JOURNALS OF A FILIPINO SEAMAN

For the moment things have turned upside down for me, first off was my gaming laptop HP broke down very recently due to suspected battery reasons. Second is that I can't play "Call of duty : modern warfare" videogame together with my crew mates because of this. In other words my hp laptop is pretty much useless and finding a replacement will take some time and money. i can still play games with my tablet PC  acer but the graphics fell short compared to my HP laptop. I tried to restore It and reformat my computer thinking it was some sort of virus but apparently it didn’t work and the worst part was that all the system updates I made was deleted. As in all of it. I was back from scratch and asking help to my crew mates was not helping at all and ended up me losing more data on my works. Fortunately for me some of the data that is stored on my HP laptop is backed up using my acer tablet pc including this diary , so my diary / journal  data loss is the least to worry abou...

Entry log AUGUST 30 , 2015 La Havre, Normandy France discharging operation went real quick, as in only 20 hours of discharging. We started off practically 2 am in the morning , when the French pilot boarded and ended 48 hours later on the same time. La Havre is convenient to go on shore leave on the seaman's Centre, and the transportation is basically free, probably I suspect that after visiting the seaman's center , I could practically go around and visit the surrounding place. Unfortunately due to short of time , I never got to go ashore and see the surrounding place (and neither any crew) - made the next time I visit this place I can go on shore leave and see how beautiful la Havre is. Internet in France is very convenient compared to any nearby European country I seen so far , they even surpassed the Dutch and Germans when it comes to internet service. The internet is fast enough to use and truly unlimited for 48 hours which is good for heavy downloader's like myself...

Entry log august 29 1984 Happy birthday to me ! Happy birthday to me , happy birthday , happy birthday , Happy birthday to me - you old dinosaur.  Well cheers to me , I am now officially an adult , and an old hag. Years passed by and I hardly felt that I'm now a fully grown Hag errr…. dinosaur errr…. I mean adult by now. Seriously It never occurred to me that I have now reached that age and since it's my birthday. I am not going to write anything about politics or any other worldly affairs in the maritime community and on work , I can write that on the latter - for now I'm writing on something philosophical , something to think about on my life and what I had been through. For now despite my advance age , I haven't gone anywhere in life beyond "settling down" - For now I could say that I'm a full fledge standalone bachelor. A lot of people at my age (and younger than me) are now saying that I should live in peace now and settle down , but of course I wo...

Entry is based on August 26, 2015 Ship has been diverted to La havre France first, before going to Amsterdam. Apparently from what I heard on the bridge, the full discharge will be in france and the loading will be in Netherlands then slingshot its way to Ecuador. So obviously after Netherlands its going to be a very long travel again that will last for a month. Possibly my disembarkation if this will materialize will be somewhere in south America , which will be a problem for me because of the temperature issue again. I'm not exactly sure if temperature's in that area will be cold enough for me to wear my travel clothes since I only carried clothes suitable and designed for European weather. Anyway whatever the case if this will ever be the reality I will have to make changes on my clothing style. Currently playing network games of "call of duty: modern warfare" is temporarily suspended until this ship gets out of Netherlands, well good for me in this case in the ...

Been some time since I last updated my journal, and I guess it's about time I write something. The days that went after this ships recent departure from kinder Morgan terminal in Galveston Texas have been relatively quiet. I had been busy doing mostly the usual routine maintenance work and some affairs related to the  bond store. Apparently the latest news is that , the bond store inventory is not that accurate as it was supposedly and as I suspect 3rd mate keith caduas predecessor (3rd mate german corales) never even bothered to update it before he left and finished contract. As a result me and Keith have now been updating the inventory every so often and checking out why the numbers have been inaccurate. Anyway doesn’t surprise me that German was always such a dick and dumped all the unresolved inventory to keith after he left, I mean he was an asshole back then in Cape Tallin and It hasn't changed when I encountered him again here in Conti Agulhas. For the moment I had been ...

AUGUST 06 2015 Ship has arrived and is waiting a couple of days now, Ship has arrive at around august 03, 2015 midnight. Supposedly I was the one (or two of the O.S.'s) needed to drop the anchor but turns out that BOSUN serafin has a new policy regarding anchor dropping / heaving - he only needs one O.S. at a time. So in turn my presence there was no longer needed. O.S. Joash was the one who dropped the anchor at that time. Weather on the past few days was cooler compared to what I experienced in Louisiana. A bit windy now in Galveston Texas probably because summer season in the U.S. about to end. On the days that this ship was at anchorage , we were basically busy in doing the same old maintenance task (chipping , polishing and painting rusted areas) plus washing the deck every now and then from bird droppings which littered the whole forward aft area. On the 7th of august there were rumours that this ship might go to berth sooner than expected. At around 5 pm on the same day ,...

Here's the events that happened during the Dominican republic stay. Monday work routine was done as usual , I was put on the task of segregation of garbage along with the disposal of food waste and then on the latter helping out O.S. Joash and A.B. Ryan Osiang in washing the deck. The whole work took us until noon time and was expecting or assumed that berthing will be sometime on the latter afternoon. During lunch time all of a sudden , it was announced that arrival in dominican republic will be in an hour and its berthing upon arrival schedule. (meaning this ships gets to dock as soon as it arrives). 1pm exactly when I was called in the cabin to rig the pilot ladder , then it was followed by mooring operations. Temperature in domincan republic (and the rest of central America was humid and hot. I had to bring along three purified water bottles filled with cold water just in case to keep us rehydrated. Mooring arrangement from what I recall is 3:2:2 and the spring lines will be wi...