JOURNALS OF A FILIPINO SEAMAN

Journal entry : November 09, 2016 Location : Karachi Pakistan   Soon after the Saudi Arabia Loading ops was finish, this ship went to its next destination which is Karachi , Pakistan. It took only about roughly three days to reach the area on this ship and from here it will discharge its cargo,   So far the weather in Karachi Pakistan is a bit warm compared to Saudi Arabia right now, but the change of temperature is tolerable - feels just like the early summer days in the Philippines. I haven't clarified yet if the discharge operation here will be done on STS (ship to ship transfer) or be done in a port facility, But if it's an STS kind of operation then it's easy for the mooring and Unmooring part.   As of the moment , My day work was reduced to being just until 2.45 pm in exchange that there will be a anti - piracy watch for me every midnight, just to keep out people from stealing property from the ship. Basically I think Pakistan is a quiet place and not much fuss will...

Journal Entry: November 04, 2016 Friday Location: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia   Ship never stayed long on the Fujairah anchorage in UAE, it only stayed for a day just to do provisioning and bunkering and that’s about it,. Surprisingly the weather in Fujairah now is beautiful and somewhat cooler than my previous visit. Definitely very tolerable weather.   After this ship business is done in Fujairah, it went towards Saudi Arabia for loading of cargo. This ship stayed there for about three to four days before going to a port facility nearby.   The loading operation on Saudi Arabia was real quick , lasted only within at least 12 hours , apparently because only a limited cargo tanks was loaded and not all. During my whole 6 hour long shift , I was very busy being ordered around to check the sounding of the ballast tank. Which meant me having a sounding tape tool all the time.   Immediately after my second shift, The whole process of loading was already completed and we...

Blog Entry: October 22, 2016 Saturday Location : Enroute to Fujairah UAE   It's been a week that this ship is adrift in middle of the Indian Ocean, and three weeks since we left the ship yard on Singapore (to be specific 22 days) . There has been no news yet when this ship will be going aside from rough speculation that it might be headed to the middle east to load some cargo,   For the moment these past 22 days have been peaceful and doing the same old routine work of deck maintenance for me such as painting , in some occasions I would help Pump man on his usual work in the Pump room maintenance. Most of the time I'm just left to do work in housekeeping part.   Lately I had been thinking of forming a face book group, something that is very similar to the successful Wiki Leaks website - only it’s a Philippine Maritime Version.   Exactly like a public disclosure / Intelligence Group for Filipino sailors, I had been long thinking about this because of the suppress...

Blog Entry: October 18, 2016 Tuesday Location : Somewhere Adrift in the Indian Ocean   Its been a few days ( or weeks ) now since the social media scandal I got myself into and I'm starting to think that the crew here already knew what I posted in Facebook. I surmise that it might have already reached here on this ship about the incident, I not sure as well if I'm just being paranoid about it - the only thing I could do for now is kept silent and stay calm even if some of the crew are already joking it lightly and made indirect reference about me and the incident.   So what trigger my paranoia again ?! I was already finished helping pump man obina on his work in the pump room in clearing the oil that leaked there and went back to BOSUN Rodrigo in helping put up the anti-piracy razors wires at the deck - everything was doing fine and normal work for about an hour when we suddenly talked about Chief Cook then slowly shifted to me the discussion of the topic and jokingly tol...

Blog Entry: October 16, 2016 Location : Adrift Somewhere in the Indian Ocean   Been basically depressed for a couple of days now and amid fears and paranoia about reprisals coming from CF Sharp. I was busy thinking of the worst case scenario that they could throw at me when UFS blew my cover, and exposed me. Despite the emotional depression I had been having, I still have to act or at least "pretend" nothing happened and do my usual work routine schedule, at least here on these ship only three people knew what happened and even if they have knowledge , they don’t have the full details on what was the trouble I got myself into.   This may sound ridiculous , but just to rid myself of depression. I took in some pictures and dressed myself on some good clothes like a wannabe fustrated commercial model - normally I would just go outdoors a little to cope up with the stress but since it's not possible, I just decided to dress up and dress on my best clothes.     And h...

BLOG ENTRY: October 11, 2016 Tuesday Location : Somewhere in Indian Ocean   As the days went by here at the anchorage , everything was basically the same old routine. Paint the welded new metal with primer paint , Garbage segregation etc. The new crew here seems to be pleasant as far as I know and have new improved ( and far less repressive) Policies.   Lately I had been in trouble on the social media, this time apparently something I posted in Facebook which is against on my current company and principal I'm hanging out ( CF Sharp and Norstar) . Basically I have no idea how it got to their attention, about my negative postings against them - I could only speculate two things.   One speculation running thru my head, was the posting I made in "Tinig ng Marino" Facebook group ( a UFS , filipino seaman workers union social media arm) , obviously on my previous journal entries , I have written that the conversation went bad with Nelson Ramirez even threating me that h...

Journal Entry October 02, 2016 Sunday Location: Somewhere in Singapore.     October 01, 2016 in the morning of 8am, this ship has left sembawang dry docks after almost 2 weeks of ship repair. The ship repairs here on this ship is semi successful, mostly some important repairs that need to made are skipped out or   made on shortcut basis. Such example is the gangway ladder which apparently the pneumatic motor was never repaired , and according to what I heard Chiefmate Sydney Douza refused to have it repaired despite knowing the full importance that it should be in working condition.   Another problem that was ignored was the cargo piping system - pipe there was never replaced, so expect that this ship will be having black oil leaks every now and then on the deck area. Same story on the Winches as well.   The same thing happened also on a lot of things , such as the mid ship cranes and platforms were left unrepaired and in poor condition. Rumour has it and g...

    We have seen this posters numerous times already , so many times that it's no longer making any sense at all. This poster I saw on the internet is really interesting however this barely scratches the surface of the reality on being a Filipino sailor, It does provide a general detail but not the specifics and leaves a broader room for interpretation. Some of these facts reflect positive and others negatively and some doesn’t provide the reality.   LOADS OF MONEY - true on a financial basis that if you compare it via Philippine standards , Philippine money is way less than that of a U.S. Dollar (or even a Euro). Believe it or not purchasing power in the Philippines is bigger than western countries , and salaries for sailors are based in foreign pay (in U.S. dollars). In the Philippines a 900 U.S. Dollar for Salary for a sailor is a very big money but if you compare that salary in the united states - it is just only equal to a salary of a local fast food worker. If...