ALWAYS LIKE THIS

JOURNAL ENTRY : August 15, 2016 Monday

Location : Enroute to Malaysia

 

 

There has been a sudden change of schedule, Originally this ship was supposedly meant to be in the Chinese dry docks for ship repair. Now new news came in that China will be scrubbed out and the new location for ship repairs will be in Singapore.

 

Now here's more of the problem, being in Singapore for ship repairs is a hassle compared to china and the latest news also suggested that the crew here have to enter and clean up black oil residues inside the cargo tanks before dry dock, hinting that the next set of job will be messy and coverall wasting. If so this will be the case then good luck if some of us have enough coveralls left and industrial soap to use for the work,

 

Another thing that I had to worry about is the permanent tropical hot weather in Singapore, Although this is not blazingly hot compare to UAE Fujairah area and the weather here is almost identical to the Philippines (probably around 30 degrees celcius or so on average temperature), it does not mean that its comfortable working outside. Probably I have to bring out my water canteen yet again and use every available "anti-heat" techniques I have at the moment. It's also obviously that I have to wear my safety helmet all the times again because superintendents will be visiting this ship very often from here on till it gets out of Singapore area

 

Anyway its always like this in the whole Asia Pacific area , the weather will be permanently warm till the next ice age, and this is one of the primary reasons why I hate being here in the pacific. If I'm correct the weather will be very warm all the way till japan area up until September to October.

 

Being in Singapore for ship repairs is more problematic than having ship repairs in china, as it meant more work for the crew. We don’t mind the work but the thing is that salaries here will not change and will remain fixed.

 

Some of Co-workers here are hopeful that some sort of "extra" pay will be made available about this "tank cleaning" work, but I don’t want to get they're hope's up on this one because this principal cant compensate us on our "overtime" rate pay in the first place, - if they can't pay us properly on our regular salaries, then let alone the "extra pay" for the tank cleaning work. Seriously I think Norstar will not even bother to pay us at all here, and judging from what I'm looking , they eventually will. Shame that my co-workers here have already been around longer than I had been as a sailor and yet they are dense enough and still don’t know exactly the reality of what's going to happen. Anyway I just keep my mouth shut about this and let them figured it all out,  As for me I'm not enthusiastic nor even optimistic about what will happen on the next few days, the only thing I care about is get the fuck out of here as soon as possible, hopefully at least by December or January .

 

In other news

 

By around late afternoon, I was told by the Chief mate to tell the other five riding crew that they should go to the bridge at 6pm. I have no idea why they are being called by I bet my bottom dollar that it has something to do about their contracts and related to their stay here on this ship.

 

PACIFIC IS STILL FAR AWAY

ENTRY DATE: August 09, 2016 Tuesday

Location : Fujairah anchorage area enroute to the pacific ocean

 

 

Right after unmooring operations , everybody is relived to get the fuck out of Fujairah and unfortunately we won't get out of Fujairah just yet and we still have a bunkering operations that would follow. It was already close to 5am early in the morning when unmooring is finished and obviously were already exhausted from the heat and work of unmooring the ship. We had to drop anchor somewhere near the anchorage area.

 

Soon after securing the pilot ladder and gangway, a small boat arrived and delivered us some engine room supplies. We didn’t even bother tp help out as were already exhausted and let the engine crew do their own business - for us we went back to our cabins and rested until we were called back again in the afternoon.

 

After the bunkering, We went back again and heaved up anchor. This time the anchor winch was having problem heaving up anchor, Possible culprit was that the hydraulic was over heating from the weather (aside from huge amount of leaking) and neither 2nd engineer nor electrician can fix the problem. Can't imagine that this was the first time ever that I had to get a fresh water hose somewhere on the deck to wet the winches and "cool it down" . This is how run down the equipment here on this ship, ( hopefully this won't totally break down for good until I get out of this ship) , Anyway the winches started working again after the "cool down" and the anchor was totally heaved up and the ship started its journey towards the pacific.

 

Whatever the case maybe , I'm glad were already out of the Fujairah area, and the weather will start to cool down by probably as soon as tomorrow.

 

Over the next few days, we were doing the typical stuff of maintenance. On my end I was doing work greasing up mooring wires, together with O.S. Marder, O.S "mark" , O.S. Molina and A.B. Cordova. Apparently we have to wire the whole wires with some black grease, which is kind of messy and in addition doesn’t stick to the wire very well and probably will have to clean later.

 

Aside from that I also put up inside the pump room together with pump man Obina to take out the oily water inside the very bottom of the space, and when I mean oily water as in black oil mixed with water. I also tested a new type of head light equipment while at the pump room, It's much more lighter and maneuverable compared to my traditional head light mounted equipment safety helmet. Testing of the equipment was a success.

 

After the task was done after a few days , I was back doing odd work like the usual chipping and painting of rusted areas, plus cleaning the mess on the mooring wires etc.        

 

During the off days (Sundays), I spent it with just plainly resting and finishing a new set of equipment. One is a new version of my "Side arm" tool holder, and accessories and sewing of the new grey colored coverall I recently found (actually this was a superintendent coverall left behind).

 

Another thing that happened during Sunday is that I ordered stuff on the bond store. (it was a pack of cola). For some reason, Filipino crew here cannot order via salary deduction and had to pay all the stuff we ordered by cash while Myanmar and Indian Ship Officers get away without paying a dime, which is unfair and racist policy (they get charged via pay slip deduction). I'm not exactly sure if this is because they haven't worked out the bank details yet or probably they just don’t give a shit about Filipino's here and are a bunch of racist psycho's . Nevertheless whatever is the case , Filipino's here including me are not happy about this policy and solidifies more the fact that Norstar Ship Management , together with CF Sharp are not equal when it comes to treating the rights of crew here. Be as it may if they're racist ! They can shove off this damn principal up in their asses, and I hope all the crew of this racist principal ditch them out someday.

 

 

LIFE IN FUJIARAH

ENTRY DATE: August 07, 2016 Sunday

Location : Fujirah Oil Tanker Terminal berth 6, UAE

 

Staying in fujirah for a week was difficult, Aside from the temperature scorching temperature of 48 degrees Celsius. I had problems as well on early counter measures in combating the heated environment.

 

Earlier my primary measure in cooling myself was to wet and wore my coveralls, But lately it seems that this countermeasure was not effective in the long run and as a result, skin rashes have been instantly appearing on almost every part of my body and the most rashes I got for now is on my legs. Probably I surmise that prolonged exposure to water and moisture (from my clothes) causes some sort of bacterial skin infection which in turn causes rashes. As a result to this unfortunate side effect from my early tactics, I took in a few antibiotics and stayed away from wetting my coveralls for a while. Despite the setback , it pushed and discovered another counter measure to combat the heat - the "dry method".

 

Basically this new method is more simpler and is generally more acceptable to my crewmates than my first method, however despite its simplicity it too has its limitations - and I shall explain later. First off the "dry method" I had discovered is nothing more than just getting fresh cooler air and this time the source is the pneumatic pipes that is so common on every ships piping system. Basically its just as simple as open a pneumatic socket and put the inside your coverall sleeves and open it then adjust the air pressure , letting the cool air coming out on the pneumatic pipe to circulate throughout inside the coveralls thus cooling the whole entire body without the risk of rashes and infection. Despite the innovation, it has limitations and the most noticeable is the range. Meaning you can only operate within the area near the air pipes, the range can be extended if there's an air hose around but the range is still limited and there's a chance it might get snagged while moving around.

 

The third method revolves around a combination of my first and second method , however I haven't tested it fully and only the first and second method have been tested. Anyway aside from that this ship is also plagued with a problem , the most simple and yet the most important of all - clean drinking water. Apparently this ship's so called water purifier is overworked and cannot support the water needs of 27 crew members, so in the end - most of the time this ship doesn’t churn out fresh drinking water , leading to speculation that if this stay in UAE will be longer , the whole crew will have dehydration problems later on. To complicate matters our lovely Myanmar captain is such a dick and refused to give the crew extra water rations , resulting that most of the crew had to buy supplies on shore and nearby duty free shops. I myself bought some extra supplies to keep myself away from dehydration / starvation problem.

 

Thank god that the visiting indian superintendent , kicked his Myanmar butt earlier when he refused to give us our salaries. Now that we have some money , it would have not been possible at all and basically I could be dealing serious problems aside from the problematic weather here.

 

During the shore leave , I discovered one thing useful. Previously I thought that having a BDO dollar debit card was useless, well turns out that this dollar debit card was not useless at all as earlier I thought it was and in fact CAN BE USED IN STORES THAT ACCEPT VISA / MASTER CARD. To simply put I can use it for shopping , as in cashless transactions. Thank god and I'm relieved that this piece of plastic card is not only a decoration to my wallet and could be used to shop some stuff off on duty free stores.

 

I wonder if I can use this to purchase stuff on the airport ?

 

In any case . I bought some badly needed supplies around for me, Some chocolates , Gatorade (as anti-dehydration) along with shower gel soap and of course the most important of all was internet sim card and top up load. I also bought a few non-essential stuff (actually low priority stuff) to upgrade my existing working equipment, some of these are a new Stanley multi tool pliers, a new "wenger" tumbler, a multi socket electric travel adaptor and a brand new binoculars (which replaces my obsolete CDR-king one).

 

Some of my crew members also bought in essentials like water, Gatorade, shampoo etc. toiletries that are missing here on the ship (and there is no bond store), Given that our pitiful myanmar captain doesn't bother considering crew welfare. Shame that some of my crew members have to result in buying their own necessities out of their own pockets to get things around, NECESSITIES that Norstar ship Principal and its Captain should have provided in the first place and according to MLC .   

 

Anyway this discovery on visa debit usage opens up an opportunity , in a way that it means that I can order stuff not only on shops that have VISA / MASTER CARD - but also order stuff online as well. To make it simple I don’t have to wait for a long time to get imported stuff or wait that any ship I will be assigned with goes to Europe or America, Now I just simply look for the online order like ebay or stuff like that and search the item I want there and presto ! . 

 

In relation to my recent shore leave. Bosun Hector Rodrigo borrowed some cash from me via debit card to buy a computer, well actually half on the actual money and the other half was debit card. Well I don’t mind lending a hand anyway to some of my crewmates and besides they're not a threat at all here, So lending them some cash is no big deal for me - as long as they pay up before I leave this place. Actually I was going to use the money to buy a new tablet office computer for my sister, but it ended up the money being borrowed first before I could actually buy anything at all.

 

As for the work related news

 

Given that this ship is already 20 years old by now, its now surprise that during loading operations a lot of piping systems has been having problems and literary leaking on its connections , one such example is the hydraulic system which one of its pipes had a huge leak near the manifold area. The leak was so huge that small buckets would quickly be filled up with hydraulic oil  and we had to use a full human size SOPEP drum to contain the leak. Aside from the hydraulic leak, Pneumatic pipes have been leaking as well and on one occasion the pneumatic pipe used to heave and slack the gangway on the starboard side burst leaving the gangway stuck for the time being until deck fitter Amiel lorzano fixes the problem.

 

It's amazing that this ship still passes vetting inspection despite being a floating rust bucket. I mean - everything is falling apart here and the only thing keeping it from being totally scrapped is because of its Filipino crew efforts in maintenance (which is not being treated fairly and being discriminated by these Myanmar whore captain). Probably i suspect that the only reason this ship passed is because the vetting inspector was Indian and they somehow bribed it.

 

Anyway lastly during the unmooring operations I made a few mistakes because of the confusion this cocky Indian third mate was yelling at me to do this and that which result in me getting uneasy on work. To add more problems on the matter is that not only is the third mate annoying but Pump man Obina is also making the same bitchy attitude as the third mate, I simply can't focus on my work and concentrate if these cock suckers keep yelling at me. So in other words I had two problems dealing with aside from un mooring operation, . I had been on six ships already and people like that are one of the worst people to work with - they are really pathetic, certainly lacking of civil manners and simply cannot teach or lead people. Their tiny idiotic brains simply think that the whole work is a competition and not cooperation, Anyway as a result I will keep in mind  to stay out of them as far as possible when it comes to mooring / unmooring operations.

 

      

HOT AS HELL

ENTRY DATE : July 29, 2016 Thursday

Location: Fujirah Anchorage area , UAE

 

 

Life is getting difficult here by the day and the latest of my troubles here is one of the most basic things here on planet earth, - WATER, fresh clean water. Since that this ship has already arrived in fujirah UAE, The temperatures here skyrocketed to blow torching proportions as predicted. Hot temperature means crew get to consume more water, Unfortunately availability of water here is scarce to the point that everybody awaits the purifier for water (take not PURIFIER, bottled mineral water is scarce) and that purifier cant supply water to all 27 people here onboard, so it's obviously someone here is bound to be thirsty or dehydrated soon if this continues.

 

Actually the main problem here is the extreme temperature of Fujirah which is very hot. To complicate things air-conditioning systems of this ship is very poor according to oiler Lester Suarez and has something to do about the compressors age and sadly all the areas in this ship have no air-condition as of the moment. Again another first on my sailing career that it’s the first time I encountered a ship that has no decent air-conditioning.

 

Recently my friend Oiler Allan Sta. Maria disembarked all of a suddenly early in the morning. Unexpectedly he received a notice informing him that he will be disembarking within an hour, Not even enough time to say goodbye. Anyway at least he's now relieved of the troubles being here and it will be easier for him if it will be that way, besides who would want to stay here on this cursed ship anyway ? A lot of people here thought that Oiler Allan didn’t had in him to resign on this ship and when he did - it was a slap on their faces. He has a lot of valid reasons why he had to resign and it's no secret or surprise that conditions here in this ship is terrible. Oiler Allan was my friend and the only one whom I talk to without any hypocrisy added , as in total honest talk around here. The rest of the people I talk here are just for plain professional reasons, not the kind of stuff that friends really talk about,. 

 

Later in the morning, It was also a surprise that a safety meeting began on the bridge. Not exactly a "safety meeting" but more of like a grievance meeting. It was discussed there that from the words of another superintendent that some supply would be headed this way , and assured us (for now I hold my judgement on this matter and "to see is to believe"). Another thing that was discussed was the "Cash Advance" matter which didn't end up well, and made our dick head Myanmar captain lash out in front of everyone that he wasn't interested in giving salaries of the crew. So basically what happened there was that all that talk he was saying or two months now about cash advance and shore leave was plain horseshit , It only showed his true colours that he was never interested at all from the start to give our salaries. Thankfully the superintendent despite being indian (or probably because he's indian and indian officers are involve as well) that he decided to scold the Myanmar captain to give "cash advances" (salaries) to the crew.

 

An hour later, We had received an announcement that ship will be berthing in fujirah, immediately this ship heaved up anchor and prepared the pilot ladder., To date this is the most difficult task I encountered because of the heat and hot weather I encountered . I'm not so sure of the exact temperature but if I recall correct its somewhere about 40 plus degree's Celsius enough for me to wet my coveralls and wore it wet just to keep cool. It helped a lot to keep my body temperature to be lower enough for me to work without any problems. As expected most of my crew mates, were exhausted on the heat and were soaking wet with sweat. One of the worst berthing operations work I made on my whole career.

PIRACY WATCH OVER

Piracy watch keeping is now officially over and I don’t have to be problematic about the lack of sleep over this. Although the piracy watch is just roughly a four hour shift every 12 hours, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the only work I was doing on that time. With cruelty and brutality our Indian officer's had us doing day work - worst part is that this so called "O.T." doesn’t even get paid at all.

 

Anyway it’s a good thing that I'm now living on the 21st century, and social media is already invented. I can now chronicle my experiences as a sailor and let the public read it one day, it's for them to know the inequalities, and viciousness of this line of work and to show that being a sailor is not "living in the lap of luxury" as what it was always portrayed in the Philippine Public.  

 

Going back, Since this ship will be now arriving very soon in Fujirah U.A.E. , we have now removed the anti-personnel razor wire throughout the whole ship and started cleaning up, also the Armed guard helped us out in removing those wires and they will be disembarking soon when this ship arrives in U.A.E. or Oman.,

 

(There are three armed guards here on this ship, Team leader is Greek, the two other are Indian nationalities)

 

 Aside from the removal of anti-personnel equipment. We had the usual routine of having a drill, actually it's more like a familiarization of a life boat, Boring stuff and despite the boringness of it. Our annoying Indian officers here had time to Brag and ridicule me, saying that I know nothing when it comes to lifeboats. Pathetic ! This smelly Indian's don’t have an idea that I had been on five ships before and its very obvious that I'm already familiar on the procedures of launching a lifeboat, What makes them think I don’t know it ? This narrow minded Indians have never thought that I was just playing along on their game, besides that I'm not simply plainly interested in learning anything at all in this company and why should I bother ? CF Sharp and Norstar is simply just full of shit from the start ) 

 

 

FALSE ALARM

Entry date : July 26 016 Tuesday

Location : South of Yemen

 

 

For the moment, I had been thinking for several days now on using the public satellite email this ship has - actually it’s the email used by the captain to send messages to the company , turns out it can be used as well to send to messages to emails. The catch is that privacy of messages is zero and that there's a possibility that someone (or even the captain) can read to those email messages and read it. I'm not really comfortable sending an email that has no privacy - a lesson I learned way back on "CAPE TALLIN" a few years back.

 

Most likely if I'm going to send an email here, I had to set some rules. First is that the language in email will be the local dialect of Filipino's which is called "Tagalog" , since ship officers here do not understand that language fully and I don't know any other foreign language to code my messages. At least using that  language minimizes the possibility of someone trying to read my email messages. Another thing is that I won't use this email is to update my blog, and cant risk that my blog will be discovered just because of it.

 

Anyway while I'm still working on the details , here's the news about work.

 

This Tuesday morning , I was suddenly surprise to see both Chief Mate and Third mate went to the bridge 3am this morning and discussed something to 2nd mate. I didn't hear the conversation given at my distance from them and I was basically on the bridge wing when I saw it, I didn’t even bother to figure it out as well because I'm simply not interested thinking that it was a work related stuff. I only found out on what the fuzz is all about on 4am when O.S. "mark" told me that the general alarm bell suddenly tripped off on below decks and made everyone ran to the designated muster station. I was on the funnel area at that time and didn’t heard a thing , only thing I remember was that 2nd mate asked me to check the B and A deck and tell anyone I saw there that they should go back to their cabins to sleep, fortunately I didn’t saw anyone.

 

 

RETENTION

ENTRY JOURNAL DATED: July 20, 2016

Location : Somewhere Far east on the Somali coast

 

 

"Just for the record this is a bad idea , if I ended up being hostage by Somali pirates because of negligence of these blockhead Indian ship officers we have here, I swear to god , I'm going to play Judas and help out the pirates on how get to the citadel and open it myself"

 

 - Unknown Filipino Sailor During G.O.A. Somali Piracy Transit, July 2016 -  

 

As expected despite the anarchy reported and hostage taking, transiting Somalia area is generally peaceful and nothing to worry about, and what's more to add to the assurance is that we have an armed guard around to cover our asses.

 

But despite all the confidence and assurance. Our Indian ship officers here exploited this and wants us to do day work - WHAT THE FUCK !!!! Go outside and do our normal routine of day work ! Right in the middle of a Somali pirate infested area ?! You got to be shitting me ! Just for the record , this is a terrible and stupid idea coming from our Indian chief mate. Now what kind of person in their right mind do a day work on that kind of situation ? - I don’t know but it boggles my mind on logic why the fuck , this Indian chief mate wants that. What is exactly  the fuck goes on in his mind ???

 

Honestly I don’t see the reasonable judgement on why I have to go outside and do a routine day work in the middle of a pirate watch besides that it's definitely unsafe to be outside on the deck lollygagging on unimportant matters. These block head Gandhi's didn’t realize the possibility that if ever there is a real pirate attack and somehow they got lucky , one of us crew could end up being a hostage.

 

Although highly unlikely but , if I ended up being hostage by Somali pirates because of negligence of these blockhead Indian ship officers here, I swear to god , I'm going to play Judas and help out the pirates on how get to the citadel and open it myself - So we can all go to hell -WHOLESALE !!!! (Geez I'm starting to think Oiler Allan Sta. Maria was right quitting this ship early.). Cant end up me being the only hostage do I ? I'm going to be relieved if all us end up being hostage (imbecile Indian officers included) .

 

Anyway so much for all that , so called Safety meeting and briefing shit yesterday - practically useless talk and irrelevant now. I just hope that the three armed guards would do their job in safe guarding this ship, while doing a day work.

 

Can't imagine that I'm here right now on one of the worst possible places on earth and on top of that , I'm not even getting paid for it.  Fuck you Norstar Ship management and fuck you too CF sharp for putting me here and changing my original ship assignment.

 

Speaking of which, about the Irrelevant "Safety meeting" - Turns out that the location of the beloved "citadel" (panic room) is the steering gear room, worst place to pick if you ask me. Why ? The whole area has no decent ventilation to start with and pirates can literary access the room easily starting on the steering gear door and "skylight" hatch above, Were secured on the sides entrances but not above entrance. In other words it's basically a death trap and if any crazy ass pirate would be smart and desperate enough to figure this out, he could just basically blow up any of the two entrance door right on top of steering gear room and delivery death from above. Luckily Somali pirates are not known for such mindless carnage and usually (if not almost all) instead prefer capturing sailors alive for ransom, Besides what's the use of a dead sailor anyway compared to a live one ?  If it were not considering the safety of armed security escorts here,. I could say that were all doomed.

 

Incidentally, a small fishing vessel when straight ahead towards this ship Thursday afternoon. Everybody dropped everything on what are they doing and went inside, even the armed guards got alarmed and hurriedly went upstairs from the mess room to the bridge and wore their bullet proof vest and armed themselves.  The small fishing vessel went in close proximity and incidentally had the stereo type appearance of a "pirate mothership" (dilapidated rundown look) and small skiffs a few meters just beside it. Fortunately the small fishing boat didn't change direction and just passed by, and the skiffs never moved at all. In other words it was a false alarm and was just a typical fishing boat in the middle of the sea or maybe it saw that this ship has armed guards (via telescope) and decided that attacking was a bad idea - who knows ? . In any case this scared the shit on most of the people here, including our neglectful Myanmar ship captain. At about an hour after, we all went back to our usual work. Me on the bridge as a lookout for pirate ships and the others were on day work chipping rust.

 

   

SWAPPING OF VISITORS

ENTRY LOG: July 18, 2016 Monday

Location: Nairobi, Kenya

 

 

Although It was highly unlikely that our Myanmar 2nd engineer would quit on his job, He did pass his repatriation request - and what's written in his letter is disembark on next convenient port. Up to now it's not clear what is his reasons why he quit his work, but it's obvious that maybe he quit the job because this ship is not a comfortable working environment to begin with and almost all of the crew agree on that matter.

 

In any case, this adds to the list of the number of people who are supposedly going to disembark.

 

In other news

 

Other anti-piracy measures have been put up such as dummies' (though highly ineffective because of the material used to make it) which had toy guns and fire hoses (doubtful on the fact that most of these are broken) , anyway despite the ineffectiveness of these measure's , I'm relieved that there's an armed guard around so in cases of any pirate gets smart enough to try to even board  - the armed guards will be happy enough to pepper them with bullets. Of course for us sailors, when that happens - we will be rushing to our makeshift "citadel" (actually it's called a "panic room" on land) , cowering like helpless civilians. Armed guards are really necessary here, since this ship travels at a very slow rate like a 17 century wooden one, slow as a damn cow and chances are, without any armed security this ship could easily be captured by would be Somali pirates 

 

At about 6pm July 18 , the DNV inspectors disembarked and was swapped in by  armed guards boarded this ship. It was a chore hauling off their heavy luggage's , but I did little of the work and let the others do most of it. After all I'm not in the mood and had little motivation to work on this pathetic ship (because of salary issues) - I just made it to look like I'm doing something. By midnight , I went to the bridge and asked third officer if the pirate watch will start, lucky for me it wasn't and was told to go back to sleep. 

PATCHING UP EAGLE BOSTON

ENTRY LOG : July 14, 2016 Thursday

Location : East of South Africa

 

 

Working late as usual - worst part is that I'm not being paid for the extra hours Norstar is dishing out on their old pathetic ship. To keep for the record, they had me working up until 6pm on regular working hours. Geez what a total dick !

 

Recently we have been putting up some razor wire and barbed wire as anti-piracy measures , The stuff that was widely used during world war 1. Typical stuff now a days and still being used up to now. Razor wire isn't really a problem installing in this ship - No thanks to those thick leather gloves that was issued as hand protection, So basically punctures and razor cuts on the arms and skin are a thing of the past now (well as long as any company would issue those types of gloves) - but incase a company is cheap enough not to issue those , I would be grabbing fitter's welding gloves which is thick enough to repel those nasty spikes of a razor wire, It’s a good alternative.

 

As for the transit on GOA region (or anywhere near somalia) Luckily Armed Guards have already been invented now on my time as primary anti-piracy measures, and will be boarding this ship probably in Nairobi, Kenya after the surveyors disembark there. So the chances of being held hostage by Somali pirates is lessen compared 8 to 6 years back, and I don’t have to worry being waken up in bed that some Ak-47 is being pointed right in front of my face.

 

On work, after finishing off what's left (or a least a majority) in installing the razor wire. Some of us crew here had to go down the ballast tanks to assist the DNV surveyors and technicians. From what I recall BOSUN RODRIGO, PUMPMAN OBINA and O.S. "Mark" had to go down on the ballast , while the rest of us were left doing assorted stuff. Lately Pump man had discovered a crack somewhere in 2 water ballast tank starboard and had all of us on deck on standby helping them out from outside the tank. Chief mate Douza also came in to the tank to help the two, which lead to the predicament of me being up on work till 6pm. I do understand the importance of patching up the leak , but it doesn’t cover up the excuse of "not being paid" on our efforts. This is the part were norstar fails miserably - the most important part , on compensating workers on their working hours. Anyway not a day goes by that I grumble in this.

 

The following day was pretty much the continuation, and moreover a lot of patching up to do for the Riding crew especially fitter and A.B. "Bong" . The rest of the day was just basically cleaning up the mess. During the lunch break , I overheard in the locker room that the two recent technicians that arrived were complaining about something, Most of us assumed that A.B. Paulito Cordova and O.S. Marden Luib were basically just sat around and crapped on their job to assist the two technicians.

 

I'm not surprised that this was the case, given that these two riding crew are basically cheating on work. I don’t really give a shit if they cheat on work actually but the problem with these two is that not only do they cheat on work but also have an offensive behavior especially paulito cordova , who give fucking lecture's like he's some sort of feeling high and mighty over his co-workers - basically a total dick. One incident was I was guarding the entrance and meddles with my work about my problem with the handheld radio, that dick even has the nerve to lecture me do something about it, First off its my problem not his and second I hate lectures , that cocky son of a bitch. Hope he falls off this ship and gets eaten by a squid ! Bastard !

 

Aside from that annoyance, Another unfortunate thing happened on me. My Stanley Cardboard box cutter got lost - not by me , by it was A.B. "Alvin" . Apparently it got lost somewhere on the huge area of 2 starboard water ballast tank.

 

Later that day, the DNV surveyor was furious about Chief Mate Douza over the issues about "enclosed space permit" , which unfortunately for him didn’t signed up before we entered the water ballast tank.

 

("Enclosed Space Permit" basically is a paper work done by the chief mate authorizing the crew to enter a space inside the ship that has a possibility of toxic gases or low oxygen. Basically more like an assurance that in case we die inside those pockets , its CHIEF MATES FAULT AND NOT OURS )

 

 

FOUR VISITORS

Entry log is July 11, 2016 Monday

 

Location : Port Elizabeth, South Africa

 

A lot of people have been dissatisfied on recent developments on our working condition here and it's no surprise that there are grumbling a lot as well, I can't blame them , seeing that I myself is dissatisfied over the conditions here and it’s a far cry from the good treatment I had received when I was in Career Ship Management on NSB "Conti" Ships. Shame that I had to leave on my former company due to very long "Waiting time". Anyway now I know why CF sharp is not included on my list of possible suitable companies to begin with, Working Conditions here and Company policies are not suited for a seafarer and not built for long term employment. Frankly my employment here is a big setback rather than progress on my career.

 

Despite the battery of consecutive disappointments that plague working conditions here, life goes on and so does the never ending process of work. I'm not in a good mood to work but I had to keep on going, knowing that a few months more and I'd get the fuck off on this ship for good which is my main goal. I still have at least 6 months to complete the exact contract here.

 

About work, currently this ship is expecting 4 visitors from some sort of "DNV - GL" and rooms to accommodate them have already been prepared. Some of them will be occupying the hospital and some on actual cabins ( and on my disappointment me and "O.S mark" are compressed on one cabin ).

 

For now my work involves helping Pump man out down below on the pump room. Apparently recent events had the bowels of the pump room flooded again by water and we had to scoop and take out the water. On that work I had to bring out and use my safety helmet that has a headlight with it , but while working I found out that it was too bulky and too heavy for my head plus I can't maneuver and do a mouse look because of tight spaces and large pipes above my head. All the time I had to crouch and bend in taking out the water because there's not enough leg room. (which added stress on my neck and back)

 

Thinking of that scenario, I needed an equipment that can get my headlight on tight spaces without bumping my head into something and can make me move around a little bit easier while working. The end result of it was that I had made and developed an equipment similar to an NVG frame (night vision googles), actually it’s made out of the inner plastic frame of a safety helmet, the plastic straps placed to keep the head in place on the helmet and using some of the equipment I had with me on the luggage and some equipment I saw here, I made a little tune up and modification and tweaked it. I haven't tested it yet on my equipment made but hopefully soon it will see action on the actual working conditions here.

 

Going back about the visitors, It looks like that this ship is having another rumour about altering its course away from Kenya and Madagascar, as in way beyond the waters off on this countries. Perhaps probably away from GOA Somali area (high risk piracy area), in order for the company to save money and not hire a security team to protect this ship (mercenaries). There's no specific yet detail if this is true or not, The only thing known is that this ship will alter course because of "bad weather" according to the captain.  

 

At about 6PM a small barge came in for bunkering of this ship (refueling), a few moments later another small craft approached carrying the four surveyors followed by another supply barge that carries razor wire supplies.

 

During the loading of supplies, BOSUN Rodrigo was in the crane when he saw something smoking on one of the plastic bags , and yelled out that we better get the way out of those bags. Chief mate Douza saw it and yelled that I should get the fire hose ready. I immediately came grabbing one of the hoses and putting it on the water pipes, when I came to the location , O.S. "mark" was already dousing the huge plastic bag that was making a smoke. Turns out later when it was thoroughly searched that one of the car batteries inside the supplies ruptured and spilled acid , Anyway it was just a false alarm in the end.

 

After the brief minor incident, Chief mate Douza said that we had to take out all the razor wires out which we did only later to find out that he changed his mind after taking out all the wires on the plastic bag and said that we should store it on the starboard midship store, ( Hmpf !! What a total indian dick ! He should have told us earlier about this to save us the trouble).

 

At about 8pm I had to leave on the workplace, along with BOSUN Rodrigo and O.S. "Mark" and head out to the crew mess to grab some grub since we skipped out dinner and left the "riding crew" to finish off the work in the razor wire.

 

Midnight , Me and O.S. "Mark" was awaken again on the cabin.to heave up the anchor after the bunkering ops. Heaving anchor was fine and got delayed when the chain was tangled up a big on the anchor , fortunately it was resolved quickly after two hours.