JOURNALS OF A FILIPINO SEAMAN

" i know it's bad to be taking videos on the deck in a tanker , but the end justifies the means. I'm not greedy when it comes to knowledge and i share it to the world , Compared to other filipino sailors who withheld knowledge  in the pretence of "safety" as an excuse" Never occurred to me that my little rag tag group will outlast the other group on the internet, given that the group I assembled for the internet wasn't met with much enthusiasm at first. Anyway so far business is doing good and hopefully it will be that way till our rental on the internet expires soon. For the moment I had been taking pictures and video on deck , but having a regular camera for recording video's is way too exposed and noticeable for prying eyes especially if the rules on work says "No electronics of any kind on the deck area" . Despite the risk - I'm trying to record on video and capture on photos as much as data as possible on this entire journey. I ...

I browsed one particular filipino sailor themed facebook group on the net , and i find it quiet amusing that most of these sailors think only nothing but sex , degrading as it may sound but this is actual evidence that proves that Filipino's often times think very "low class" on this job ,  reading the replies of a female Filipino mariner asking for advise and it is met with tons of reply from other male Filipino sailor asking or even inviting her to have sex with them . Problem with us filipinos mariners is that a person ask us a decent question and we replied them with indecent proposals - talk about being ill mannered and low class ! (or specifically a horny sex hungry bastard)  anyway i had screen captured it to show proof  ( conversation text here is untranslated). question here is this IF FILIPINO SAILORS THINK (AND ACT) LIKE THIS ON THE INTERNET THEN HOW MUCH MORE DO THEY REALLY ACT IN THE ACTUAL WORK PLACE IN A SHIP ?  this alone makes me (and anyone reading ...

Could have been more bad timing than ever, In fact never occurred to me that my Hp pc would ever crash again - all because I was stupid enough to update my computer here, Now as a result I'm back again from scratch and worst part is all my data on my travels went to waste along with the computer games I registered with it, I'm not sure if my recovery program can recover all the data . For now I'm changing tactics on the backup systems and will let my PC / Tablet acer to be the "main" computer I use. I was able to recover some of the video's but not the whole entire data I made along with the articles I had to publish on my blog. For now I'm starting again on scratch. Given with these problems and the frequent reformatting of my HP gaming laptop, I'm now switching my base of operations (on the internet) and offline data to my other Acer computer / tablet , so basically the data will now be stored there instead of here on my HP . The only reason why im s...

Entry log at June 06, 2015 Saturday Out of nowhere I was called by the cabin phone and was asked to get some sort of 20 U.S. dollars from the bridge. I had no idea what this is all about and was only clarified that it was a sort of "Vetting Bonus" . Well I guess 20 dollars is better than nothing, but the thing here is this - according to Electrician Felix Rodriguez , we shouldn't be just getting only 20 U.S. dollars and apparently it should be roughly about 66 U.S. Dollars per person. Now the question here is where the hell did the extra 46 U.S. Dollars per person went ? Thirdmate Corales and Electrician Rodriguez suspects that it just went to the personal pocket of Captain Sorin Sageta and that he went greedy over the money. The thing here is that we went all the trouble and hard work on the vetting and yet the one's reaping the rewards was this so called "captain", making a "cut" on other peoples wages, what a total corrupt exploiting bastard ! A...

Entry log at June 01, 2015 Monday For a couple of days while this ship is at anchorage, we basically just did the basic maintenance work. Actually most of the time we just stayed for a few minutes pretending to be busy doing something. At about 10:30 Pm May 30. I received a call on my cabin telling me that I had to prepare the pilot ladder on the starboard side, Basically it was always the same charade again - and as expected on work, I'm back doing my same old routines  before the ship berths. The channelling towards 'KINDER MORGAN" terminal in Houston took at about 5 hours all in all, BOSUN Diosana told me that while the ship is still channelling , I could go back in the accommodation block and take a quick nap. I did went back to the accommodation block to rest but I never took a nap and instead just waited out and let the time pass by playing Metal Gear Solid 5 : Ground Zero's video game in my PC. Around 5am I was called back and it was already to be on standby ...

Entry log at May 24, 2015 Sunday Internet connection in T-mobile wasn't helpful, it was definitely very slow and frustrating. worst part of this was that before I activate the sim card for internet connection, I had to call the telephone operator and give her some details about my phone and personal information. Seriously if I would compare the American service to the European one when it comes to internet connection, European internet connection is way much easier. Anyway based on the experienced I had , here is the step by step process in activating a T-mobile (internet) sim card I bought on walmart before my ship left in Charleston, South Carolina. By the way the sim card cost 30 U.S.D. Step #1 Setup your phone 1.Insert your sim card into the back of the phone (duh !?) 2.Insert the battery and charge your phone (duh !!!!) Step# 2 Get Ready For Activation   Prepare to provide this information ,if an IVRS (answering machine) or telephone operator answers your call ACTIVATION CO...

May 22, 2015 Friday 10.30 pm the berthing operation of this ship commenced, and much to the annoyance of BOSUN Diosana (and most of the crew). Captain Sorin is rushing people to heave up anchor A.S.A.P. thinking that starting up the hydraulic system is just as simple as like opening a water faucet. During the transit , after the pilot has already boarded and me and O.S. Keith are at the crew mess. I heard on the radio that Bosun Diosana asked both of us to come to the aft area to help him out in clearing the soot off. When both of us came to the aft area I found out that Bosun Diosana wasn't referring to a small spot but the whole area of the aft part was covered with ash and it was an inch thick. We tried to use a broom to clear it off but with the strong winds and was totally pitch dark we made little progress , So basically it ended up to open the fire pump instead and wash the whole aft area before someone notices. We washed the whole aft area in short notice and effectively...