November
26, 2018 Monday
UAE
, Fujirah area.
As
anticipated weather did not improve until 2 days , when the ship got moving
again. In any case I'm optimistic that weather will definitely improve from
here till this ship gets to Saudi Arabia. I guess there won't be a problem from
here from the temperature given that its already winter time in this area.
2
days ago , Third officer told me that he didn’t got to submit the
"electronic tablet" I wrote on the "private" order stuff
and of all the people who wrote on the private order list, only mine was left
out. Recently thanks to mess man , he sorted
out and found that my request for a "quotation" for a Samsung
10 inch tablet did make the price list ( which upon looking cost at about 325
U.S. Dollars ). It was apparently written on the "quotation list"
reply by the ships chandler. I spoke to third officer about this and told that
he may include it on the order , as for the payment I told him that I was
getting 300 U.S. dollars as cash advance for this December and as additional I
had 100 U.S. dollars on my pocket money right now.
I
am told by third officer that this private order, is payable by cash on hand
and NOT SALARY DEDUCTIBLE. I hope that my cash advance will arrive in time and
that this ship will not go stingy again.
(
"quotation" means getting the price details of a certain Item. Ship
chandler in Seaman terms means Ship supplier , a land base person who supplies
needed items on the ship - in particular
food, ship working supplies etc. )
Early
in the morning during the tool box talk, I was told by chief officer
"Jobert" to remain for a few minutes after the routine tool. I'm not
exactly sure on what he meant if this is related to the appraisal report that I
signed early on. As far as what I read on my appraisal report there is nothing
negative about it, everything was basically average from my point of view. In any case I remained the toolbox talk and
chief officer told me that my appraisal report was basically average which has
no problems and warned me that the new incoming chief officer will be qoute
"Strict" unqoute. If he's worried that I will have a difficult time
to adjust on the new chief mate then it won't be an issue - besides I have
dealt with more crappier people on the past , so from the start this is not
going to be the first time I had encounter "worthless garbage" people
in the workplace. I'd greatly consider this as a warning coming from him even
though I dislike "jobert".
Anyway I heard a lot of bad stuff rumors about this
incoming chief mate from the crew. Aside from rumors like he tends to
"overwork" people till exhaustion, there's a rumor that he's also a
stingy kind of person who refuses to give crew safety working equipment like
coveralls no matter what the case was. I'm not sure if he has an manners or
attitude problem but most rumors I heard to this incoming chief mate is
generally negative. Anyway based on my working experience for both land base
and sea based jobs , the word "Strict" is Generally polite terms for
"asshole" folk in the work place. Not an offending word but obviously
bad news for any worker.
And
that concludes the early morning work meeting..
(
"Tool Box Talk" , in nautical terms is actually a few minutes meeting held before the work
usually starts. It tells what manuals jobs are to be done during the day etc.
every detail needed to know about the work to be done. This is done every day
before work starts, usually in the ships office or any place that the chief
officer wishes)
As
for this work , we had to do a break test on the ships winches., this test is
usually done annually to test if the " safety release" function of
the ships mooring machines is still functioning. Everything was going smoothly
on the break test on each winches. Basically I just needed to help out my
co-workers in removing and reattaching the heavy triangular frames for each
winch , and then assist A.B. Roderick on the hydraulic pump to add pressure in
the winch and that's all there is to it.
On
the last winch , there was a mishap when the frames and support suddenly
collapse from all the pressure from the manual hydraulic pump. Thankfully it
flew in the opposite direction away from me and AB Roderick or else the person
who will get hit by those flying blocks will be very unfortunately on this day.
The metal block hit the support block
metal of the winches and it was very obvious that the block had a huge nick
from all that force that hit it and considering it was made of metal it was
pretty obvious that the hitting force was very hard enough to make a metal
break.
After
the break test , the rest of the day was spent cleaning up and putting back the
canvasses and returning the tools that was used during the break test work.
On
the last few minutes before the work day ends , I saw a small bat on the deck
area. Probably this animal was exhausted from all that flying made at sea and
had to land here ., I didn’t pick up the animal as for fear that it might have
rabies and would bit me . After all this animal is considered wild life and is
obviously feral. I just left it alone and continued on my work.
I
assume that this ship might be close to land somewhere since there a flying
animal landing here , even though I don’t see visually any land nearby.
(probably more than 16 mile difference) .,
(Typically
"safety release" is a measure that happens when the ships mooring
line are too tight , instead of the ropes breaking and snapping when the
tightening force is too extreme , it does as a safety measure to release the
ropes instead thus preventing damage on the rope or any other unfortunate
damage that might occur, instant death to a sailor if he gets caught or got
snapped by the ships ropes by the way)
Glad
that the work day has already ended , however this doesn’t mean that I'd be
going to rest after that. Inside my cabin I continued to do my personal work
maintenance in washing my clothes in the bath room and repairing and patching
up the small hole on one of my coveralls.
It’s
a surprise that up to now I still have to wash my clothes , because as of the
moment , engine personnel haven't resolved the issue yet on fresh water
production. It's really lucky for me
that I brought along on this trip a lot of extra clothes for work.
