TO THE DISTANT CONTINENT

APRIL 13, 2015

Dropping anchor wasn't as bad as it was compared to CONTI Greenland , No thanks to my previous BOSUN Nilo Payopay who made me learn on how to drop anchor effectively. Now given with my experience and skill acquired , I dropped anchor without any problems in CONTI Agulhas and believe it or not the anchor brakes have a much better grip than Greenland.

Anchoring procedure is slightly a bit different in Agulhas and this ship only requires one BOSUN and one O.S. to drop and anchor the vessel compare to other ships I had been before. Typically there should be two O.S. around and a BOSUN during anchoring operation but somehow they have reduced the staff to just two. Anyway like any other NSB Conti Ships, Anchoring is still via free fall / gravity type and not by winch.  

In the meantime after dropping anchor this ship has finally arrived in Netherlands after a couple of days sailing, Its now exactly sure on the next destination of this ship after Netherlands it could be somewhere again on Europe, or Africa or maybe perhaps in America. Doesn’t really matter at all, as long as Captain Sorin gets disposed of - everything's going to be fine without him.

There's a rumour going on that this ship might be headed for Ecuador after discharge in Netherlands but it's still hard to tell if this is confirmed, but there is some hints that this ship might be headed there. From what I heard CONTI Ginuea had some problems with the U.S. Coast Guard at the moment regarding fire safety and flunked the inspections TWICE and as a result CONTI Ginuea might be pulled out from its dedicated station in the America's and be called back in Europe and as a rumour this ship will serve as a replacement since this ship had already a previous voyages before in the America's.

On my opinion the America's has a plus and minus factor, plus in the sense that electronic goods are really in good quality and cheap there. There a possibility that I might be even get my hands on a Mac Computer for my sister there, in other words America is good economically. Another good thing about America's is the communications, Internet connection is definitely good there - so there won't be any problems for me contacting my relatives there in case they need me in an emergency. Probably there's even the possibility that money wire transfers is accessible in the America's (door to door money delivery service in Filipino terms)

The minus part is the weather and the disembarkation part, Currently the weather in America is definitely hot and humid at this time - it may be ok and cool here in Europe even on summer for Filipino standards but in America , Summer there is another story. From what I had experienced years before - America during summer time is hellishly hot, perhaps even hotter than the Philippines. Definitely a big no - no for me since almost all of my equipment are suited in cooler cold climates like in Europe. 

Another thing that concerns me is the luggage restrictions in Ecuador (in case of possible disembarkation). From what I heard on my colleagues at work. The airline there can only accommodate one check in luggage per sailor, In other words it's only a 20 kilogram limit and I'd be forced to leave or even pay the other check in luggage I had if ever there's a possibility I'm going to disembark there on the latter. Anyway this is only a possibility, and as much as possible its disembarkation should be in the U.S. given that I still have a valid U.S. Visa.

I do hope that this will not be the situation that this ship will be facing on the latter, I'm still optimistic that this ship will still be based on Europe rather than in the America's

IN OTHER NEWS ….

Given with the excess amount of time and much more "light" working schedules of Conti Agulhas, I had decided to restart my gym program after almost a year being dormant. The gym equipment in NSB Conti isn't as good as the one's in CSM Cape's but at least its sufficient to maintain a workout.

On work related affairs. For the moment since there is still no announcement yet on which date and time will the pilot come , we are off doing maintenance work  in chipping a few rust on the crane for the fast rescue boat. As much as possible BOSUN Diosana limits the work as much as possible since there's no exact assurance on what time and date will this ship berth at the moment and it's difficult to be caught off guard that were still doing maintenance while this ship is already berthing.

Aside from the rescue boat, we did also chipped off part of the hook on the cargo crane and the water tight door in the deck store.

Anyway one observation I had found out is on this CONTI NSB ship, people here have a low morale when it comes to work , probably in the fact that salary has been reduced to 103 from 120 hours of overtime pay ( no thanks to captain sorin) and there is absolutely no way sailors here are compensated here on the hard work, heck even the ship officers here change actual working hours on our working job sheet papers and reduce them just to appease people on NSB office that they won't pay up on the sailors extra efforts, Thinking that the sailors here do really actually love their work .  I wouldn’t  blame my co-workers here for such having a low morale given on the working conditions, after all nobody in the world would want to work for free and we would be better off slacking and resting rather than work without being compensated.