CROSSING PANAMA CANAL

ENTRY LOG MADE ON OCTOBER 02 , 2015

Just another tiring day again on work, and it’s a bit busier than the usual because today was supposedly the day this ship is going to cross panama canal. Work was already suspended at noon time to give way for us to rest and the only thing we did was pull out a few more mooring ropes in the aft and forward area. From what I recall we pulled out on 6 ropes forward and 4 ropes aft.  After that noon time wasn't exactly a rest time and all of us crew had to help out on the provisions , on my part in particular is the bond store.

Handling on the provisions on the shore side was apparently piss poor job on the ship chandlers side and there were some items that got broke during it was being transferred from the supply boat to our ship and as a result a few item got broken in the process, luckily no case of beer was broken nor even wine bottles. As for the bond store matters, it turns out that the Budweiser beer purchased here was way too expensive, as in about 25 U.S. Dollars per case. Obvious no one in the crew will be interested enough to buy that kind of beer.

After the doing work on the provision, 3rd mate Keith Cadua said that is should arrange the items in the bond store, took me till 5 pm to finish the whole deed and sort out the broken item , and re arrange them.

At night time 7pm , the ship finally resumed to transit the panama canal and stopped right in the middle of the transit (Gatun lake)and apparently will resume later at around 2pm the following,'

 since I'm still on bridge watch keeping duty, I did my usual job in maintaining a watch. Work isn't that heavy really it's just basically roaming on the whole ship and check for the anchor if it's still in position and it's much easier and not hectic with 2nd mate OLAN around.

Close to 2am in the morning, I heard a sound on my walkie talkie that Conti agulhas sister ship was also here in gatun lake panama as well, upon listening further I heard it was CONTI Guinea , and they were surprised as well to see (visually) Conti Agulhas on Gatun lake. Incidentally one of my acquaintance during CSM Cape days was also there,  Mr. Jermonick. I had a brief talk with him on the radio before the communications was cut off and gave me a warning. He says that as much as possible I should try to avoid being assigned in CONTI Guinea because the captain there was Mr. grigoras , One of the baddest mother fucker captains out in NSB. He added that if we think Sorin was an asshole in NSB , then Mr. Grigoras is the Devil incarnate,