DE-MUCIING CREW

Journal Entry: August 31, 2016 Wednesday

Location: OPL Anchorage area, Singapore

 

 

There's an old saying by psychologist that if you can't talk something about it, then at least write something about it. I live on that saying given that sailors even up to nowadays still don’t have the freedom to talk freely, if one does - he / she will be subjected to an onslaught of retaliation either from the persons, foes, co-workers, organization, affiliation or any other group that was mentioned negatively. Opting also on the Social Media to discuss something is as dangerous as well, Basically there's no more secure place on the planet to talk about something other than inside a person head, On my case of course I cannot depend my safety on the having a journal on my computer and blog on cyber space. If I do wish to write something openly , I have to consider writing within a minimum safe distance from what I'm discussing to avoid the "social fallout" that will come after ., And there we go ,I am writing about something.

 

I'm glad that my blog is not that popular in cyber space , so there's at least some sort of privacy maintained and that the overall risk of back firing what I discussed or posted is lessen. I take full responsibility on what I post on my blog whether it will reflect me in a positive or negative way., either of both no one can order me around or make me retract what I post here. They can coerce, harass or blackmail me all they want, they can even fire me from work or outcast me socially , but it won't make me stop telling my story and the truth, and like I said on my introduction "I'd do it my way, and I'm old enough to get it my way" . Of course I know and fully aware that this publishing blog may lead me to "blacklisting" from the POEA or Manning agency , but that’s not the end of the world for me - the end of my seafaring career but not my life.  

 

For the moment, this whole epic tank cleaning operation is getting near now on its end, probably it is only a few days till the whole enchilada will be finished. Frankly it's about damn time they did finish this whole thing, it's already about two weeks and still ongoing. I wonder most of the time of on what goes on in the head of these people that it took them this long to clean up a few cargo tanks , I remember a few years back when I was in the chemical tanker, "tank cleaning" operations only lasted a few days to a few hours. Anyway it's their style and I'm just riding along on what they’re doing.

 

Recently on work …

 

Some water on the cargo tank are being pumped out and directly thrown at sea,. If I thought a couple of days ago pumping oily water out of the pump room was bad enough, then wait till I get a load on what happened on the following day. They are seriously pumping out above the deck and into the sea The water riddled with oil inside the cargo hold, and for some reason maybe out of stupidity , they think that the water inside those cargo tanks is clean and clear. Jeez what a total set of imbeciles !!! , I sometimes wonder how did they get their chief mate license in India and ship captain license on Myanmar. I mean with that kind of thinking ???, I'm seriously thinking that these retards will get the whole crew and ship in trouble with the authorities one day. (and when that day comes, I'm going to be as far to them as possible and renounce any association with these Mongoloid's)

 

Midway along the work , I even got an ugly insult from his lordship Chief mate Dsouza when I was unable to immediately understand on what he was pointing at on how to cleaning the floating smidge of oil in the water, The whole insults goes saying that "Do not have any oil tanker working experience - something like that" even implying that he's lordship is "superior" . On my saying Inside my head, I don’t give a fuck on this insult and berating , Funny on the fact he insults me by telling that "I don’t have any oil tanker experience" and yet when I look at his decisions in work tactics , it looks like he's was just a new comer Chief Mate, most of his decisions were impractical and a majority are pointless, and I don’t have to need a license just to tell how stupid his work tactics are. To make is short , he doesn’t have any idea on how to manage people, let alone on how to properly done and finish work. Now I'm starting to wonder why the Europeans (and generally the "whites") hate Indian workers, even my late dad said the same thing, that they are a lower class of people with lower class mentality and manners - very crude even for Asian standards.

 

Be as it may - that he's his Indian lordship thinks he's superior, as far as I'm concern I'm no company dog nor a company whore like him and the captain. They can shove Norstar company up on their ass, and for the record on his primitive brain - THIS IS MY THIRD SHIP , THAT I WORKED IN AN OIL TANKER !!!

 

In the afternoon , Pumpman Obina asked if I could tag along with him down below in the pump room ., Blindly I said yes and was relieved that he asked, Seriously I'm glad that I could get some time off from the "toxic" berating environment on the deck and a little change of working scenery would do the trick, a breather from all the annoyance from the Indian chief mate.

 

As usual the Pump room is flooded again with water mixed with black sticky oil, and it's no surprise that we had to pump it out a thousand times by now. It's basically the same old routine work, and for now the water below the pump room is more colored black than the usual., as in coffee creamer black.

 

The following morning …..

 

I was awoken on the vibrations from my cabin, and felt that the ship is actually moving. Immediately I looked outside and saw that indeed the ship was moving , but at a very slow pace. The ship must have heaved anchor and moved when I was asleep, and was not informed. Anyway I'm glad they didn’t , because if they did - it will only result that I don’t have any decent rest and they're ruthless enough to let me suffer from over-exhaustion. 

 

At about noon time , this ship dropped anchor still somewhere in the anchorage area of Singapore to wait for the De-mucking crew that will arrive to clean up the remaining sludge inside the cargo tanks. By the time I ended my working shift , I heard from O.S. "mark" that they have already arrived and is now setting up shop on the deck area. When I got back on my midnight shift, these de mucking crew were resting for the big day of work for them by tomorrow.

 

On noon, Chief mate Dsouza made a deck crew meeting on the ships office to inform us on what to do. It was discussed that the working shift will retain to be a four to four hour work shift , instead of being originally intended by chief mate to be a 6 to 6 hour shift. Pump man Obina and BOSUN Rodrigo will remain to do day work , Despite Chief mate insisting that Pump Man will go on watch work (good thing Pump man talked his way out). 

 

On the first day , things were doing well. Regardless that I had to wear the lame orange norstar uniform because the superintendents were around and have to tag along with them on their inspection with those cargo tanks. The De-mucking crew were doing their usual business in removing oil and muck on the cargo tanks and such, as a matter of fact they were so busy that they looked more like built a makeshift town above the deck area.

 

Originally we were not supposedly to enter nor meddle with the affairs with the De-Mucking crew. We were just there to basically watch and see them work and of course guard the accommodation space so that those guys don’t steal anything inside, Unfortunately recent update told us by Chief Mate Dsouza said that we should now check the progress of the De-mucking crew and enter the Cargo tanks frequently every now and then, even added that if we have any complaints about this then we can kindly ask the superintendents about this. The details why we have to meddle is that apparently one of the superintendents that came in complained that the "De-mucking" crew were working very slowly and that nobody in the deck even bothers to make rounds and check to see what are they doing. Of course that is "according" to the superintendents, or am I mistaken and thinking personally that this is just a personal excuse made by our "company dog" Myanmar Ship Captain (perhaps even the Indian Chief Mate) just to make our working routine more difficult. When asked by Bosun Hector Rodrigo if entering of these tanks and meddling with the affairs of the De-mucking are "paid" , Chief mate Dsouza replied "he will still consult the captain about this".

 

"STILL CONSULT ?!!!!" What the fuck does that mean ???!!! Excuse me do I come from their country and order people around to work for free ?! This just simply meant that they want us to do more task on our work FOR FREE, - what a pathetic excuse !!! I think they're just telling this to us because they want to impress the superintendents and having their presence around gives them a big hard on. Damn Company dogs !!!      

 

Anyway despite all the negative, it does come an opportunity for me to gather data on how inside the cargo hold tank looks like. It would be great for me to take pictures or even a video inside one of these cargo tanks. Since the public is already familiar on how a deck area looks like but got only a few glimpse on what is inside in the cargo tanks.

 

In other news

 

Looks like that O.S. "mark" will be moving in again on my cabin temporarily., as usual the reason is the lack of available cabins for the visiting Superintendents for the dry dock. From what I heard this ship will be expecting six superintendents (and this includes the annoying superintendent "Si thu Thwin" ), Well there's a vacant room being left behind by Fitter Lorzano when he returns home but it looks like that BOSUN Rodrigo has already got his greedy eyes on that space - So it leaves "Mark" no other choice but to tag along until Ship repairs on the ship yard will be over (which is for a month). Anyway I don’t mind having a roommate around and got used to the idea here that I'm sharing a room,. Besides Mark is a easy to get along with and I have no problems with him.