JOURNALS OF A FILIPINO SEAMAN

JULY 10, 2015 Couple of days after Venezuela, we were again doing basically the same old usual maintenance work. Mostly were just washing the deck area, removing rust stains using a rust remover chemical on the ship chimney, segregating trash on the garbage room and literary scooping up dirt and throwing it overboard. This ship arrived in Florida USA, at July 10, 2015 noon time and we dropped anchor, during the dropping of anchor job, we encountered a minor problem on the "drop" which apparently the chains got stuck and wouldn't go any further after a shackle and a half was lowered. BOSUN Diosana tried to use a sledge hammer to smash and kick start the chain but it was unresponsive. (do not try this method - its ill-advised) , so in the end we received an order from Captain Waldemar Romaniuk that we should lower the anchor by gear. The whole process of lowering it was very slow and took us about 15 to 20 more minutes to lower 7 shackles in the water. During Noon time , ev...

July 01, 2015 Finally arrived at this place after two days from panama, This ship arrived at around close to 8pm and as usual procedure me and BOSUN Diosana was in standby at the forward to drop anchor. Anchoring wasn't a problem in dropping and that it was dropped at 6 shackles on deck, it was very quick and very messy as expected on any anchor drop via gravity. It left a big puff of dirt cloud while being dropped - enough to cover me whole and left my coveralls all coated with mud According to the previous safety meeting discussed at the crew mess yesterday - on this country , this ships security level will be raised to marsec level two and It will be a double watch while this ship is anchored, so basically as what the name implies there will be two persons on standby until this ship readies itself on berth. In the meantime while this ship is still waiting , some of the crew here are doing business and trading off a few stuff from nearby fishing boats that pass. Some of us got lu...

"Fifty Shades of grey " means  a lot of facets of personality. Can go from gentleman one minute to Psychotic on the next. usually refers to a situation that is not clear, particularly with regard to whether or not something is categorically evil. When doubt comes into play, things are neither black, nor white, but are in a gray area. Recently found an interesting topic from a seaman themed organization on facebook , I would like to share it. Apologies if this article is untranslated , Article from https://www.facebook.com/groups/filseaface/ LAHAT NG ITO'Y MAY KATOTOHANAN NA DAPAT HUWAG TULARAN KUNG SA TINGIN MO'Y MAYRON KANG KAPWANG SEAMAN NA MAAPAKAN. NAWA'Y BAGOHIN NATIN ANG MGA BAGAY2X NA MASANG2X PAKINGGAN. REPOST: Hi Sir Jans kindly hide my name.Ito yung naobserbahan ko sa larangan ng trbaho natin. " Uri ng Mga Seaman " 1) PornStar - pagkatapos ng trabaho, nandoon na sa tv room, nood ng mga porno. 2) Tundo/Cavite - Konting pahid ng pintura, nandoon...

June 28th 2015 Ship has a new captain before it transited to panama canal, some say that this so called "romanyov guy" is a much better compared than this "Sorin" guy , others say he's equally ruthless and that this ship is in no better environment with him around. Specifically electrician felix rodriguez and a few other say we should be careful with this new captain and that as much as possible try to avoid greeting him with a smile on our face and try the serious look. Anyway it won't make any difference anyhow - after all I'm just now on my third month here and another three months more and I'd be going home back in the Philippines. By Saturday, I was surprise that the work put on us by chief mate was "mopping" . I mean mopping on a product tanker ? (mopping means taking the water out of the cargo hold), typical this work is done on a chemical tanker and I haven't heard of such a thing being done in a product tanker, but irregardless...

JUNE 14, 2015 SUNDAY Finally arrived in panama after two days of travelling from Ecuador, as usual there is nothing much to say about the weather here and it's still uncomfortably hot and I hope that we transit this area as soon as possible. When we arrived here, ship are to anchor first as to determine the traffic schedule for the transit. The following day no thanks to our beloved "captain cobra"  we still had work until noon despite the fact that this ship will be transiting at around 4pm. I waited a couple of hours at my cabin and when Pump man thanny visited he mentioned that it was changed from 4pm to 6pm. At 6pm, as expected I was called on my cabin phone and ordered to be on standby for heaving of anchor. Due to traffic related issues on panama canal , this ship didn’t heaved anchor until two hours later. It was the very much same drill as what we did going to the pacific side of panama canal, pretty straight forward. Pick up the pilot , wait for the panama moo...