JOURNALS OF A FILIPINO SEAMAN

Much to my dismay and disappointment , Saturdays and Sundays work off (rest day) have been cancelled meaning that everyday is work day here - to make it even worse overtime working hours pay has been reduced yet again from 85.5 hours to 54 hours. To simply say it situations onboard this ship have escalated further and has gotten worse. Imagine more work and less pay, ( Anyway what do i expect from a ship run by soviets eh ? No democracy and more of a dictatorship ) in addition to the worse situation , Provision here are running very low - both on equipment and on food. The bond store has been high and dry now, while on the deck area the equipment there is insufficient , the stocks of paint have been so low that only a few cans of paint are left. There is no paint thinner left on the paint room as well. December 07, 2013 Saturday For the moment half of my day on work was spent cleaning my cleaning station, wasn't an easy job and wasn't easy at all now that there's no rest da...

Again there's another shortage of provisions and had been sick and tired ever now and then that this is always been a problem for CSM / Career Ship management that i have to deal with often. Free mineral water here is near depletion and it may not be long that all of the crew might be starting to drink again on the rust riddled water fountain. Furthermore is that the goods in the bond store are already depleted , as in ZERO - there are no more soft drinks to drink with , the beer and wine are gone as well and heck even the chocolates are no more. The only thing that's left is toiletries supply and a lot of boxes of cigarettes. I don't want to have an idea that this ship is near starvation but that is the current picture I am viewing on a CSM / Career Ship management Company is that they're so stiff that they're starving their crew on the most basic of all needs and supplies. December 03, 2013 On the afternoon of December 3rd, 2013 Byron knocked thru my door informin...

Apparently from what i heard, This ship is going to be in Lebanon for a little while longer. There are rumours circulating onboard that this ship might go berth here on two different places. Obvious the first one is Zouk, lebanon and the other is still undetermined yet, the first discharge from what i heard on the rumour will be just discharging the first four cargo tanks , then go at anchorage again then go berth to a nearby buoy like the first one and discharge the remaining cargo. After Lebanon , this ship might be probably be heading off to Piraeus, Greece to do some Tank cleaning scenario (and might as well clean the remaining ballast tanks) after that i guess its headed for the dry docks then that big plane home - Of course this is just the rumours circulating around here and these so called plans are subjected to change at moments notice, no concrete plans at all. For work..... Currently the deck crew are doing deck maintenance as usual, Chipping off rust with a jet chisel then ...

Nearly three weeks have passed since this ship took off from Louisiana U.S.A. and now finally this ship will be reaching soon to its destination, the country named MALTA. The first stop before hitting the dry docks , after MALTA if I'm correct will be Lebanon then the dry docks somewhere in Bulgaria, then probably (or most likely ) that big plane home. This may sound simple enough but it takes a lot of time before this actually could happen - the only thing I'm certain is that after the dry dock repairs , I'd be finishing my contract and be going home soon.   For now I guess I'd just be happening to describe what went on in MALTA….. Currently I know very little about MALTA. All I know is that this is some island nation in the middle of the Mediterranean sea south of Italy, very small and has only roughly a population of half a million. Aside from that I know nothing else, anyway it doesn't really matter. For the moment most of the mooring ropes are put up and transf...

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