JOURNALS OF A FILIPINO SEAMAN

Been here for two weeks now and yet , i still haven't fully adjusted to my surroundings - worse I'm more restless than ever knowing that my deployment back at sea would be much sooner than i actually expect. I was thinking in mind that my vacation would be at least 4 months minimum here and i could easily rebuild and pick up some agenda's that i left behind before going back again. Seriously I find it strange that CSM is giving less priorities to people who are very anxious in going back to work at sea than sailors who are unwilling and plan to stay longer on land. I cant really enjoy my vacation if CSM keeps pressuring me to back to work when in fact i should be staying home for a vacation. In the meantime i went early in the morning to Career Ship management to get the pay check for my leave pay since I'm going to use the money on a lot of things, well mostly for the remaining supplies that I'd be needing and to cover the cost of the remaining seminar lectures tha...

Intentionally didn't log on to the internet for a few days, I figured that i needed some time off from being hooked up all the time on face book   and pay more attention on more important matters. For the moment, i was busy preparing and sorting out the equipment I'd be needing on my next ship work and I'm almost complete on the list of items that I'd be needing. for the general knowledge of the public , here are the items that i will bring along on my work , These are only additional equipments that i will add on my existing "standard equipment" that i have currently. Mefenamic Acid 50pcs   Antibiotics (amoxicillin 500) 50 pcs Shavers Gillete 4pcs Panteen shampoo 2 bottles of 70ml Rubbing alcohol 2bottles Dextrose powder 1 bottle Band Aid strips 12 Pcs Cotton Gauge 2 rolls Vitamin E 400mg Myra brand 3 bottles Vitamin C 500mg Rhea brand 4 bottles Vitamin B Complex 8 Bottles Centrum multivitamins 2 bottles Medical Tape 1 roll DECK EQUIPMENT Army Parka Raincoat ...

Being a Sailor , I mostly Think this is right especially to my fellow pinoy sailors Been almost a week since i got back home and  a lot has changed on the house while I'm away as if like i was in a different place . The feeling of like "its my home and yet it feels different " scenario , i couldn't explain it exactly but the aura of the house feels somewhat different from what i left off months ago. I am now an alien on my own home and somewhat feel detach on almost everything in my environment, My place is slightly different from what i got used to know months ago, it's far more messy than it was and most of my stuff (clothes etc) are now in stored plastic cabinets, as if like my whole identity is sealed on those ruins, Aside from that most of the things that i care about are already gone such for example my pet cats. Before my first travel as a sailor i had a lot of pet cats - counting as many as 25 , I had been always found of caring those little animals, i had...

Took me quiet a while to get my sense back again after the long trip back home , as expected my disembarkation is on Cartagena, Spain and it was good news that my disembarkation pushed thru on that port. Seriously I'm not yet tired working onboard the ship but the main reason why i wanted to go home is to finally get rid of my enemies there once and for all (as we all know its "Bull Frog" Amican and 2nd Officer Renan Aveda Olis A.K.A "Bastard - O " ).The Disembarkation schedule - In a funny twist of fate will be carried out on two groups , The reason why it will be two groups was because of the fact that four people ( "Bull Frog" Amican, Oiler Rogel , 3rd Engineer Cranz and A.B. Homer) have issues with the European visa (Schengen to be specific, Visa mentioned on my entry "The Hunt for Schengen") . Apparently from what i heard is that these four don't have any schengen visa's yet and processing takes two days resulting that they will ...

For the moment I'm renovating some parts of my blog and inserting pictures and giving it "substance". Will post later on for my latest entries. I'm already here in the Philippines and I have the luxury and resources to renovate my official blog . Please stay tuned for my next entry ........

" Filipino Sailors are an interesting kind of people, an interesting mix. Capable of the best of dreams and the worst and most horrible of nightmares " "Unnamed Filipino Sailor" saying the words to an acquaintance after completing the contract onboard Cape Tallin. DRAMATIS PERSONA CAPE TALLIN Igors Slabada (latvian, Captain of Cape Tallin, Returns back on Jan 14 2014) Gocha Tetrashvili (Georgian National, Chief Officer ) Renan Oveda Olis (Filipino, 2nd officer) German Jr. Tan Corales (Filipino, 3rd Officer) Sergey Il'yantsev (Russian, Chief Engineer, Returns back on January 14, 2014) Ards Jekabsons (Latvian, 2nd Engineer, went back again on November 2013) Cranz Magistrado (Filipino, 3rd Engineer) Henerson Patino Gonzales (Filipino, 4th Engineer) Koba Tsiskaradze (Georgian National, Electrician, went back again on November 2013) Zacarias Amican (Filipino, BOSUN) Nilo Pastrana (Filipino, Pump man) Ronald Hiteroza Caldona (Filipino, Able Bodied Seaman) Patrick Bor...

February 21st 2014, Friday After a day of delay due to bad weather (which i had nothing to do but look for rust and sweep it on the deck as my maintenance work), This ship has finally commenced in berthing with Vladimir tikonov at around 10am. We didn't do any deck maintenance work when we were standby at around 8am given that mooring and berthing are more important , and aside from that we don't kind of feeling like working at all since 7 Filipino crew will be disembarking (including me) on the turkey straights right after this operation. Everything was ready before the this ship berthed to Vladimir , SOPEP , Fire fighting Equipment. So it was just directly going back to the security watch duties after Mooring. From what i heard on the rumour that loading operations will be very short in "FCS Vladimir Tikhonov" , roughly just 12 hours to 16 hours since it pumps cargo much faster than "NS Lion" . After my watch , I did the usual packing of my luggage and cou...

February 24, 2014 Monday " there's a saying that a commander shouldn't leave his soldier even if he lies wounded, half dead , his arms torn off and his sockets and intestines spilling on the mud and being eaten by the birds. However this isn't the military and these Filipino Sailor's do not live on the code of honour " Ship will be heading back now in Istanbul turkey and head out away from the Baltic area, For the moment it will be on standby near Istanbul, Turkey and await further instruction from the traffic on when will be the time of channelling. For the moment this ship is just drifting nearby the channelling area ( not anchored as earlier thought) and it arrived at around 7pm late at night, probably because its waiting for a schedule on the pilot to arrive. During the night, i was invited for a drink on A.B. Mallorca's cabin , I didn't turned down the invitation and heard a few rumours about some crew. There was fitter Sano, Oiler Rogel and Pump ...

February 15, 2014 Saturday Saturday as expected wasn't exactly "half-Day" work at all, Apparently Chief Mate Bezruchko isn't very lenient when it comes to weekends compared to his predecessor Chief Mate Nagorny and as anticipated most of the crew here are not very happy about it. Usual practice here in this ship (Cape Tallin), Saturdays are half day work while Sundays are rest day. However ever since Captain valeriy and Chief mate Bezruchko arrived they started having idea's cancelling off rest days (It started on my entry "Pointing Fingers") and putting more work load, worst part of it is that were already over worked and the overtime pay got decimated to around only 55 hours instead of the usual 120 Hours as normal practice here. Captain Valeriy is already gone and has been replaced by Captain Slabada (during this ships dry dock repairs last January 2014) however the practice of cancelling out weekends still haven't stopped, The insult to this is t...

FEBRUARY 16, 2014 Monday Wasn't exactly sure on Sunday if their is work or a rest day, So just to confirm i hanged out in the crew mess for a while until i was absolutely sure that it was really a rest day. I wont really go to so much trouble in confirming if it was a rest day or not if the chief mate wasn't Mr. Bezruchko , If it was Chief mate nagorny - It's definitely a 100 percent rest day on Sundays. View if the FPSO ship NS Lion Behold The EPES turkish Beer  So what happened during my *hang out* time in the crew mess, well Fitter Sano was having an early morning drinking session on beer (as early as 7am in the morning) while it was only me who took a breakfast. Obviously Fitter sano invited me to join him on his ongoing drink, I joined in in seeing that there's nothing wrong drinking on a rest day , besides that i don't want to get into the wrong impression. I had a couple of drinks probably 4 to 6 bottles of EPES Turkish beer and had a few small talk with fitt...

Much as people expect that Saturday would be at least half day work, It was far from it - no thanks to our disregardful Chief Mate. Instead as it turned out - it was whole day work , and much of it was spent on removing the ice accumulations on the bollards and bitts. Now big question is why the hell are we (deck crew) standing here and smashing this huge pile of ice in the first place ??? According to him we need to remove the ice ASAP as their is a possibility that bunkering ops *MIGHT* begin soon. ( Geez - Seriously ??? With this kind of weather, with all the blizzard and all , plus the sun hasn't shined for almost two weeks and temperature going to and from negative 9 to negative 11 degrees Celsius, - I SO REALLY NOT THINK SO !!! ) Does he seriously believe berthing operations will commence on this kind of weather ?! , Only stupid sailors would do that . Its very obvious that its cancelled until the snow storm clears Anyway we still did the job order even with much protest deep...