JOURNALS OF A FILIPINO SEAMAN

January 14, 2014 Saturday Things have been quiet been very busy lately and I didn't got the time to update my journal for quiet sometime now. Ok so were shall I begin first ? First off this ship arrived on the ship yard at the 4th of January 2014, but didn't exactly went ahead on the shipyard facility. First this ship was berthed nearby on  some sort of "Pre dry dock" facility , This ship stayed there for at least three days to conduct some inspections made by the CSM superintendent on which engine and part will this ship be repaired. Those three days were pretty much busy, as usual there were the usual dock workers who would come in and out to do some maintenance stuff and the like, and even board up their maintenance tool needed for the repairs. On the first day was pretty much quiet no work at all and I was just basically on the gangway watch and putting up notes on the ISPS logbook on who came in and out onboard this ship. Much to my dismay the work schedule th...

January 03, 2013 Friday Moment finally came that this ship had to transit it's way on from turkey Istanbul to Varna Bulgaria. As usual we heaved up anchor early in the morning and waited for the pilot to board the vessel . It was a very short transit lasting only for at least 3 hours and then the pilot disembarked, As for me my work on the whole day was only securing a couple of stuff , mostly stuff inside the deck store locker on the port side. This is the pictures i took during our transit, This is me overlooking on the nearby city a few small boats passing thru A lot of people might think that being a sailor is a very cool job and that i do get to see places where no typical filipino might ever even see for a life time, But i do remember that i only get to "See it" not touch it or step on this foreign soil and live on it.  Indeed this is a good and wonderful place however being there and living there are two different things. Most tales from the previous sailors i hear...

First day of 2014 was very much quiet, and i took that opportunity to repair and do maintenance work of my equipment (my personal working equipment). After all i needed a good rest since Saturdays and Sundays have already been cancelled off no thanks to our beloved captain. I think there won't be any Saturdays and Sundays off until the captain gets replaced on the "dry docks" and even so the superintendents are there so expect that there wont be any weekends for a long time and probably until i disembark. For now the only remedy is to adjust on this harsh policy.   Good thing for me that i just have roughly a month and a half or two months before I disembark on this ship. Since it was Wednesday and a holiday , almost everyone has free time. As a past time some of us played "Far Cry 2" video game on the multiplayer, there were seven of us playing the game at the same time. Byron, O.S. Del Monte , Mess man Ferdinand , Chief   Cook Olan, me , Fitter Sano and fourth...

This is one of the improvised tools sticking out on the cargo hatch , as what the picture suggest its a tripod and wooden derrick  As you can see on the picture , tons and tons of black plastic garbage bags are filled with oil sludge's  primitive equipement we have for the sludge removal no thanks to the limited equipement from CSM welcome to our lovely work place duh !!! December 24, 2013 Tuesday For the past two days , most of the deck crew are cleaning the water ballast tank, and for the past two days i was left out and didn't went inside the ballast , So I guess I missed all the action on going down (as in way down) and shovel a mountain load of mud. Since i was just staying outside on the water ballast entrance and being the look out , i did manage to do my work by providing coffee and a few snacks on the water ballast entrance. Unfortunately for me Mess man Ferdinand Penera didn't like my idea of borrowing the coffee and sugar and lectures me in front of everyone duri...

Winter since is already visible here in the middle east as weather drastically gets colder each day. Though its not that cold as some places in Europe, and snow is still not visible here. winter season in Lebanon is still quiet cold - for Filipino standards. (By the way as for general information here the sunset is as early as 4:30pm in Europe during winter time. ) Presently , to adjust on these temperature drops. I had to wear a few more clothes inside on my coveralls to keep myself warm (thanks to some winter clothes left to me by my friend "Pat" before he left the ship). The challenge for me now is how to keep my hands still warm while working given that winter equipment here is somewhat being "Restricted" . Fortunately for me I found a used winter gloves several months ago during summer season (while working here) , i cleaned it and repaired it and voila !! A usable winter gloves - problem is that its only a single piece and for my left hand only and not a pair....

Behold !!! the typical butter wash machine's always typically used on almost all tankers in the world  Although Tank cleaning operations in a chemical tanker are common and usually done on a regular basis, Product tankers however are much different even though their also part of the "Tanker class" commercial ships. On my previous two ships both Stolt Strength and Bow Ophelia, it is so common that there is no need to conduct a "special kind of work" and all working schedules are unchanged , Unfortunately i couldn't say much the same on Cape Tallin (my current ship), tank cleaning here is very rare given that this is a full fledge bonafide crude oil product tanker. Unfortunately as soon as this ship left Lebanese port , this ship drifted somewhere near in Cyprus and started tank cleaning ops and that's when all hell broke loose on working schedules . Here's what happened On December 18, 2013 Wednesday. I started work at about 6am given that BOSUN AMICA...