BACK TO EUROPE

"I will start from scratch on this new ship, but I have done so successfully before. When I started out a few years ago I only relied on my strength and vigilance. Survivalism has never baffled me, as it has so many others. Such principles just makes sense in me. I will lead my family to great riches, and Career Ship management will profit once I had my share"

APRIL 05, 2015 Sunday

After being notified by Career Shipping company on such a short notice, and getting the plane ticket in just a few hours before the actual despatch (can you imagine me hurling my way on such long distance from my home) and successfully making it all the way to Taragona, Spain along with five others. Only the four of us proceeded directly out of the airport and into Conti Agulhas (what no hotel accommodations??) and one was left to the hotel to be followed in joining us on the latter.

While writing this , I had been on CONTI AGULHAS for a couple of hours now, staying on the Suez cabin temporarily and making observations. So far I won't be able to make yet a full analysis on my situation, but here's some information I had gathered within just a couple of hours. CONTI Agulhas seems to be having problems with the water supply and as far as I'm concerned and this affects basic stuff like laundry and potable water (one litre of mineral water allowed only for now per person as opposed to my previous ship Conti Greenland were there's an abundance of water).

One observation I made something about this ships current captain. From what I heard on rumours  spreading on my previous ship they're not saying anything positive about this so called Captain "Soren" guy. I asked a few folks here on CONTI Agulhas and they say the captain is an OK guy but they're comments are somewhat restrained and hiding something, or their comments are somewhat fake on my intuition, - not exactly sure for now but it gives me a nasty impression that something might be wrong on the surroundings.

Another observation I had made is when I had a small chat on the O.S. I'd be replacing. He mentioned something that folks around here are easier to get along with and theirs so called "harmony" , Honestly when he mentioned that, It raised my suspicion that people here might not be going along well and based from my experience both from STOLT Strength and more recently Cape Tallin - you don’t mention those kinds of words (or highlight it) when everything is exactly  in good harmony, but like I said I haven't made my mind yet on what's the general situation on-board this ship given that I had just arrived.

As for the folks here, I had been familiar with Pump man Thanny and chief cook Pineda from Conti Greenland and their Ok and for the moment all the other folks I saw are somewhat less of a threat for now (or my data and observations is still incomplete). However theirs a folk here whom I encountered on Cape Tallin and obviously I'm not in good terms with him ever since my days there. To be specific I'm mentioning 3rd mate German Tan Corales (the predecessor of Third Made Byron Fourie in Cape Tallin) who happens to be now the current 3rd mate of Conti Agulhas, He's not much of a threat in general but the problem is that he knows my past being in a call centre before and that kind of information is very dangerous and damaging when I work as a sailor. Worse part of it is that this guy sucks on keeping confidential information and sooner or later I suspect that this fucker will spill in the beans and damage my reputation when I'm really having a bad day. Regardless it’s a good thing that NSB ships have only a life span contract of six months maximum and after that I'd be starting again on a clean slate, So whatever the damage this might incur, it will only be temporarily and will not hurt a lot in general.

For the flora and fauna around Conti Agulhas, basically this ship is just almost an exactly replica of CONTI Greenland, the piping systems , the arrangement of rooms and even positions of equipment are very much the same. Based on the rumours I heard about Conti ships, it looks like that indeed their claims are correct and each of the six Conti Ships are exactly alike to each other. The only difference is that this Conti Agulhas is more of a Chemical Tanker rather than a Full fledge Oil tanker like in Conti Greenland

For now my general observations on life in Conti Agulhas is that there is a present danger but not enough to make my hairs stand given with my experience , But in the meantime as a friendly warning I better be careful and watch my back.

In other news….

Certainly took me a while to finally get used to my surroundings, For the moment my data and analysis is still incomplete on the flora and fauna of Conti Agulhas and I can only give the basics of my situation here.

On the moment Conti Agulhas structure and layout is very similar (if not alike) on Conti Greenland ship. From the individual cabins - all the way to the piping system and railings , as if like I was totally warped back to Greenland. I had no trouble in memorizing the surroundings , the only difference is were equipment's are supposedly to be located. 

In the meantime , this ship is currently in Tarragona, Spain discharging Naptha. Some sort of "white" petroleum products, (though I'm not exactly sure if this is a poisonous version of naptha ). Discharge operations were finish on the span of only two days and the next port is still in Spain with only a six hour difference, Soon after the discharge I took care of the essentials like washing my civilian clothes and take a bath (haven't cleaned myself up until I left the Philippines)