooring boats. PICTURED HERE ON THIS VIDEO

At the night of October 21st , temperatures have reached an all-time low of negative 4 degrees Celsius . It was so cold that my co-workers here have already donned their winter coveralls , me on the other hand didn’t don the standard NSB issue winter coverall as it was ineffective and do not provide proper insulation against cold - I was better off in a parka since it has a thick layer of foam which is a good advantage in cold weather.

Winter Gloves that was tested, got it from a sports store

Aside from the parka , I had my modified red NSB cover and underneath it two layers of sweat shirts to keep me totally warm in the body area also on my clothing underneath the coverall is two sweat pants and three layers of sock to Keep my feet warm plus a winter boots (standard NSB issue) that I found under my locker.  Did also have an opportunity to test some of my equipment which were winter glove and an attachment device for the Motorola radio walkie talkie used on board.

The test drive on the winter gloves was ok , but for the headset attachment I think it was a failure in testing it out on actual working conditions namely for the fact that the headset was only designed for use by ship officers inside a cozy CCR and not entirely for use by any ship rating. It is totally incompatible and cannot be used by a person with a safety helmet on, plus the volume sound coming from the headset is too weak to be heard if it is just only worn on the neck.

The following day …

This ship was boarded by some sort of flag state authority to conduct some sort of inspection. It was my work shift when both of them arrived and I was at the gangway watch, of course I did the usual procedure of checking peoples identification cards with pictures before letting them in and escorting them to the CCR.

snow on the stairways , temperatures are falling rapidly

Everything seemed fine until half an hour later, I was called in over by the radio by Chief mate Anatoliy Bayev and was asked if I could bring the "Visitor's log" on the gangway to the Ship captains office (just right beside CCR). Before I brought it along I was told to check thoroughly the entries made there and if every box options there were ticked, I checked it thoroughly before giving it to the ship masters office. After 5 minutes or so I was told to go back again and get the visitors log , thinking that everything was in order, I went out then inside Chief mate bayez told me that the first four entries of the visitors log didn't had a name written on the visitor's. The chief mate asked me if I was the one on the gangway watch when this was written, I said I wasn’t. (my gangway watch was 6am till 12 noon and 6pm to 12 midnight).

At about sometime on 2pm to 3pm , it was announced that there will be only a single watch and O.S. personnel are on standby and await further announcements for the unmooring ops. The information was relayed to me by O.S. Ronnie Macalawa when I was in the mess room at about 4:42pm.

7:30pm when I was ringed by the phone being informed that the pilot had arrived and we had to assemble on our respective unmooring stations. Unmooring went out without any problems and after that I was told by my co-workers to go to the forward mooring station and assist bosun in putting back the "loose rope" (also called soft rope) back inside the bosun's store. After finishing the said ropes , when we got back we found out that , the rope on the aft part were not secured and they didn’t even bother to put it back - resulting to the fact that the soft ropes got frozen and would be now difficult to put back on the steering gear room .

In other matters,

There's a rumour here going on board going around that captain Ivaylo dimitrov kolev will be taking over the bond store after 3rd mate Vergel Abalos disembarks (finished contract) in Rotterdam on the way back. I'm not exactly sure on what's the overall motive why captain Kolev is so interested will taking over the bond store, but one can easily perceived it to be just plain greed. Apparently several weeks ago Captain Kolev saw the report on how much a bond store earns from crew purchases and probably figure that it’s a lot of money going thru it.

Honestly a ship captain taking over a bond store and cashing out the profits ??? hmm were did I heard that before ? Kind of reminds me of a greedy bastard Filipino ship Captain named Alfredo Pascual of Sea Cap Shipping company. Anyway it only proves one thing, - there is no small or larger amount of money for greedy people.

EYES ON THE PRIZE

Few days after this ship left Senegal, the next location it was headed was in las palmas islands (territory of Spain just west of morocco)to do some bunkering. By the time this ship arrived , the sea was a bit rough and had postponed bunkering operations and waited until early morning when the sea calmed down. the bunkering ship was also having difficulty and was "Shakey" going up and down, to the point that we ask ourselves if bunkering at this time was a bad idea.

I was at the monkey island at that time doing maintenance work in painting the tower with white coloured paint (Along with O.S. Macalawa and Bosun Payopay). At that height I was able to see it very clearly on what is happening on that bunker ship and saw as crystal the rolling and heaving motion. Hopefully bunkering was Finished at noon without any incident even if the sea was rough. This ship resumed going northward to Gibraltar to wait further announcements from the shipping office on when will be the next loading port.

On the next few days that this ship was going northward, we went on the usual deck maintenance work in the "monkey island" area of the ship. Painting white paint all over the area and doing a "full coat" on anything we could see. After that we went busy on the aft part changing the paint of the deck level from orange to red.

On the night of October 14, 2014, Ship got a nasty rolling motion , it was so bad that most of my stuff on my cabin fell off from cabinets and rackets and had to put them on a much safer area around my cabin, I haven't experienced this kind of terrible roll in years (since my time in Bow Ophelia) . Apparently from what I heard on the following morning , it turns out that captain Ivaylo Kolev fiddled with the steering controls which in resulted to make the ship roll badly - the rolling motion was so bad , that I might think that this ship is going to make a "Barrel roll". Anyway the moral lesson to be learned on that is that never fiddle with the Auto-pilot steering when in transit on bay of Biscay - OR ELSE !!! . Well don’t really mind if the captain wants to fiddle the controls once in a while but of all the time and place on this planet he had to pick, why does he had to manipulate the controls while in Biscay huh ?! , He could meddle with the controls inside the Mediterranean - heck I don’t even give a shit if he messes it even if were in the north or south pole , but never interfere with the auto pilot steering on the north of France, the sea area there is fucking terrible and hellishly rough - enough to make everyone sea sick, or sink the ship.  What a total dumb ass !!!

At October 14, 2014. We received word that this ship will be heading northward all the way back to Netherlands Rotterdam which is one of the busiest port in the world and well known popular among the sailing community worldwide. Anyway honestly the only thing that comes up on my mind on Netherlands is "Sunny Euro" store and "Botlek" , and I had come up with the list of items I would buy if this ship would possibly berth in that port ,unfortunately latter in the afternoon plans for going to Rotterdam were cancelled and was replaced instead of going to St. Petersburg Russia by the NSB management , maybe there's a possibility that this ill go to rotterdam on the way back (meaning discharge operation) 

ARE WE THAT DIFFERENT ?

EVENTS HAPPENED on OCTOBER 06 2014

Weather in Senegal is so hot and unbearable, it really makes me wish for a nuclear winter. Seriously temperatures here are so high that I wet my coveralls with water just to keep me cool and comfy. A lot of people here on-board didn’t like my kind of idea and work tactics in a hot environment , they just basically tell stuff that my kind of tactic will get me killed in the long run - honestly I think they're jealous that I think more creative than theirs and they don’t have any medical evidence to support their claims

On early morning of Sunday October 5 , I woke up and saw a note from my co-worker saying that work shift is temporary suspended for a day due to the recent national holiday in Senegal called "id ul adha" (muslim holiday , hell don’t know what exactly means) . So since it’s a national holiday for them , it means any Muslim will literary drop what they're doing on work and go home to god-knows-where to celebrate this holiday.

At 5:45 am My Cabin Phone rang.

"Ring a ding" twice…

That was the queue I was waiting for and knew that work on discharge operations has started. As usual I dressed lightly for adaptation on the hot dry weather in Senegal. When I got there I heard from O.S. Ronnie that discharging operations had already started at about 1am in the morning and total work will be finished at somewhere around 4pm.

During my shift, I gave some of my old shoes to one Senegalese watchman (named Mohammed) and he was very thankful that I had some to spare. By the way the Senegalese Watchman who was barred from entering the accommodation (I mentioned in "Things about Senegal" ) , gave me a small plastic necklace and says thanks you to me for the effort I when through just to give him the coffee. Honestly I didn't expect for him to thank me about it - none at all . Besides I only did what I think is right after what the people here treated him that way, I said to him that I can't keep it but he kept insisted and said that it’s the least he can do after the "humanitarian" treatment he received. I accepted the small plastic and tucked it in on my pocket. I learned that his name was "Ybrahim"

Senegal is obviously a very poor country , definitely poorer and backward than any country I had seen so far - A lot of people here live in poverty and other upper countries (like European's and even Asian's ) brand African people to be nothing more than thieves', raider's and to some extent cannibals, but in spite all the negative things we say to them, they're good people on that place - very good people who just got caught in between poverty. I had nothing against these people and I often wonder why we treat them poorly and very different. Hmpf ! The world isn't perfect anyway and the same thing goes in the Philippine Sailing community , just didn’t expect that my own kind will treat these people that horribly - are we that different from them ?

At around 4pm discharging operations was finished and sooner after , everybody was awaken up and conducted a Stowaway search. This is a normal practice on any ship that has been to Africa and is going to Europe. Apparently people here don’t want any uninvited hitch hikers to be riding along on this ship on our way back.

7pm we started unmooring this ship. After the unmooring , I was put on the task In going to go to the gangway ladder and arrange the ropes there. It didn’t went well on what I did and eventually I was told to go back up and let the A.B. "Ruben" do it. Point taken that I'm not really good at that but the thing that annoys me is what Pumpman Sepulveda said when I got back up.  "you’ve been into a couple of ships and still you don’t know yet on how to arrange that" .

First off I didn’t ask for his comment , Second easy for him to say that because he's not the one who went down there. Problem with Filipino people around here is that they don’t know when to shut up and mind their own business. Fucking people from the south !!! Totally lacking of modesty and courtesy , how very typical !!

The following afternoon , Chief mate anatoliy bayev gave us a job order to clean out all the items used by Senegalese people , including the Suez room. Disgusting as it may sound but these is the reality. People here treat them like some sick people with contagious disease, really disheartening.   

THINGS ABOUT SENEGAL

Weather isn't exactly friendly at Senegal this time of year it and feels very much like summer in the Philippines (to be specific like in the month of April or May) ,  I had been doing all the precautions and Do's and Don'ts in a hot climate such as these. Always bringing my water canteen around with me to keep my hydrated and keep myself cool as much as possible , to the point which I wear my coveralls wet.

Senegal as I describe is pretty much calmer and quieter than it west African neighbours . Locals around here are friendly and mostly do "Small boat" business selling internet sim cards and top up loads, I myself bought an internet sim card load in one of these (unfortunately I didn’t bought a top up load and later found out that they accept Euro's as well). In the extent merchants here on these small boats are fairly honest enough to do business with and there's little need to be watchful over them, they simply just do business in selling and not steal or rip off a helpless sailor.

Two days ago people here on board hesitate a lot on whether we should contact the locals or not , they have doubts that these people might be robber's (or pirate's) of some sort but now things are a bit different and they now sought to contact each small boat that pass through here as much as possible to buy internet sim cards and top up's. Mostly these small boats pass around in the anchorage area every morning or so, to sell stuff and if interested you can contact them. THEY ACCEPT US DOLLARS AND EUROPEAN EURO'S which is very convenient.

For  general public information the communications company here is called "ORANGE" (equivalent to "Smart Communications" in the Philippines). Internet sim cards are sold separately here and you have to buy a top up load in order to use internet, (they don’t come along on the sim card). By the way all the manuals and language here is in French, and internet is charged via bandwidth usage (20MB, 150MB , 500MB, 1GB, 2GB, 3GB)

To Top-up a sim card (or "reload" term in the Philippines)

Press *123* code recharge # (then press call button on your cell phone)

To Check balance

Press #123# (press call button on your cell phone)

To Sign up for internet service

Press #1234# (press call button on your cell phone)

(official website by the company is www.passorange.sn)

Customer service hotline

Press 1441 (press call button on your cell phone)

(Information given by 3rd mate Vergel Acebo Abalos)

As for the news on work

Mooring operations were difficult. Apparently Captain Kolev has poor work decisions and had us bring out mooring ropes in just an hour before we go to berth. As an obvious result , me , O.S. Ronnie Macalawa and BOSUN Payopay are all dead beat tired before even the mooring work to start. To make it worst the weather on that day wasn't pleasant and was terribly hot, it a surprise that I even finished the job without being sick of fever from heat exhaustion and fatigue. (it’s a good thing I drank another cocktail of my meds , to at least lessen chances of being sick).

At berth , people on board here are being so discriminative about African Senegal's . Fellow Filipino's and Europeans alike, in some instances even refuse to let them in inside the crew mess for a cup of coffee and shun them - labelling them as "EBOLA" , I'm not saying that we should fraternize or be "buddy-buddy" with them, what I'm saying is that we could at least treat them humanely after all despite their colour and appearance they are  human beings WITH FEELINGS. Filipino's hate being discriminate but on the way my fellow Filipino's are acting right now , they're showing off a very poor impression.

One instance , is this watchman whom was just simply asking for a cup of coffee. Out of pity I decided to let him follow me at least to the entrance of the accommodation entrance on the portside to give him a cup of coffee . By bad luck it turns out that Messman Montoya saw me and he said "people like them are not allowed here, only the agent and loading master are allowed to enter" , he looked at the poor Senegalese with total disgust, plus he's lecturing me like some sort of self-righteous bastard. I told the Senegalese to go to the suez cabin room outside and wait for me there for the coffee, I went back to Mess man Montoya and asked if there is a specific designated coffee cup for the watch men to drink . He rudely said no and said with disgust that we don’t give them coffee cups , annoyed with so much discrimination against them , I decided to get whatever coffee cup I can find on the coffee area and get coffee for the watchmen by myself . Before I even get to finish the coffee I saw Mess man Montoya , talking to Captain kolev and saying (or more like impressing him) that he foiled an attempt of a nigger to enter the accommodation space then he went back to the galley and told the cook about it as like he was broadcasting the whole wide world that no niggers are allowed on-board.

I feel very sorry for the watchman about the treatment and this kind of behaviour of my own kind , yet I couldn't do anything about it but just simply give him the coffee that he ask. I often wonder why we Filipino's get discriminated most of the time and yet I ask myself that sometimes maybe this is the judgement we get because we discriminated other people about their colour and race.  

The following day I recent bought a top up card from one of the agents. (good thing 3rd mate Vergel Acebo Abalos is a smooth talker and talked his way in convincing the agent to buy the top up loads for us and bring it here)and immediately hooked up my computer for the internet. Here's what I found out on what is happening on the sailing community in the Philippines

• First off , it looks like MARINA will be handling and taking over the show on all maritime related interest of Filipino sailors - as in everything. Aside from issuing seaman's book, and now COP's, Marina will now be absorbing functions in regards to issuance of licenses to sailors . Before it was PRC (Professional regulations commission) who issues this blue plastic license cards by late quarter of 2014.  To summarize MARINA will be expanding its influence(to some extent power) and will be the "head honcho" on all matters about Filipino sailors. Big question now is whether or not this will be another bigger tyrant replacing previous tyrants who govern Filipinos sailor's or their dealings will be fair and just ? - stay tuned !!!. For us ordinary common sailors , it means were not going to visit PRC anytime soon (or none at all) for our license related affairs which includes examinations and such. Another big question is I wonder how much will they charge us for examination fees ?? I hope they're not going to rob  some poor  young helpless deck cadet on those fee's like what they just did on veteran sailors about COP's

• The political party "ANGKLA" seemed to made it out after all on the latest political elections and has managed to get a seat on politics, unfortunately like all other political parties, this sailor themed political party ended up just siphoning government funds for their own personal gain and basically just don’t really give a shit about sailors , heck they even ignored a recent seafarers day parade on luneta - really bad impression on them since thier political party is sailor themed . Hmmm I wonder since PTC company formally backed this political party a few years back or in some ways connected , I asked myself were does the government supplied money for political party goes to ??? (Please  don’t tell me it all went to PTC ) oh well follow the trail of the money - well uhm government money that is :D . Oh yeah by the way from what I heard , this political party is run by cold blooded people from "Elite" maritime probably those PMMA (or MAAP)  sons of bitches - Hmpf !!! no wonder they don’t give a shit on us.

• Now news about us deck cadets (or at least those who feel like deck cadets), there is a recent rumour that implemented by marina that aside from your usual record training book (the blue one that looks like an oversized notepad) , deck cadets have another notepad size booklet to fill up to according to what I heard it another "Journal" or "Diary" of some sort, uhm if that was a case then can they count this blog as well ? maybe I could update it out online every now and then :D - nah I don’t think any MARINA official wouldn't be happy about what I'm writing  . Anyway if being a sailor in the Filipino maritime community is bad , then deck cadets gets the worse treatment of all.

TREASURE HUNT

Even though it gives me comfort to know that Senegalese people are not cannibals, it doesn't necessarily mean that they won't steal our stuff. As a precaution to these scenario, Captain Ivaylo Dimitriv Kolev told us that our job work currently is part hiding good from the bond store to somewhere else. He ordered us to hid the stuff on the bond store to three separate locations. One location was inside the one of the cofferdams in inside the Emergency steering gear, the other is placed inside the "cable trunk" space at the back of the kitchen, and the rest that remains is sealed off on the bond store at the bottom of the galley.

Captains Kolev's intention why he had to conceal most of this stuff is based on the incident on what happened last year where Senegalese authorities ransack almost everything on the ship's supplies. Anyway it's not a big surprise that this always typical happens on any commercial ship going into Africa as authorities there have a bad habit of making each ship their own personal shopping store.

On my end it's not exactly my concern, the only thing I had was that it's another extra work for us hiding all those stuff on the cofferdam and after Africa putting all these merchandise back to the bond store.

Aside from that, some of the folks here think that hiding most of the bond store to  the cofferdams is a bad idea and might even bring trouble and get the attention of port authorities on why the hell is our bond store almost empty. They suspect that port authorities might conduct a quasi-random drug search (or cabin search of some kind) on this ship to bring out the said merchandise. Anyway this won't be exactly known until we arrived in Senegal water territories on September 29th 2014 and docked on a Senegal port.

In the meantime , Captain Kolev conducted a safety meeting last Saturday September 27th and debriefed us on the Do's and Don'ts as well as the "what to do" while were in Africa. Meeting just basically told us some common problems that plague Africa like malaria, stowaways, rude and violent people, and most recently the Ebola outbreak. Right after the safety meeting, barbecue party started. Had a lot of drinks there and had me waking up in the morning with a nasty hangover, Good thing that this Sundays was a rest day and a breather from all the hard work going on around.

Monday, September 29, 2014 …..

This is the day where this ship arrived in Senegal waters, first off weather here isn't really that great and comfortable like in Europe. Climate is much similar to a tropical country with temperatures of 29 degrees Celsius in the morning and roughly about 30 plus something on mid-day. As usual same tactics apply on a tropical hot climate, always keep hydrated (bring water canteen) , dress light or if the heat is unbearable make my coveralls moist (not wet) and stay out of the sun as much as possible, and change to dry clothes often if there's time.

PICTURED HERE ARE ACTUAL HEAVING AND DROPPING ANCHOR OPERATIONS