JOURNALS OF A FILIPINO SEAMAN

So far so good, after a month I finally figured out how an email station works here , but of course I still leave a benefit of the doubt if this every reaches print on my blog given that I'm not so sure about the email blog address I typed in or the effectively of the email station computer here onboard. ? To describe the email system here onboard CONTI Greenland, the email here is much more primitive and crude compared to the "mariner mail" CSM uses. The "Globe email" is barely bare bones compared to the usage from my previous ship - but despite its backwardness , as long as this so called "Globe email" is useful enough to transmit at the very least just plain text , then it will be fine with me. ? I haven't wrote yet the differences from NSB ship to CSM one's, so I guess this is the perfect opportunity to describe the dissimilarities between the two. Aside from having a much bigger salary and less contract time in NSB , the supplies here se...

Never had occurred to me that despite having a full set of gear during work , my eye could be injured. Incident happened during unmooring ops in Netherlands. Me and BOSUN PAYOPAY was securing all the mooring ropes for the long travel, after securing all the equipment on the fore and midship area we got to the aft part and lowered the ropes using the circular hatch at the aft. I was wearing my goggles at that time and peeked at the hole, nothing happened and was very much an ordinary hatch. The temperatures were during that time of day was warm and for a second just simply adjusted my goggles for better comfort on the warm temperature, While adjusting a sudden gush of air came out of the hatch - along with it a puff of dust. A piece of the dust caught my left eye and that's when the trouble started. Left eye was having difficult in opening up and can't even focus on an object or even look straight at it. Despite the problem I was able to finish the work. Soon after the shift, I...

July 04, 2014 Amsterdam Port Netherlands I shouldn't be writing this and shouldn't be dragging my personal problems on this journal , but how else am I going to record my thoughts ? . These past few days for me have been difficult for me not on my professional life but on my personal one. News have reached me when I called my sister over the phone that our mom is in bad shape soon after I left, I have no details on what exactly happened but it seems that our mom is in the hospital and her condition is getting worse - she is now undergoing dialysis to save her life. Based on what my sister told me , one day Aunt Tess just found mom unconscious when she visited our house and she immediately rushed our mom to the hospital. She contacted my sister on latter and informed her of the situation. Mom Medical Bill for the moment When my sister went to the hospital to check mom, she discovered that mom's kidney disease has progress in an advance stage and it is imperative that she und...

JULY 02, 2014 Wednesday GREENLAND PLUS SIX After waiting for two day and one night at the local maritime hotel in Rotterdam, the mess man and I received a phone call informing us that we are going to be fetch by a cab and accompany us to CONTI Greenland ship. The three of us checked out on the room at about 10am and waited in the hotel lobby until 11am. As expected a cab came to fetch us. Before we headed to CONTI Greenland , we had to pass thru on a nearby immigration post then on the local port terminal before going to the ship. I had no problem on those security checks and passed thru without any problems. Conti Greenland on first glance is very much an average ship for my standards, not that large nor not that small. From what I can describe its deck floor is coloured orange and most of the deck equipment is medium in size including the mooring equipment. Not a problem for me in handling and wielding those equipment even if I haven't done some workout for almost 6 months. Fr...