MAGICAL TOY BOX

February 23, 2018

And it all ends the worthless pathetic two days of "Wet dock" ship repairs. Honestly this so called "Wet Dock" is nothing more than just a tune up and a cheaper version of a "dry dock" ship repairs. There are no hordes of maintenance personnel swarming the place to repair the ship., (I only counted less than 30 maintenance people).

It was a big letdown on the fact that I was expecting that there will be at least a shore leave around , but it turns out that there are no shore leaves even if this ship stayed for almost three days., I mean the whole "night" and time was more than enough for a shore leave and yet I have no idea why they didn’t offered this to the crew to go on shore leave. I was working there and the working hours were not even considered busy.

The only most logical explanation why there is no shore leave is that the management never allowed it in the first place.,

Anyway it's no surprise for me that wet dock will turn out like this., After all this is an "uwak" infested ship and the company is run by "uwak's" . So its very obviously that Shell / Nakilat is neglectful on its crew and that working here is more stressful than any other Liquid tankers (chemical, product and Oil) I worked with. All I can say I don’t expect much if the ship and company has "uwaks" in it.

In other news ..

Lately I had been making online purchases left and right in lazada (Philippine version of ebay) and the reason why I'm doing this is for the preparation for the next ship / company I'd be working with. Another reason aside from it is that it cut me the time and effort for me in searching for these items,  thus help me focus in urgent matters like finding a job and replacement company after this (shell / nakilat). On how things are going for me , it looks like that I'm heavily relaying on online purchase to fill in the materials I need, and probably soon almost all of my equipment will be supplied by lazada.

For the purpose of disseminating this information for my fellow sailors., I will post here on this blog the items that I will bring along , complete with all the necessary information a sailor should know.  Also to tell them that these equipment's are considered mostly "experimental" in category and some of them might still be "debatable" for use in the actual Ship work.

Online store and purchases have been almost around for nearly 30 years but here in the Philippines , its only been introduced recently - as in for the "millennial" generation and its gaining popularity. In the old days it was basically go to a far place and search each item available - hazzle , inconvenient and impractical to today's standards    

In other news.

Recently I had "scavenge" the crew TV room to find anything that can be of use., and it came to see on the old cabinet that there's an unused Old Video Game console system left behind., It was a Nintendo Wii ., which from what I remember on video game system was a hit gaming console back in 2003 ., Probably the ship crew mistook this videogame console to be broken or badly damaged and just left it there to neglected.

I tested the console and plugged the power and hooked it up on the TV and found out that this Nintendo Wii was still in very good condition and the only problem was that the batteries for the game controller were empty (or missing). I tested the gaming controller using my rechargeable batteries and it worked . 

Immediately an idea came to me instant ., what if I could bring this console home when I disembark by around April or May ., I could use a new electronic stuff on the TV set back home ? I could really use a new gizmo around and besides that upgrading and buying accessories and games for this videogame system would be easy to find - I'm very sure that this gadget will be very useful on my house and definitely will not be neglected at all like what this ship is treating this console. Surely they won't notice this videogame console would be missing and the crew TV room has a Play station 3 hooked up and still in service on this ship. They just probably think that the whole console (Nintendo Wii) is broken anyway.

Technically of course this is called stealing the ships property but its still fun taking these home as payback for all the shitty treatment I had received on UPL Shell / Nakilat for the past four months ., and it's called vengeance. 

MESSAGE FROM ANOTHER SIDE

February 19, 2018

Location: Near Las Raffan Qatar

By next week, the real task begins for me …..

Based and what is confirmed is that two new crew will be arriving soon and from what I heard that the incoming chief mate and Bosun will be some of the worst Shell / Nakilat has to offer. So for me expect that the remaining 2 and a half months for me will a "hell of a ride" and that working hours will be very long and work will be unpleasant.

But in any case 2 months for me will not be problematic., given with my previous experience in CSM company were that I have to endure a shitty bosun for 10 months., Surely 2 months will definitely be not a problem for me and this will be my first and last with Shell / Nakilat Principal. I'd be leaving the company and search for a more comfortable and "crew friendly" working environment company.

From what I heard the incoming Chief mate has a foul language problem., (which I wonder does he kiss his wife with a mouth like that ) and the Incoming BOSUN based on rumours I heard about messman is "Strict" (which from a pinoy nautical's term perspective is a polite term for asshole / shitty personality). Latest news I had heard is that they will be arriving on the 25th of February. 

This ship may be advance and high tech for gas tanker standards but its working policies polices are crude, backward and repressive on its crew.

Speaking of repressive policies , I decided to do a publicity stunt by taking a small camera and took pictures in the trunk deck area of this LNG ship and ABSOLUTELY NO ONE IS GOING TO STOP ME FROM PUBLISHING THIS ON MY BLOG. Normally this stunt is punishable in Shell / Nakilat Dogmatic standards as summarily dismissal and fired on the spot but fuck with it. They're already lame and control freak in the first place ., So I'd be publishing pictures of the LNG ship im working at and NO ONE IN SHELL / NAKILAT is going to stop me no matter how much they say "its not safe" ,. SAFE MY ASS SHELL / NAKILAT - youre just only an name in the maritime industry and no matter how much you brag about you're malevolence , I think that you're just another typical asshole here in this sector .

LIFEBOAT TEST

February 09, 2018 Friday 

Location : Near Singapore

Its Pathetic ., to see my crew mates act so lowly today on the "waterborne" Life boat test but it is what I saw on my eyes. They looked simply so stupid., It was obvious that most of them were agitated on the testing of the life boat and only shows that despite all Shell's bragging and "perfectionist" attitude - they simply could not cope with changing situations ,

Compared to my previous ship I had joined , this ship doesn’t have a welcoming and comfortable working environment.

During lunchtime they tried to persuade me to get inside the lifeboat , on the last minute obviously I wasn’t happy hearing it especially on the last minute and I have no idea on why the hell BOSUN Berlix thought of that . I didn’t replied or gave my answer to their comment - I just remained silent and frowned and immediately left my table. On my head I was saying "why the fuck have they decided to put me on that damn lifeboat ?, I had already been in that way back last 2010 and now they're putting me back !! What the fuck !"

MAMA SAN'S PLACE

February 04, 2018 Sunday

Location : Incheon, Korea

After the long wait for an approval on my shore leave ., I finally got the chance to roam around again in south Korea after three months. Honestly I think it’s a bit unfair that I have to wait for a month just to get a chance on shore leave in the first place, its totally a bummer that this is the procedure in Shell / Nakilat principal and very repressing.

Anyway I'm not surprised that this will be case given that SHELL is a "Perfectionist" kind of principal and that terms here are rarely fair to Filipino's and this includes shore leaves. In reality a sailor working here wouldn't enjoy his work at all because of the so many restrictions.

I remember back when I was in the Oil tanker type of ship ., there is rarely any restrictions on shore leave and that almost everyone is allowed as long as they arrive on time before the ship leaves. Absolutely almost everything there was very easy to handle., and it’s very different on what shore leave is in LNG ships.

Since I finally got to roam to south Korea ., my main goal to find some part replacements for my Nintendo Switch and second objective is to get at least some memory upgrades in SD card for my Nintendo Switch as well. Third objective is to find antibiotics for my recent skin infection (Boil) to be specific I have to find amoxicillin. There were four of us who finally got a chance on shore leave and was dropped off on a store called "Seaman's Center" ., It's not actually a seaman's Center - just a store named on it., ( the real Seaman's Center is actually just on the other side of the street) .

We never actually got to roam around Incheon due to weather problems and its still too damn cold (as in -4 degress celcius) to stay out outside so most of the time on shore leave was spent in a subway dealing with an Indian cellphone dealer., (which Oiler Danilo is annoying., and his chat dealings with the Indian goes on like forever) .

the remaining half an hour was spent in a small mall called "Emart" which for I wasn’t able to get amoxicillin antibiotics for my ongoing skin infection (Boil), I assume that probably buying antibiotics here in south Korea needed a prescription and that the pharmacy store there is basically has nothing important in their shelves compared to small pharmacies store's in the Philippines which I can buy antibiotics almost practically everywhere without prescriptions.

While buying a few chocolates on the small supermart ., a Korean cashier probably mistook me to be Korean looking from my haggard pale look (must have been my ongoing bad skin infection) and asked me where I'm from., I replied I was from the philippines.

Just to mention ., On the way to Emart - we practically circled around than going on to the usual route because Oiler "Danilo's" meddling on which direction we should go., we almost went way off on the path and was already near a ferry passenger terminal.

 When we got on the rendevouz area (mama's sans place) it was around 7pm. A.B. "Mario Manalo" mention that internet connection on Mama San's place was strong and fast enough to accommodate downloads so I immediately wasted no time and quickly put up my Nintendo switch to download some games I bought on the Eshop and as what they said , internet in korea is really fast AS A HUNDRED TIMES FASTER THAN IN THE PHILIPPINES. In the span of thirty minutes I was able to finish the downloads on two games that I bought "Pokken tournament" (pokemon fighting game) and Voez (a music game) ., If I only knew that internet here in mama san's place was this fast - I could have arrived a bit earlier to finish off some heavy download games which I still have on my Nintendo.  Probably If I had arrived earlier I could have finished downloading "Skyrim" game on Nswitch.

Most memory upgrades I got was from mama san's store. The 64GB SD Card, although it not enough or suitable for my Gaming console it is however perfect for my other mobile gadgets like tablet and Action camera.

At around 7.30pm we were picked up by the bus and was put straight back to the ship.  When we returned I was told by BOSUN Berlix to take a rest for about 6 hours then be on the deck watch at 4am to 8am in the morning.

FIRE SAFETY HAZARD

JOURNAL ENTRY : January 25 2018, Thursday

For the moment , I had now been enjoying the full extent of online banking and checking on my account details and doing some money transfers. Imagine I'm doing a financial transactions using my mobile phone or computer on what should be done in a bank.

Internet banking and Mobile phone banking is been around in the Philippines for more than a decade and yet here in the maritime industry ., it is still unheard of and probably is still a new concept. Some of my crewmates here never even heard of it , or practically never knew it existed at all.

It may take a while for the general population of seafarers in the maritime industry to fully be even aware on this kind of Financial technology since internet onboard ships is still newly introduced.

Now for the moment , it looks like that my regular allotment salary for me hasn’t arrived yet even though its already the 25th of this month. (Delayed salary perhaps ??) . I had been checking it via mobile banking and verified it again via internet banking and the results ended up the same., - The salary hasn’t been wired transferred yet.

What could be cause of the delay ?

In other news related

"GADGETS ARE TO BE INSPECTED DURING CABIN INSPECTION"

Seriously ??? Even my personal electronics are to be checked this time around ? Apparently the longer I'm staying here in this ship (and in general in UPL - Shell / Nakilat ) Their "safety" polices keeps getting worse and more bizarre. Honestly I don’t see the point on why they have to check my personal belonging which includes my electronic gadgets.

I do know their looking for fire safety hazard but checking my electronic gadgets is a bit over the top and from what I'm looking at its already a violation of my privacy and civil rights.  I'm not comfortable some person is just simply barging around the cabin inspecting and looking on my personal belongings and effects.  Even if its for the sake of so called "fire safety hazard" .

In other news

A Filipino Superintendent boarded this ship back in Lass Raffan and now is conducting some sort of "motivational" lectures to the whole crew. During those meeting session he explains the working culture in this principal

GETTING ON MY SKIN

Journal entry : January 15, 2018 Monday

It's just only been at least 11 days since my last entry but it felt like I haven't wrote anything for month. Time for the moment seems to passes slowly on this ship., and it's because of the work environment of "every day is Monday" here.

On the past few days , this ship berthed on its home port on Rass Laffan, Qatar and I went on a shore leave which turned out to be a total waste of time and was not allowed to even go outside the port facility and go to Doha. Basically we were just in the Seaman's Center and stayed there wasting time.

I was hoping that I could really get out the port and buy some stuff on the local mall (mostly electronic stuff) , but apparently it was disappointing and I would be better off staying with the ship and sleeping.

On recent news ….

Relations with Filipino crew members are getting sour ., and I haven't faced any situation like this since Stolt Strength and Cape Tallin. Got me caught off hand honestly , never saw it coming.

Two incidents at least that I had been at odd with them , and the most recent annoyance I had with them is on the fire drill. Which they kept pressuring me to wear a fireman's outfit and when the time came that I was wearing one , I was being heavily criticized about what I'm and heard some unnecessary bitching comments from A.B. "Wendel"  saying "is that what your previous ship crew does when you have fire drill"

I mean "What the fuck !!????" 

If I knew this would have happened , I shouldn't have bothered going with it in the first place - such ungrateful sons of bitches !!!! The fireman's suit was uncomfortable to wear (at least in tropical weather in Singapore area) especially during an outside temperature of 35 degrees Celsius. The mask was so airtight that I have problems breathing with it and nearly panicked when I almost suffocated, (which they had to actually switch on the oxygen tank for me ). Anyway I really had regrets of wearing the suit and from now I'd just stick to my muster list duties and won't go beyond that , to avoid bitching from these folks. 

SOME GOOD NEWS

JOURNAL ENTRY DATE : January 04, 2018 Thursday

Not all in this ship (and working practices ) is bad. On the recent safety meeting .,  Captain KOLANOVIC said that dry dock (ship repairs) will be delayed and that it will be around august.,

Upon hearing that I was relieved, and in some extent grateful that by the time this happens , I will be long and gone on UPL Shell / Nakilat . I don’t have to worry to go thru that kind of trouble, especially if the management terribly sucks like this one. For now I'm more than happy that dry dock of this ship will not happen within my contract length and whoever some unfortunately fucker stumbles upon this situation in Nakilat , he is in for a job in his life.

As for the role of the Riding crew here, I'm not sure how things will go on this point probably from what I heard , they'd just let the "Riding crew" finish the contract and let us off the hook (which suits me fine) ., or a rumour I heard from A.B. Art that we will be transferred to another ship midway on the contract and relived this awful workplace one more time, at least for the remainder of the contract.

Anyway its none of my business as long as I get the fuck out of UPL Shell / Nakilat as soon as possible., be off the road again and search for another company with pleasant work environment suitable enough to sustain my career. 

A WHOLE NEW YEAR AGAIN

Entry log : January 03, 2017 Monday

Location : Somewhere in Sri lanka, Enroute to Ras Laffan Qatar

Another year went and has come to pass again. For the moment New Year's celebration here on board this ship is dry as a Sahara Desert, No celebrations , No parties - Nothing whatsoever. Basically throws off international tradition and holiday out of the window. It was just a plain old ordinary "rest day".

Anyway it's not surprising because this is an Arab ship and Arab's and Muslim's disregard International and Christian holidays, but to think this is a SHELL company management (for all its reputation) and ignore New Year is definitely a big surprise. To make it more worse the management here is "Indian" which doesn’t care less about Filipino Folks

Late in the afternoon on January 01, The Management here did gave a giveaway digital watch and Maglite flash light , just to avoid the embarrassment of having nothing for new year's eve. Kind of like a patch up for the doing nothing at new year's day.

Whatever the case I had already made up my mind not to stay here on this company and principal, its because of this that I'm not staying,  Working practices here are too difficult - too uncomfortable to work with.     

In other news ., I've heard that the next ship captain here will be Indian (oh no ) and from the description of how Bosun Berlix describes it , it looks like it's not a good news . Apparently from what I heard , this ship captain is a company man and hates any form of alcohol content stuff. Crew who are caught inside their cabin to have any stuff that have even the smallest content like rubbing alcohol, mouthwash etc.,. will be immediately fired from the job , (the excuse of summary dismissal is "Violation of Alcohol policy") .

To avoid any entanglements until I finished my contract., I have to hide my rubbing alcohol and mouth wash for the time being until this incoming Indian captain gets off this ship (or I get out of this ship) . But thinking about this policy , I don’t see the logical reason why such items should be banned , after all rubbing alcohol is used medically for treating wounds for eons now and mouth wash is medically used also for disinfectant (getting rid of halitosis).

Just because he thinks he's the captain - he thinks he's so smart, high and mighty  but in reality he's just a normal Seafarer asshole and another Indian ignorant, after all He is a Ship captain , NOT A CHEMIST and NEVER A SCIENTIST. Stereotype seafarers , pitiful and thinks he knows everything in the world.

Another bad news I could write about is that the Indian electrician broke the elevator ., the elevator was working fine until this rats ass Indian electrician messed it up during his so called "maintenance" . Now as a result I am now forced to walk and go up and down on the stairs ways every now and then, it would be fine if this ship is just only a four story building like in most liquid tankers but on my case at the moment , this ship is a seven story height on the accommodation block alone (and more starting from the engine room and up) , so it’s not easy to endure on my knee's using the stairways often. Especially when I'm doing my laundry at 2am in the morning .
 

Working here keeps getting worse., and my only hope now is to reach the completion of the contract within 6 months or less., to get out of this company and principal  

SUBJECT FOR APPROVAL

Entry log : December 18, 2017 Wednesday

There is some good news that arrived

Earlier I was worried that my U.S. Dollar Account wasn't working and that I might be forced to get my salary via cash advance only . Good thing my worries was proved wrong and that my salary was wired transfer to my account which I verified using online banking . Its relieving to hear that my U.S. Dollar bank account is doing fine.

 Latest news on work is that I won't be allowed on shore leave for korea and that I didn’t made it on the criteria and from what I experienced here going on shore leave here is pretty much selected and is subjected for approval.  Subjected for approval ???? What the fuck was that supposed to mean ? I wasn’t a seafarer yesterday and as far as I can remember on my previous ships everyone is allowed to go out as long as time allows it and does not violate any working schedules.,

Life here keeps getting worse as time goes on. They may be technologically advance on some levels but there work practices and how the way they treat their crew is like shit. So anyway that leaves me with zero chance of going out and I have to wait for a month at least to be considered to be allowed on shore leave and it is still yet subject for approval.

As far as I know ., it’s a seafarers rights (and practice) to have a shore leave and this is already an ancient tradition covering hundreds if not a thousand years of seafaring practice.,  ITF has said now that shore leave is a seafarers rights ., the Seamans club and seaman's union in germany says the same as well . However in Shell / Nakilat - this company apparently detains crew and as much as possible refrains crew from taking shore leave. They don’t say this publicly but from their actions its basically just detaining crews in a less obvious manner and method.

Hi tech as it may sound but the thought of someone monitoring your every move on work is a bit stressful ., on this ship every corner has a CCTV to monitor on how crew members work . 

THE DEATH NOTE

JOURNAL ENTRY DATE : December 7, 2017 Thursday

Although it dangerous to be carrying around electronic items , not because it was a safety hazard - but more of a professional hazard. From what I could tell anyone caught having an electronic device outside the accommodation could lead to summary dismissal from work (fired immediately). Especially the "zero" tolerance policy of Shell / Nakilat and to ensure that everyone follows this , almost the whole part of the ship and working area are littered with CCTV's (closed circuit camera) to ensure complete monitoring at all times.

I'm planning in bring outside a small camera , not exactly the typical digital camera but a smaller version. Fortunately for me I have a Liquid image type action camera which I could use originally as an action camera which can be used to take pictures. It small and portable enough to go almost unnoticed but I have to do first is memorize the control on how to take pictures. And if I goes operational I should avoid the CCTV's while taking pictures

On the early morning during the tool box talk , (some sort of meeting before work). The pilot ladder rigging issue on the pilot access was brought up again, and given with its fault finding culture here Bosun berlix is looking for someone to blame rather than make solutions , the same goes as well on A.B. "wendel" . Algerian Chief mate says that it doesn’t matter who's fault it was but what matters is what will be the solution now that the pilot ladder was discovered broken. I just listening amused (and somewhat pity) on how pathetic my fellow Filipino crew mates react on blaming equipment failure to other people and everyone is giving a lot of excuses on it and not going on solutions.  Really pathetic !!!

Working relations here now are starting to get worse all the time., One such  example is my recent entanglement with my job which unfortunately unable to finish in time. My current work at that time was the simple chipping and polishing of rusted areas, Sounds pretty simple but the problem was that some of the areas were not painted well . Why ? Because most of them were not simply finished - not chipped nor polished with a wire brush - so I simply didn’t paint them. Now I'm being questioned by Bosun Berlix and lectures me, worst part is my co-worker O.S. Pomaran who also working on the same site also joined in lecturing me and even blamed me on the same thing. What the fuck ?!!

People here are such back stabber's and fault blamers. I kept silent on what they were saying but my eyes sent message that I was furious on them and just a vengeance I was ignoring them all the time.

In other news….

The recent crew "safety meeting" introduced us to a new (deficiency reporting) system to nakilat said to be replacing from the old "512" form of shell and P.I. System (preventive intervention system). On the meeting , it describes that this new "inspire" system is just a rehashed more complicated version of "512" and "P.I." , basically its just the same and the only difference is that it only add a comment remark - just the same old deadly version , but different variant. A small piece of note pad paper were people get fired - yes kind of a real world version of "Death Note" (anime)

To tell the "512" system of shell and "P.I." is an anonymous reporting system were employees get fired, almost anyone can report a person whom they find to be performing (or using ) Unsafe equipment or practices. Any person who gets reported , has this note directly forwarded to the principal (meaning shell and not UPL) and will be subjected to summary dismissal for accusations of being "unsafe" . The principal (shell) will not hear to the accused of his statement and be fired immediately.

Honestly what kind of company tolerates this kind of practice were you have to back stab people ? They say according to their propaganda that they value "safety culture" , yes that's a point but do they value they employee's right ? From what looking they just find people to be very expendable - and from my personal opinion this system will not earn the respect of employee's and they will only just work because of the fear and terror factor.

From all the thing that Shell / Nakilat brags about and would be inventing. This so called "insipre" , 512 or P.I. whatever is the most useless of all . Funny that they always brags about having the latest and advance safety equipment and even technologically advance ships but from what im seeing right now , is that they only invented a piece of paper that is not "professionally safe" at all. Whoever invented this is barely passable as a human when it comes to thinking as an inventor. Totally worthless piece of shit  ! And misallocated company funds ! They even bragged that this form is small enough to fit in a pocket to be carried everywhere (which I find totally irrelevant ).

Good thing for me , This is Shell / Nakilat and not the "main fleet' of shell ., were this is mandatory (and they do check , to see the crew complies)

After the said safety meeting., it was still about 15 to 20 minutes left before work is over for the day and I can't believe that we still have to be sent back , as if like Shell / Nakilat is going to lose a lot of corporate money if I just missed out only 15 minutes of work time.