PREP TIME FOR DRY DOCK 2

Journal Entry: August 26, 2016 Friday

Location: OPL Anchorage area, Singapore

 

 

Every now and then since this whole tank cleaning operation began, we have been jumping work from one segment of this ship (called wings) to the other. The lasted news is that 2nd wing of this ship has been finally finished on the "hot wash"   (meaning wash the whole cargo tank with hot water) and were now moving in yet again on 5 wings on the same "hot wash" phase. As usual and no big surprise, the cargo tank cleaning machine are not working properly, its automatic version is broken and have now resorted to being operated manually using a 19mm wrench (term called "manomatic" in filipino), and thats not the only problem plaguing the tank cleaning machine here in Eagle Boston. Hydraulic is frequently leaking on some machines and one machine even has a hole on the pipe from severe corrosion, spewing water riddled with black oil on a small portion in the deck area.

 

Manually operating the tank cleaning machines here is such a chore, to the point that the whole automatic function of the machine had disappeared and we had to turn those dials very slowly just to make that machine (barely) work at all. Aside from the faulty equipment here, the Indian officers add more complication to the problem and always buzzes around our walkie talkie's , saying to do this and that and we have to report to them every detail of the work done - very chore some gum flapping. We haven't even finished the previous work given and another one comes , too much unnecessary work !

 

Today I had one minor incident to write about which I apparently got the metal end of the sounding rod cut off , while I was making a sounding on 2 star board tank. It's not clear why the metal end of the equipment got cut while inside the cargo tank but A.B. "Enrique" , suggests that the apparent cause was that it got sucked by one of the suction pipes. According to him normally sounding of the tanks would be made a few minutes to an hour after the tanks has been finished from the "hot wash" phase, but since our indian officers are always in a hurry to find results fast, they ordered me to drop the whole damn thing inside the cargo tanks without even considering that fact - which eventually lead to my situation.

 

A.B. "Enrique" says that it’s a good thing that I only broke the cargo sounding rod and not the UTI equipment and finding a metal replacement rod attached to a string rope is much easier than a whole electronic equipment sensors being sucked out to the suction pipes.

 

(for the public information, a cargo sounding rod equipment is a very crude version of a ballast sounding tape and is specifically used for making soundings on the cargo hold tank)

 

Anyway the good news is that 5 wings have already been cleared and so is the 2 wings area and now only slop starboard tank is being worked out on the hot wash - for now. While waiting for the slop starboard to be finished, A.B. "Cordova"  had a little small talk and asked if this is my first time in the dry docks like mistaking me for some sort of newbie idiot. I replied that it's my third time just to dispel his thought of me being lesser and said in details my two other experiences in dry dock (ship repair) operations, end of story on his pathetic thinking. Anyway our little chat also mentioned about keeping our cabins always locked while in the shipyard , just to avoid any dock workers that have the potential to steal stuff from the crew. 

 

After that small chat , I went on a coffee break on the crew mess.

 

Honestly I shouldn't be drinking coffee in the first place, it messes up my stamina and tire easily when I drink this, it has all sorts of nasty acute side effects on my body - but I don’t have any much choice on what beverage I should drink just to keep me awake on late night watches, there's not much selection either on the kitchen (or food to begin with to eat) and if there is , I'm not allowed to order stuff on the bond store if I don’t have any real money around - because I'm a FILIPINO. Damn !! Talk about discrimination !

 

Anyway the most effective drink for me to stay awake without any acute side effects is drinking soft drinks which I could purchase on the bond store , but like I said before on my previous entry the "bond store" here onboard is almost non-existent as if like the captain here is intentionally starving the crew and what's more on this ships wretched bond store is that anti- Filipino policy were i can only purchase stuff if i have real paper money around (in U.S. Dollars currency),. So basically to make it short I'm drinking this poisonous coffee with no or little choice - not really a comfortable working place, (the discriminating policies here do not allow Filipino's to purchase via payroll deduction) .

 

The following  morning  

 

My working shift started in just less than 10 minutes and immediately I was met with more work than the usual. This time this ship has some sort of clogging problem in the manifold area, and we have to sort out the problem in removing some sticky black oil that accumulated there, really messy work ! And more difficult to accomplish because of the humid weather.

 

While doing work , the radio keeps chirping like a bird on channel 1, because our Myanmar captain, Indian chief mate and second mate keep on ordering people now that have each a radio on their disposal. On my end while I was on deck , I haven't even finished yet doing the previous work , then comes another either one from those three people and literary every three meters or so walking away from the area I get pestered by these trio.

 

Thankfully despite the radio clutter, Pumpman managed to fix some of the tank cleaning machines, which meant reducing people babysitting those defective machines, now its mostly a 1:1 ratio compared to before having a 1:3 ratio. (One man babysitting 3 machines)

 

During the end of the working shift

 

Bosun Hector Rodrigo informed me that there will be changes on the working schedule immediately from 6 to 6 hour shift, it will now be reduced to 4 to 4 hour shift. I didn't even get to bother the details why management here changed the schedules , but its most likely they want to save money by reducing the overtime pay since recently the overtime pay shot up to 200 percent excess. Nothing wrong with that, just the typical mind thinking of a typical company dog like the Myanmar captain.