I FORGOT TO REMEMBER TO FORGET

Haven't had any decent sleep lately , but it's my fault anyway - I had been hooked up playing PC games , specifically Fallout: New Vegas video game. It's really a good game and what I like about it is that it’s has a nonlinear ending. I could either choose to side with the NCR government , "Caesars legion" , Mr. House faction or an independent Las Vegas state.

Apart from playing that game, I had been playing as well its predecessor game Fallout 3 . This time I had finally figured out on how to install its DLC expansion game , frankly I'm not really that much interested in this game anymore - well at least I'm not playing this as often as before I saw the "canon" ending. 

Anyway I had been hooked upon these games for a while that I forgot what I'm supposed to do on other work related agenda's like adding extra pockets on my coveralls and such, heck I even forgot to go to the gym right now. Maybe if I got some extra time I could come up to finish this priorities.

On the other hand, this "isolationist" experiment is really working wonders, I had been here for almost 3 months now and I could rarely be seen in the crew mess and mingling over the crew. In fact the only thing I get to be seen on the crew mess is during official hours like work and some papers that need to be signed - nothing more. I take pride in being an isolationist , it’s the part of being safe and having a secure environment on board a ship. The trick in being an isolationist is very simple , not that hard to figure out - just prepare a lot of multimedia stuff stored around on your personal computer (or any multimedia device) , and not just store but really hoard a lot of it. I made sure that the stockpile I had here is enough to last for at least 9 to 10 months.

Sure I might get a lot of negative feedback about this but sometimes , I had to weigh which will be the best of my interest. They say a stuff  "No man's an island" but I say I'd rather be a "City State" than mingle with these savages. Don’t get me wrong , I'm not saying that my stay here in Conti Greenland is unpleasant , in fact it contrary and people here are ok and way better than the one's I encountered in Cape Tallin (or Stolt Strength - the worst by the way). I had good working relations here and just happens that I'm test driving these tactics for defensive purposes.

In other news….

A lot of people are asking me on why I haven't "extended" my contract yet, well for a good reason - I HATE SPENDING A LOT OF TIME IN A GILDED CAGE !!! . Sure they maybe a lot of money here if I spend a little time longer but at what price ? Seriously I'm not really meant to spend a lot of time in a closed environment and I find it very suffocating and mentally stressful, if I would find myself trapped here longer than the intended 6 months contract.

A lot of sailors might find what I'm saying to be a bit betraying on the sailing job , but on my personal view of things a person is not really meant to be confined on prolonged periods nor spent his entire life at sea. Sooner or later a person confined under these circumstances will find themselves to be having mental (and social ) problems in the long run. I had only been a sailor for quite some time now and I had seen what it does on people (especially Filipino's) confined in such an extended period and my observations confirmed that a majority of Filipino sailors are "mentally" unstable and lack the so called social skill in coping up on the real world and fail to understand other people around him / her.

From what I had seen on my time, being a sailor is a mentally debilitating  job. Sooner or later Filipino's exposed to these condition in years will eventually succumb to having antisocial personality disorder on one way or the other. Other people are resistant but not totally immune to these stress. I'd be damned if I ended up like these and that's the main reason why as much as possible I stay out of long working contracts - ABSOLUTELY NO CONTRACT EXTENSIONS ! Period and I'm going to stick with that.

In other news related to work

A few days ago , we celebrated O.S. "Ronnie's" birthday - actually there were two birthdays at that time, aside from "Ronnie" , electrician ferdinand curso ybanez was also celebrating his birthday on the same day.

As expected A.B. Marlon Depallo Layos got badly drunk again and started doing his tribal dance . Me like everyone else got a few drinks or so but not enough to make me feel woozy and such , after four bottles - I just stealthy hid and left the crew mess to enjoy a nice nap - and before the nap play "Fallout new vegas" PC game. After two days the drinking session I was awaken up in midnight to be notified that we will be dropping anchor at 1am early in the morning, I was caught off surprise given that  no further details were given yet on this ships arrival at St. Petersburg Russia and I only found it out on the that very same time. To make it more annoying aside from being woken up in the midnight to drop anchor was we get to heave it again after only five hours. Anyway Sleep deprivation is a norm here and I had already accepted that fact, expect as a sailor that you'd get called to work in the middle of the night in short notice - like it or not !

I didn’t had any good sleep after the anchors were dropped and just spent my time waiting on my cabin. After 5 hours, we were out again heaving the anchor and this time headed for berthing and mooring.

During the loading operations in St. Petersburg, the heater was switched on prematurely and as a result , a lot of people are complaining that it's too hot inside. To why it was switched on , I had no idea .. But some say that Captain Gorge Potirniche was the one who ordered and insisted that it should be turned on even though it's not winter yet. Problem with this captain is that he has an anxiety issue which impairs his rational thinking, he's  too exaggerated and too paranoid on even normal routine work. he thinks russia is too damn cold (when in reality is its still summer season here). so he turns on the heater like a blast furnace and ends up a lot of people getting pissed over the temperature.

By the way mooring operation in St. Petersburg was a change of pace, because there were no mooring boats around to assist in the mooring and we had to use a heaving line connected to a messenger line to bring out those heavy mooring wires. Took us a long time in mooring to get it properly moored.

After the loading operations this ship casted off and headed to Netherlands to discharge its Oil cargo.

The rest of the week was just spent doing maintenance work like chipping rust, polishing those rust marks, and putting primer paint on it.

Rest day on Sundays was broken off in the middle of the night as I was notified that anchor will be dropped by around 9pm, at about 10pm to 11pm we finished dropping it off and as usual we dropped it via gravity type. After that we received a notice from the new captain , Ivaylo Dimitrov Kolev that we will be heaving it off at around 3am in the morning and will await the pilot. In other words we only have roughly 5 hours rest before mooring operations begin.

Mooring operations in Netherlands was 3 : 3 : 2 , three heads lines (or stern line in my case) , three breast lines "Loose" ropes and 2 spring lines. Mooring operations was finished 10am in the morning.

During cargo operations while I was in the crew mess eating lunch, I had heard that most people here have submitted their intentions in extending their working contracts , some of the people who submitted their extensions were chief mate Anatoliy bayev, chief engineer revaz chavchanidze and wiper Anthony cruzat evangelista.

Aside from extension contracts , another rumour came in that this ship might be bound to the African country Senegal after the discharging / loading operations  in Netherlands. I had never been into Africa ever before and not exactly sure on how will I react about it probably because I do know very well that place is backward and that people there lack modesty and proper manners, plus on top of that  the first thing that comes out on my mind when I think about Africa is plagues , malaria , AIDS and "god-knows-what-kind-of-epidemic". 

In other news , a memo came in that O.S. "Ronnie" , 2nd Mate "Olan" and A.B. "Ruben" will be disembarking on our next port (rotterdam) since they already had finished their contracts of six months - so it means that we will be receiving in new replacements by the next port , specifically two new O.S. and a second mate. O.S. Joseph will be promoted to A.B. and will be filing in on the vacancy that will be left behind by "Ruben" , so instead of a new A.B. , an O.S. will be sent as a replacement.

Me on the other hand will be transferred back to my previous working schedule , and will be transferred back to forward mooring station, also there's speculation that I might be promoted to O.S. - O.T. rank here which is some sort of quasi A.B. position, technically I'm still an O.S. but the work description will be now similar to a regular A.B. than an O.S. , Well being promoted is fine by me and has its perks but the trade-off is that weekends off will be cancelled PERMANENTLY and they'd just add only a 100 U.S. dollars on my pay for the trouble.

Seriously just between me and this blog, an O.S. - O.T. rank is a big joke and not exactly a job promotion but rather just a change of job description, or on some extent just an additional job burden. 

DRIFTING TO THE BALTIC

An NSB propaganda material

Work in La, Havre France has been finished after a 72 hour long operation. Basically this is just another one of those typical discharge operations made by any commercial oil tanker ship going in out of the port. No tank cleaning operation followed since this is a product tanker ship and not a standalone chemical tanker.

During the discharge operation, the reliever of 2nd engineer Andrejs Aronietis and Captain George Potirniche arrived. I haven't identified their names yet and will be knowing it on the latter once a new crew list.

Also during the discharge operation , it was fortunate that a French businessman (sells retail items) arrived and sold some of his stuff at the crewmess. One of the business he sells was Internet phone cards which I took the opportunity in buying one as I need it to update my computer and download stuff from the internet, plus drop by on my social media website. The cost of the Sim card was about 20 U.S. Dollar , a small expense for the necessity of communication.

As soon as I got the access in the internet, I quickly updated my blog and corrected a few misplaced entries plus uploaded a few pictures.

Aside from the French businessman, 3rd mate Vergel Acebo Abalos and O.S. Joseph Quinal Dinglasa had some *monkey business* selling cigarettes to the jettyman personnel on the shore side. They bagged a couple of few extra Euro's in the process which isn't bad at all given that income here is reduced (Overtime pay issue). Jetty man personnel were so eager on their cigarettes that they keep clamouring for more , and inadvertently bothering me every hour or so by asking if we had anymore cigarettes to sell. I myself got an extra 20 euro's when I gave my Marlboro cigarette to 3rd mate for him to sell. Seriously doing monkey business is really tempting and considering that monetary used here is in euros (which has more value than a U.S. Dollar) , It would mean a lot of extra income for us sailors - of course , the only problem here is that cigarette dealing is done in secret for some reason.

During unmooring, 2nd officer Olan got furious over what he heard on the radio, apparently Captain Portirniche is complaining about a lot carbon dust accumulation on the bridge wing and worst he scolded A.B. Marlon and 2nd officer over the radio,blaming them that they don't have enough time to clean the bridge (enough for everyone to hear).

Few hours later after we got past the bridge locks of La Havre , this ship anchored of just a few miles from land, close enough to get an internet signal for at least a day.

Dropping the anchor via gravity wasn't that hard this time around and I'm now able to control (in some extent) the rate of anchor chains being paid out.

On Monday maintenance work was cancelled for two reasons , either its chief mate's birthday and reduction of workings hours (overtime pay limit) good for me in the sense that I need to take a load off on work and needed a good sleep after the discharge operation.

Late in the afternoon, Captain Portirniche called the mess room and said over the phone that we will be heaving anchor in a few minutes and we should get reason. The call was a mood killer and everyone in the crew mess is having a drink and celebrating chief mate's birthday, it was really sudden and no one expected that this ship would be sailing off this soon.

Going to work drunk  (or had a few drinks) isn't really a good idea , but what the hell can I do ? The announcement came in very late and now I'm stuck going to the forward part of the ship to operate the anchor winch machinery. Fortunately , I'm not the one who operated the machinery and it was O.S. "Ronnie" , I just stayed put and prepared a water hose for anchor washing and lowered the anchor ball.

From what I heard the next destination of this ship will either St. Petersburg Russia or some Russian territory in the middle of Lithuania and Poland (believe it or not Kaliningrad , is a  piece of land that’s Russian - check the map) 

Video of actual rust chipping work , a bit grainy due to bandwidth limitations on internet connection. but then again i hope this give's a people an idea on what sailors do onboard a ship. an old filipino saying called "Tiktik Kalawang"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!!

ALL GEARED UP AND IN FULL EQUIPMENT

NEGATIVE VALUES 101

Yet another Tedious and boring drill, Seriously this is just a big <YAWN> 

Finally it's about damn time, that I saw something wrong here on board this ship, as expected on my theory of "observing people for two months" to check for anything wrong really paid off. My "buffer period" yielded to discovering some people here actually think of me as "inferior" and "lacking intellectually" . It may not be much compared to what I had experienced in Cape Tallin or Stolt Strength, but only proves my theory (and rule) of the "two month buffer period" in checking out the environment for any threats. For now my observations include that people here have so far "benign" ego problems, - I'd continue my observations further to see any more threats.

Anyway aside from proving that theory, on the bigger picture. I could assume that at least two thirds of the entire Filipino sailors have behavioural issues - as in serious anti-social behavioural issues !!! , Main reasons why new comers (and deck cadets in particular) should watch their backs.

On my case, it’s a good thing that thru experience, observation and careful analysis that I had develop anti-personnel tactics. People reading this blog would really know the value of "Never talk to strangers" and protection of being anonymous. The only thing they know about me here is that I came from CSM principal and I had been a sailor for quiet sometime - nothing more, they don’t known my previous work done before being a sailor or my background. I am thankful that I had practiced all the precaution rules on this ship and I'm living comfortably that the bigotry here is checked.

Working relations tend to get sour as time goes by , though I'm not exactly involve here but other people around me. The latest from what I heard was that extra working hours done by the mess man and chief cook , will not be paid at all. Technically although work was done on a normal schedule, the Captain wanted them to write on their "weekly job done form" to be less than the actual hours of work done. To make it simple some working hours will be regarding as somewhat "free" - really bad news for them in the sense that no workforce in the world will definitely agree on working for free, and who the hell would want that ? (except slave labour). Really bizarre on how these soviets handle their work force like that.

In relation to the reduced workforce labour. It seems as well that the deck department is having its own share of reduced hours, and to my surprise during the transit going out in the black sea via Istanbul. The captain said that we should take a day off after anchoring early in the morning, probably on the fact that regular working hours will be shifted temporarily on night time because of some sort of provisioning thing (resupply , as a layman's term put it). At first I wasn’t exactly sure if I heard correct on the radio that the whole day work is off and we will be called back in night time, I confirmed it to my co-worker O.S. Ronnie and said indeed there won't be any work on the daytime temporarily.

Later on the evening on that day, we heaved anchor. I had plans to record the heaving of anchor work but I hesitated and decided that I'd do it maybe next time. Soon after the anchor was heaved, The three of us (me, BOSUN Payopay, and O.S. Ronnie) when on standby to await the pilot while channelling and await as well the coming provisions. Based on what I heard from them - provision boat will be arriving by somewhere midnight or past it.

11pm at that day I was waken up from a quick nap by the phone. I quickly wore my coveralls and headed outside, it was pitch dark and I could see a thing outside. Took me quite a while for my eyes to adjust , Good thing that I could hear the sound of the cargo crane machinery being switched on so I had an idea were I'm headed. At about 30 minutes later, almost everybody from the deck and engine department were awake.

Provision boat came close to midnight , and we quickly carried all the stuff to the  provision chamber as soon as the crates were loaded up on the deck area. It only took us a short time to finish the task.

Over the next two days, we were busy doing the usual maintenance work on board. Myself for now was assigned on the work in the garbage, really smelly job and dirty work but that's my assignment for now on segregation of these materials. Both NSB and CSM is very critical about the garbage related issue - given that CSM has been caught in a number of times throwing garbage at sea, latest I heard from them was the U.S. Coast Guard got them red handed and they paid a huge fine plus got them into some sort of probation up to now.

In other matters

To my surprise and astonishment, Friday's work schedule turned out to be half day and Saturday's to be whole day rest. From what I heard there might be a huge work on Sunday and they moved the rest days to a bit earlier just to compensate for the rest hours in a week.

We had a routine drill this Saturday which was an abandon drill and fire fighting scenario plus some boring familiarization about how to operate an emergency generator , emergency breathing apparatus etc.

During the abandon ship , I came into a close call from being bitched out by captain gorge potirniche (the guy has a nasty habit of blaming other people on his mistakes) . Fortunately Bosun Payopay told me to quickly get the pyrotechnic flares and bring it to the lifeboat station. By the time I got there , the captain was making a check on the equipment on each crew member and turns out it was my turn be checked on the equipment part.

As for the fire drill, I had difficulty attaching the fire hose to the nozzle , attaching the hose to the hydrant was easy but on the nozzle it was a totally bitch and wouldn't connect. As a result my whole time on the fire drill was wasted in trying to attach the nozzle.

After a brief boring discussion on the crew mess after the drills, I hurried got out of the room and to my surprise, mess man Montoya followed me and rudely ranted something about me not putting back the chair I sat at on its proper place plus he mention that whenever I would eat beyond the normal "eating" hours, I would have to wash my own dishes and glasses because they have a thing called a working hours cap. Fine by me if that’s the case, but I don't think it’s a big deal about the chair thing being away only for three feet from its original location, plus do I have to really get to know his working hour limitations ? - it's not my problem if he's too damn lazy to wash the dishes or hates going to work , and I never said anything about him working beyond his working hours - nobody is forcing him to do shit ! . If he hates washing those fucking glasses and dishes beyond his working hours, then don’t wash them , you moron ! - simple as that ! I don’t need lectures ! Especially from self-proclaimed righteous people.  I had been doing mess man task a few years back and I know what kind of shit he's talking about and during my time I didn't complain because It's my job as a mess man to clean other peoples crap which includes the job description of washing the dishes and putting all the stuff in any mess room back to its proper place !

Fucking bigots !!!!

From now on I'm starting to distance myself away from him as humanly possible , that bastard thinks he can push people around ….. Well he's screwing the wrong guy.

In work….

Filling out this so called work time sheet, is very chore some and to make it more chore some is I have to write all the jobs I had done in detail for whole week. I don't see any point why I had to write done my work in detail as it clearly understood that 90 percent of my work here is on the deck maintenance. Apparently this NSB work form is much more tedious than the one made by CSM, why the hell do I have to write it in full detail ? Would It be a lot easier for me just to write done "Deck Maintenance" or like in a CSM form that I just only put an "X" mark on the specific time I made work.

Probably NSB think's that its crew is cheating on their work, well not as much as what NSB ( Niederelbe Schiffahrtsgesellschaft buxtehude )does on its worker's. Damn fucking Soviets ! Ever since they took charge on running the show on the principal , all they do is haggle on other peoples salary and think that we work for free, shit !!! no workforce labour on this planet would like to work for free ! . It was better before when the western European's were in charge. Damn Soviets they still have their communism attitude of forced labour (people working without getting paid) with them even though communism already fell on its ass more than 20 years ago !

On Monday August 18, 2014

It was expected that this ship will arrive at Barcelona Spain by around 10am in the morning and it will be berthing upon arrival but unexpectedly it turned out to be going to anchor first and we dropped anchor at about 10 am, after the successful dropping of anchor, Me , O.S. "Ronnie" and BOSUN Payopay went to the crew to have the routine coffee break.

Exactly after the coffee, We heard on BOSUN's Radio that captain Potirniche is now ordering us to heave anchor and prepare the pilot ladder on both sides. We immediately went to the forward and heaved the anchor, while I was busy lowering the anchor ball and we got only two shackles left on the chain for the anchor to be recovered. We received another order from the radio that we should stop heaving up anchor and prepare again to drop it at sea.

What drop it off anchor again !! You got to be kidding me ?? (that's what I said to myself) . Apparently from what I heard, Captain Potirniche made a mistake on what he heard on the pilot station and had to wait for another for further notice before going into port.

The following morning..

I was busy segregating trash when I heard it over the radio that the anchor will heaved soon, O.S. "Ronnie" came to the trash compartment where I was working and said that we better hurry up.

August 16, 2014….

In a few days' time will be my birthday, that means I'd be adding another year again on my age - it's nothing special I'd be just a bit older than the previous year.

For the moment, things are not really looking good to me financially. I just recently received my payroll form and it turns out that this will be the second month that I had negative values on my salary. To be specific I now had a - 101.49 USD salary. I'm not absolutely happy about this and what on earth is Columbia Ship Management doing on its payroll system ?!!! Last month I was charged for the so called "Overpaid" salary of 300 U.S.D. , so which pretty much explains why I had a -52.53 $ , Now not only that I won't receive a salary for this month ( my salary by the way per month is $ 1262 ) but I'd have to payback 101.49 US dollars to CSM , - WHAT THE HELL !!!! What the fuck is going on with this company ?!! , I'm not very good at numbers but I'm not definitely stupid on what the hell is going in my salary, and I seriously think that CSM is pretty much ripping me off.

If they keep doing this fiasco next month , then expect that I'd be leaving Career  Ship Management for good. What kind of company doesn’t keep accurate tabs   on their employee's huh ? Surely if they keep doing this up expect that retention on their sailor's will be very poor.

Anyway I had already scheduled to be leaving this company by around 2016, the time where all my documents will be fully updated in preparation for the totally renewal of Seminar training of all sailors by 2017. I think I can still shift to another company given that my U.S. visa will still be valid at around April 18, 2018 which that will put me in plenty of time regardless of what rank I'd be and whether or not I got a license. As long as I got a U.S. Visa valid and updated transition from another company won't be that hard.

(Rule of the thumb in labour workforce is that if a company has issues with salary payoff, it would be best advice to leave the job and find another company that doesn't have issues with the payroll. This rule applies to both overseas or local employment , either seabased or landbased)

In other matters…

Last August 26, This ship has finally arrived in la Havre France, and we had to drop anchor. It was thought earlier that this ship might go "berthing upon" arrival scenario but eventually two days before this ship arrived it was announced by Second mate Olan that this ship will be anchoring first. Good for us that this will be the case and were getting some slack over the hard work around here.

During the anchor drop via gravity, I could say that my performance in dropping the anchor gets better and better (on my personal perception) I could now at least "control" the rate of the chain paid out when it drops. Now the only thing I have to get used to is how to quickly put on the brakes without scaring BOSUN Payopay and O.S. "Ronnie" .

The rest of the week was doing the typical routine maintenance such as painting , chipping and polishing and removing rust from the hull, typical sailor stuff of work if were in the middle of nowhere. The only thing different for now is that I had some sort of injury on my point finger, can't exactly say what kind of injury it is but my joints on the point finger is badly inflamed and I can't hardly bend my finger at all, whenever I bend my finger it hurts like hell. Guess I had to use now my middle finger temporarily whenever I'm clicking something on the mouse. This has been going on for more than a week now.  

TRIDENT HOPE

Upon opening up my email on the ship's computer , I finally read some news about what's happening back home at the house. It's a good thing that the email here works and as an extra feature it even receives pictures. A few days ago I was puzzled on why
my emails were not sent and a message appearing "MB limit exceeded" , making me think earlier that this email service isn't free.
 
Anyway the email sent by my sister contains a mostly bad news, and a picture of her dogs. She informs me that Bhut Bhut (my Siamese cat) can be set loose outside the cage from time to time without supervision, and for some reason my cat doesn't go
outside the fence and just roams around the house front yard. Personally I don't think it's a bright idea having my pet run around without any supervision, My neighbourhood isn't exactly the safe one and cat friendly, and on top of that there's a cat
killer person here running loose. I had already learned from time and time again that some of my previous cats were killed in cold bold by this anonymous cat killer.
 
Frankly the letter my sister's email makes me think about our mom's near future situation, it's very bleak and grim and I'm not going to discuss this problem openly.
 
In other news ..
 
Over the past 3 days, this ship was here in Ukraine, I was doing the usual deck maintenance job orders like greasing the whole mooring wires from forward to aft. On Thursday , this ship resumed its business and pulled out of anchor to a certain area
and waited for the Ukrainian port authorities. I waited for the whole night in my cabin for them to arrive (my work there would apparently be rigging the gangway ladder)but no call was made. At midnight much to my annoyance Captain Gorge Portirniche,
woke everyone in this ship announcing that the Ukrainian officials have arrived and we must go to the CCR to get our Seaman's book and show them some sort of immigration card. Unfortunately Ukrainian officials said it was no longer necessary and
instead told us to stay on our cabins for some sort of cabin inspection.
 
Wasn't exactly happy when they said that and I figured that my cabin has so many secrets that , I'm not very comfortable someone taking a peek at it. It was a good thing that when the pest control inspector knocked thru my cabin , she only bothered to
check what's inside the bathroom for a few seconds then finally collected my seaman's book (along with the Immigration card) and went off.
 
After that I waited in my cabin again for a few hours until, it was announced on my call that ship to ship berthing will commence and I had to be in standby on my mooring station. Mooring wasn't difficult and it was all wires that will be used , no
soft ropes whatsoever. Mooring arrangement with the ship MT trident hope is 3:2 (3 stern lines or headlines and 2 spring lines). After the mooring, loading operations didn't started until a day after because of some issue with the Ukrainian surveyors
saying that cargo tanks are unsuitable to load cargo and have to wait for further announcement for the charterer. At about 6 in the morning , about a few cubic metres of cargo were received by this ship in order for residues of its cargo tank cleaned
up. After again another six hours , tank washing didn't proceed any further until It was on my shift again. Apparently from what I heard the pressure of the steam wasn't high enough. Loading of the cargo commenced at during my night time shift (6pm to
12 midnight) and was finished at my morning shift of work (6am till 12 noon, a 12 hour long loading operations).
 
During cargo operations on my night shift last Friday. Me and A.B. Ruben Lawagon Ganub, were busy along with the cargo surveyor collecting cargo samples. Based on what the cargo surveyor told us, after 2 , 3, and 8 minutes after loading cargo samples
would be taken , then next would be every after an hour, three bottle samples will be taken. As a result after the loading operations was finished, we were literary littered with lots of cargo bottle samples, all of these are just for the surveyor and
the ship's own samples.
 
On the afternoon of Saturday. The ship finally casted off and proceeded to an anchorage area where it waited for another day, before heading off to Istanbul again for the transit.
 
 



Received: from MPD at Globe Wireless;
Wed, 20 Aug 2014 23:55 UTC
Message-id: 197460521

BEING OVERPAID

Got a memo this morning, specifically addressed to me at the crew mess. It says that I would have salary deduction of 300 U.S.D. for this month. Apparently based on the memo , it says that I had been overpaid by CSM last January 2014 during my time in
CAPE Tallin and that I need to return the "Overpaid" salary back to them. Obviously I wasn?t happy to hear the news , not on the fact about being overpaid but by the fact that I wasn?t given any knowledge about this issue during my time in CAPE TALLIN and it took CSM / Career Ship management nearly half a year to inform me. I was still working in CAPE TALLIN in January up until my departure on that ship in March 2014 and nobody even bothered to inform me , and to add at I had a whole lot of time (and a bagful of money to pay it back) on that nearly 10 month stay on that ship. Really frustrating (not sure on the exact word here) that it took them a very long time in settling my accounts and I'm already working here on board Conti Greenland when they informed me. They had a whole luxury of time and options to put deduction either on my on-board pay in Cape Tallin or even at my leave pay in back in the Philippines but they never made any efforts to do so. Now as a result of their laziness , I had a negative salary for this month - really bad timing to be bringing this up on the time that I need the money badly for my mom's medical expenses.

In other matters in work.

On the night of August 02, 2014 Saturday, 7pm, this ship has transited Istanbul channelling area. Weather wasn?t really good and had a rain shower for a few hours and had to put on a raincoat. For some reason the view in Istanbul, turkey isn't really
as vibrant as the first time I saw it - maybe on the fact that I had been in and out of this place a lot, well yeah in the sense that I was here last January 2014 and it was pretty cold back then.
?
While in transit, BOSUN PAYOPAY gave me a short briefing on how to operate emergency steering device here in CONTI Greenland. The emergency steering apparatus on this ship is not much different to the one I saw in Cape Tallin, even down to the look of
the device and the feel of how to operate it. It?s a good thing that BOSUN Payopay gave me a quick browse of the said device, because when I got here on this ship last month , there was no familiarization drill given and had to figure things out for
myself. Normally each ship conducts a some sort of familiarization drill on each new crew member, but given that NSB has short contracts - management here never bothers to give's us any hints on how to operate some machinery and we just basically read
what the manual says (manuals here are not exactly the typical "booklet" type and looks more like a placard sticker sticking next to the device). It?s a good thing that this ship is permanently station here in Europe and will not be going (if ever) in
the USA , or else were going to be so screwed by the U.S. coast guard about the safety management practices.
?
Anyway based on the info I got , this ship will be arriving in Kerch, Ukraine by Monday in the afternoon and proceed on an STS loading the following early morning.
?
Due to the reduction of working hours (specifically the overtime work limiting only to less than 103 hours), the management here on this ship has been giving us a lot on rest hours. For example this Saturday instead of the usual work schedule of a
normal maintenance work (8am till 12 noon), it is to my surprise that we were actually given an early rest and moved to 7pm till 12 midnight just to get the working quota of no more than 4 hours in Saturdays for the Istanbul channelling. This was a big
difference during my time hanging out in CSM, which normally aside from working the usual 8am till 12 noon schedule , we will have another extra hours of work on the Istanbul transit - totalling up to 8 working hours, (4 hours regular and another 4
hours of extra overtime pay)
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It is very obvious that NSB is really cutting corners on the cost of their labour workforce in any way they can. Most likely they try to haggle our salaries as much as they can, in the expense of having a "scape goat" such as reduced working hours.
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But come to think of it, CSM on the other hand has normal working hours and have a much stable pay of 120 fix "Overtime" pay. Unfortunately there's too much work being done there that Saturdays and Sundays are also work days. Career Ship Management is
ok but CSM (Columbia Ship Management) is not.
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In other news related to work
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Had received recently a new pair of coveralls from BOSUN Payopay, it?s a standard issue red NSB coverall. I'm amazed on that ship supply to crew are bountiful here on an NSB ship , and in particular the coveralls and other working equipment. Rest
assured that I'd take good care of this equipment ( and grateful to add this to my collection of coveralls I had) .

The standard company issue coverall (the yellow one) and the NSB standard issue coverall (red one)

Received: from MPD at Globe Wireless;
Sat, 16 Aug 2014 11:00 UTC
Message-id: 195546349

FROM GREECE TO UKRAINE

As expected there was a little difficulty in handling ropes and wires on the aft mooring area , to make it worse the weather was about 35 degrees Celsius in Greece.
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After mooring , I did my usual routine on work putting SOPEP equipment, fire fighting Equipment, Etc. and helped out in securing the gangway. On my work starts at 12 pm to 6pm (12midnight till 6 am in the morning) every time this ship is on port,
didn't had any problems for me during my time as the gangway watchman. A.B. Marlon Layos showed me on how to use the UTI, not that I don?t have an exact idea on how to operate that device but I had to relearn and catch up on how to use some devices.
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In my coffee break during gangway watch, I saw a small memo from NSB posted in the crew mess telling that " No overtime beyond 103 hours will be paid without any explanation" . In other words NSB is getting stiff in paying its employee's about the
overtime issue and it?s a big deal to them if an employee exceeds the allotted 103 overtime hours, even entries on the working time sheet are closely being monitored by our chief officer regarding this NSB memo, as a matter of fact they even had us to
write down specifically on what kind of work we are doing during those working hours on our time sheet - as if like they have a feeling that we are cheating on our working. As much as possible they try to tone down the working hours in order to avoid
paying extra for the work.
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Doesn't really matter to me if the overtime working hours will be reduced or not, Its make no difference on my part. I still do the same old working schedule.
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Seriously there is a difference on having a fix and open overtime working schedule and both of them have a pro's and con's. For a fixed (or reduced) overtime pay - the pros are employee's get much rest as possible and free time is always on schedule
and never late, the cons of it is that the salary is less (or sacrificed in the process). For the open overtime, you'd get an extra pay on the work but the con is that its wearisome doing a job of starting 8am to 6pm on ordinary maintenance days
(weekends are cancelled PERMANENTLY) and additional working hours if there's a special circumstances involved like mooring ops or cargo ops. In other words, it?s a lot of stress and no rest.

In other news?
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After 24 hours of operation the ship sailed off and unmoored on noontime. Had no difficulty in doing stuff there. Based on what I heard from second mate olan , this ship will be going to Istanbul turkey for the transit then head off to the black sea
for an STS loading somewhere in Ukraine area. Based also on what I heard it's just only a day's travel and will be arriving the next day.
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Upon arrival at around early in the morning , as in early mooring. I was awaken by BOSUN payopay to rig a pilot ladder for the incoming pilot , It was pitch dark and good thing my helmet was fitted with a PELI headlight and was able to move around and
work with that thing switched on



Received: from MPD at Globe Wireless;
Sun, 03 Aug 2014 18:01 UTC
Message-id: 189718697

NOT ALL IN EUROPE IS COLD

So far so good, after a month I finally figured out how an email station works here , but of course I still leave a benefit of the doubt if this every reaches print on my blog given that I'm not so sure about the email blog address I typed in or the
effectively of the email station computer here onboard.
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To describe the email system here onboard CONTI Greenland, the email here is much more primitive and crude compared to the "mariner mail" CSM uses. The "Globe email" is barely bare bones compared to the usage from my previous ship - but despite its
backwardness , as long as this so called "Globe email" is useful enough to transmit at the very least just plain text , then it will be fine with me.
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I haven't wrote yet the differences from NSB ship to CSM one's, so I guess this is the perfect opportunity to describe the dissimilarities between the two. Aside from having a much bigger salary and less contract time in NSB , the supplies here seemed
to be well maintained compared to the ships fully controlled by CSM. Purified water , Issued laundry and bathing soap, and even down to the food are never a problem.
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I never had the trouble of getting water here, and as a matter of fact there is not a quota of how much water I can drink here. If I ran out of purified water then just simply get a case of water down in the galley store below, no such thing as a so
called ridiculous "water discipline" (which unfortunately bastard sailors like Amican and German Tan Corales and so many more, are fond of doing ) like I experienced in Cape Tallin.
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They say that the working environment in NSB ship have already deteriorated from that its former glory days here , but from my observation there still a big gap between the standards of the two and NSB is way better, the crew here are well taken care
of.
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Speaking of working environment, the crew here seems to be a bit benign and not aggressive so far. I had been observing them for a month now and no such signs of any form of rudeness or "mean spirited" are showing up - at least for now. Perhaps people
here are not that mentally disturbed (or stressed out) given that contracts here are just six months. Way back in Cape Tallin , Most of the sailors there are already showing up signs of mental instability and aggression within just weeks of observing -
This only proves my theory that sailors who have longer ship work contracts are more mentally unstable compared to sailors who have shorter contracts.
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In other matters?
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Never occurred to me that the weather here in Italy would be this hot in summer as a matter of fact I never expected that it would be like this. I always thought that the weather here would be very similar to that in the Netherlands or something close
to that here, but it seems that I'm wrong. According to BOSUN Payopay, temperatures here in July and august are the hottest in this area - the area here is so hot that I might think I'm in the Philippines. Oh well I guess there's nothing I could do
about this and had to adjust, just had to wear little clothes inside my coveralls and bring my water canteen to prevent dehydration.
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Since the arrival in Italy would be less than 24 hours, as a usual daily maintenance work here , we had to do the "Baldeho" kind of work (translated to something like washing the whole deck floor area). I'm already familiar on what to do and prepared
the squeegee , mop , soap (teepol), a few water hoses and a bucket. We started washing in the Bridge deck all the way down to the deck floor area down to main floor deck.



Received: from MPD at Globe Wireless;
Mon, 28 Jul 2014 18:01 UTC
Message-id: 187079844

STATIONED PERMANENTLY

Never had occurred to me that despite having a full set of gear during work , my eye could be injured. Incident happened during unmooring ops in Netherlands. Me and BOSUN PAYOPAY was securing all the mooring ropes for the long travel, after securing
all the equipment on the fore and midship area we got to the aft part and lowered the ropes using the circular hatch at the aft. I was wearing my goggles at that time and peeked at the hole, nothing happened and was very much an ordinary hatch. The
temperatures were during that time of day was warm and for a second just simply adjusted my goggles for better comfort on the warm temperature, While adjusting a sudden gush of air came out of the hatch - along with it a puff of dust. A piece of the
dust caught my left eye and that's when the trouble started. Left eye was having difficult in opening up and can't even focus on an object or even look straight at it. Despite the problem I was able to finish the work.

Soon after the shift, I sought to get the emergency eye wash bottle located at the duty mess hall. The wash was ineffective and the dirt was still my left eye stuck and seriously impairing my vision, Thinking that I would go away , I just slept thru
it. When I woke up , it was still again on my left eye and things got bad during work - so bad that I sought help on Second Mate Olan and see if he could remove the piece of dust that was still on my left eye. 2nd mate Olan couldn't see were the dust
was on my left eye and Fortunately for me O.S. Joseph was around and removed a very small piece of metal using a cotton bud. 2nd mate Olan gave me an antibiotic ointment and taped my left eye with an eye dressing pad after it was removed.

I'm very fortunate (and thankful at the same time) that this accident happened on CONTI Greenland and not on my previous ship Cape TALLIN. Otherwise I would be a very serious problem for me and knowing how dreadful and awful the people are there. In
Cape TALLIN I had to rely on my skills and no one there to look after me - It would be a very costly if I get myself injured there and to make it worst Second Mate Renan Olis Oveda in Cape TALLIN is a cold hearted bastard who would rather see me go
blind than do his work in being a medical officer. The Filipino crew in CAPE TALLIN are simply not sympathetic to injured people (as what happened during A.B. Dondonilla's time)

I'm lucky that the people here are different than the one's in CAPE TALLIN.

July 19, 2014 Saturday.
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Ship is currently headed off to Italy after the loading operations in Amsterdam. Upon further chit chat with A.B. Marlon , I found out that this ship is permanently stationed here in Europe and doesn?t go as far as north west Africa or even a
transatlantic trip to the U.S. . Convenient for me in the sense that airports here in Europe are not that rigid in case I would disembark and make a flight trip back home, luggage searches will not be a problem - bad in the sense that I can't buy
cheaper electronic goods around here, all prices here are unfortunately in euros (monetary here in Europe, has more value than a U.S. Dollar)
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On matters regarding work. Currently were doing the usual maintenance work like chipping rust of this ship these past few days , but on Saturday we had a fire drill as a little change of pace on work. My role in the fire Drill based on my card is that
I get and prepare the fire hose, and "boundary cooling" - not bad for a first timer such as myself in handling something bigger than fire extinguisher, Though I might need a little practice in controlling the fire hose and the nozzle. After the drill
, we immediately set up the table for the upcoming grill party. Me and "Ronnie Macalawa" brought up the grill down from the steering gear room, while the BOSUN Payopay and O.S. "Joseph Dinglasa" arranged the tables and the tarpaulin roof (as a
makeshift cover).
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At first the weather seemed to be going bad as it had a few rain showers, but after an hour the sun went out and we immediately started the fire on the grill. After I think another hour or two everything was ready and chief cook Regidor Pineda was in
charge of the grilling. After another hour the rain started pouring agin and we had to immediately put inside the crew mess room all the grilled food (plus the cake), but despite the rain the grill party didn?t stop and continued back in the crew mess
until everybody got drunk , I had a few drinks and had to stop because I'm already starting to feel nauseous ( from sea sickness). I didn?t went out on my cabin until 9pm to do my laundry.
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The following day , Sunday . It was just mostly spent on two things sleeping and playing videogames called sims 3, playing that PC game was really absorbing and no doubt some people on the internet forums and surveys consider it one of the greatest
video games of all time.



Received: from MPD at Globe Wireless;
Mon, 21 Jul 2014 19:23 UTC
Message-id: 184130663

DISTRESS SITUATION BACK HOME

July 04, 2014 Amsterdam Port Netherlands

I shouldn't be writing this and shouldn't be dragging my personal problems on this journal , but how else am I going to record my thoughts ? . These past few days for me have been difficult for me not on my professional life but on my personal one. News have reached me when I called my sister over the phone that our mom is in bad shape soon after I left, I have no details on what exactly happened but it seems that our mom is in the hospital and her condition is getting worse - she is now undergoing dialysis to save her life. Based on what my sister told me , one day Aunt Tess just found mom unconscious when she visited our house and she immediately rushed our mom to the hospital. She contacted my sister on latter and informed her of the situation.

Mom Medical Bill for the moment

When my sister went to the hospital to check mom, she discovered that mom's kidney disease has progress in an advance stage and it is imperative that she undergoes dialysis. Aside from the kidney failure, it was also discovered that mom has other complications related to her diabetes or resulting from kidney failure or combinations of both. A few to mention was her heart condition as well as lungs , doctors tell that they're not exactly sure if our mom's heart can take all the beating from the continued dialysis in the long run plus her lungs is filled with liquid (probably from infection). On mom's kidneys alone the doctors tell that its already in decaying condition, It's not determined on what will be the fate of it.

To simply say it Mom's has already multiple organ failures , and currently now threading on the thin line of life and death. The thing that frustrates me most on this situation is that , I'm very much helpless and couldn't do anything. I'm stuck here on this ship for the next 5 and a half months just helplessly watch on what is happening back home and hear the news on what my sister's efforts are doing. Frustration creeps me up in the sense that I feel powerless over what is happening and I'm worried sick about it.

I guess this is the problems in having a job as a sailor, its either were incredibly brave or incredibly nuts - I should have fully realized that while I'm gone the implications will be that the possibility that everyone and everything I knew and care of will either be gone, dead or buried. An implication that I should have taken very seriously.

Emotions and memories of my mom overflow my head right now, remembering a few days before I left that she was crying on her bed , saying to herself what will happen to her if we ran out of money ? What will be her fate ? Really breaks my heart seeing her like that. She was badly ill on her bed and crying , she really wanted to go to the hospital at that time but due to financial difficulties at that time it held her from doing so. She felt that if we used the money, dad won't be have the operation for his bones. Really breaks my heart seeing my mom on that kind of state.

Now things have gotten far worse - way worse than it was since mom's kidney disease was found out two years ago on November 2012 , Things will never going to be the same for my mom. Dialysis is never a cure just only a remedy to buy more time and stall the inevitable.

July 14, 2014 Monday.

It's been days and I haven't heard of any news on what is happening back home to my mom. It was a big mistake for me to use all my credits in the internet connection for a long distance call, Now I'm stuck here blind and helpless not knowing what's going on in the house - Another big mistake I made is that I shouldn't have bought a new USB modem dongle if I knew earlier that my old Smart Bro USB modem dongle wp cards for the internet (as well as International calls). Big fatal mistakes that I had to live with for the rest of my life. My mind as of the moment is floating ,orks here as well. I could have saved 80 USD money to buy at least top u thinking and wishing that somehow someway my sister has manage to keep our mom safe and alive, and that mom has made it out on the hospital. I had to get any form of communication whenever, where ever I can .

My Personal life really affects me, I'm a family oriented guy and seeing an immediate relative in trouble really bothers me a lot. I still continue my usual daily work but things appear to me to be very empty and void , couldn't think straight and sleep as well.

Last known Picture of my mom take this 1st week july 2014, as pictured she is all strapped down in a dialysis machine (left side) and incision on her neck is shown on where the tubing is connected