I flippin' can't believe it. After being ashore since November, getting edged-out of work a month and a half ago, and having to re-register two weeks ago, a big mess of jobs showed up today on a ship. And I blew it!
It's all looking good this morning, with the number of jobs and my ranking with among those looking to get out. Vince calls for a Bosun. Two A-Books throw in, and the guy with the Bosun's stamp wins out. And here's where I screwed up: Rhonda (the other A-book) doesn't throw back in for the next group of jobs--that of watch standers. She's holding out for one of the two dayworker slots.
Not realizing how the playing field just shifted, I'm thinking that I'm out of luck vying for a watchstanding slot. So I hold back my shipping card for one of the two day worker slots. You can see where this is heading. Meanwhile, I'm sitting very low in my shipping seniority list, and the last watchstander job gets snagged by someone lower than myself. Since Rhonda is wielding her A-Card, she already secured her dayworker berth. And, since another B-Book with an older card than mine wanted that last dayworker slot, I was left out in the cold.
Once again, I get taught the age-old lesson that "beggars can't be choosers." Well, at least something is supposed to turn up two weeks from now. The President Truman might cough up something. To think that was the ship I was hoping to sail on again--back eight weeks or so ago.
Showing posts with label sailors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sailors. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Finally Caught Up: Jebel Ali, Jack Tar, and Straits of Malacca
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Saturday, July 04, 2009
More Catching Up: At Sea, Advancing the Clock, & Deck Work
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
12:24 AM
Advancing the Clock
Just got off watch. I haven't written anything over the past days, because of lack of sleep and fatigue. Two days ago, we advanced the clocks one hour. Last night (over the previous watches), we advanced the clock three hours, starting after Noon and finishing on my 8 to 12 evening watch. We do this changing of the clocks in order to keep ourselves synchronized with the local time zone. While it isn't like we are stopping anywhere between the East Coast of the United States and the Suez Canal, we will be crossing something like seven time zones by the time we reach Egypt and have to communicate with the local authorities. Moreover, it is, naturally, important to stay with the Sun. In order to do this, as we progress eastward, we have to shorten our days by advancing the ship's clocks. Conversely, when we return westward, we will retard our clocks and lengthen our days. Interestingly, it is convenient to advance the clocks three hours in one day, one hour per four hour watch, starting between Noon and 1600. We do this twice during the eastward leg of a voyage. In the case of a one-hour time change, the clock is moved twenty minutes per watch. When we sail westward, we only change the clocks one hour on a given day.
12:24 AM
Advancing the Clock
Just got off watch. I haven't written anything over the past days, because of lack of sleep and fatigue. Two days ago, we advanced the clocks one hour. Last night (over the previous watches), we advanced the clock three hours, starting after Noon and finishing on my 8 to 12 evening watch. We do this changing of the clocks in order to keep ourselves synchronized with the local time zone. While it isn't like we are stopping anywhere between the East Coast of the United States and the Suez Canal, we will be crossing something like seven time zones by the time we reach Egypt and have to communicate with the local authorities. Moreover, it is, naturally, important to stay with the Sun. In order to do this, as we progress eastward, we have to shorten our days by advancing the ship's clocks. Conversely, when we return westward, we will retard our clocks and lengthen our days. Interestingly, it is convenient to advance the clocks three hours in one day, one hour per four hour watch, starting between Noon and 1600. We do this twice during the eastward leg of a voyage. In the case of a one-hour time change, the clock is moved twenty minutes per watch. When we sail westward, we only change the clocks one hour on a given day.
Such as it is with sailors, we always find a reason to complain. When we advance the clocks, we complain that we lose sleep. When we retard the clocks, we complain that our watches are longer. The only people who seem to have reason to be happy with the time changes are the day workers. With the advancing of the clocks, they only have to work seven hours during the day. When we retard the clocks, they gain an extra hour for sleep or recreation. Sometimes it seems that there is no group that can complain like sailors.
Work in General and The Bosun's Chair
So what has the deck gang been doing lately? Well, as usual, there is plenty of rust to chip. It was either yesterday or the day before that Danny Ycoy was put into a Bosun's chair and lowered down the port side of the ship's house to chip rust from around the stateroom windows. While that may not seem that much of a deal, that's a six-story drop down to the deck, with the man swinging away from the side when the ship rolls to port. Danny got stuck with that job, because he's one of the two day-working AB's. I suspect Chuck Maringer dodged the bullet because he's as old as he is. Greg has been high-pressure water-blasting rust from around the pool (Yes, we do have a pool, though it is small.), while Ray has been chipping rust somewhere else. Myself? Well, since I have some woodworking skills, I've been assisting the Bosun with some projects. One was repairing a chair and another is helping him with building a shelf extension in the paint locker. This is quite the project, as there is this reinforced section of the anchor housing that protrudes up from the deck inside the paint locker, which we have to build around. Talk about a custom fit!
Stormin' Norman
Since it was raining today, Danny's job was put on hold. I don't know what he was detailed to do, but I'm sure Bosun Norm had something up his sleeve. Norm Christiansen is, it can be said, is infamous for being a task master. He is also known for getting a lot of work out of his men. I do not dispute either of these claims, as I have worked with him in the past. Nonetheless, I have no complaints. I have made good money because of him and have learned some good skills to boot. Norm is one of the last ship's carpenters in the Sailors Union has--despite the position having been phased out with the arrival of the container ships. Up until then, he had shipped as a carpenter for 14 years straight. Nonetheless, most captains and chief mates like having him aboard. Lots of work gets done, and no one questions his integrity. "Stormin' Norman" may be a tough taskmaster, but I always end up going home with a bit of knowledge that will serve me around the house. More on that soon enough! It's past time for bed, and I still need to catch up on sleep. Lord knows when that will happen...
Monday, June 29, 2009
Saved By The Palm Pilot T/X
Posting from the Jebel Ali Seamans Centre. I didn't give myself enough time to pack my laptop but did bring the Palm Pilot. I followed my sister's directions and went to settings. Now I'll be able to post text via email from the ship. Cool! Unfortunately, company policy doesn't allow attachments. That means no pics until I reach Singapore.
Starting tomorrow or the next day, I will begin posting the thirteen pages (Yikes!!!) of my writings since the ship left Charleston. Each section will be dated from when it was composed. I hope that will allow readers to better follow the events until I get caught up with realtime events.
Pictures and a few video clips should arrive around July 9th. That will be when the ship will be in Singapore.
At this point, I have to say that the trip has not been without incident. Sorry, but no pirates. However, a couple of our guys got on the wrong side of the local immigration authorities. No good. I'll fill you all in on that later, once all the facts come in. Too bad you're going to have to first wade through all the crap I've written but not posted yet.
Well, the live music has started in the club It's time to close. Stay tuned in the mean time.
Ciao!
--Dave
Starting tomorrow or the next day, I will begin posting the thirteen pages (Yikes!!!) of my writings since the ship left Charleston. Each section will be dated from when it was composed. I hope that will allow readers to better follow the events until I get caught up with realtime events.
Pictures and a few video clips should arrive around July 9th. That will be when the ship will be in Singapore.
At this point, I have to say that the trip has not been without incident. Sorry, but no pirates. However, a couple of our guys got on the wrong side of the local immigration authorities. No good. I'll fill you all in on that later, once all the facts come in. Too bad you're going to have to first wade through all the crap I've written but not posted yet.
Well, the live music has started in the club It's time to close. Stay tuned in the mean time.
Ciao!
--Dave
Monday, June 08, 2009
The First Day or Three: Staten Island and Charleston, S.C.
Friday, June 05, 2009
Another sad-bellied start to joining a ship. Getting up at five in the morning to make an 8:00 flight, you have breakfast at the airport. SeaTac may have Cathy Casey's Dish D'lish, but breakfast is still a fried egg sandwich. Can you say "egg-a-muffin"? Perhaps that’s a little unfair. Though it was an egg sandwich, it’s also safe to say it was probably better than any other of the same found in an airport. The good bread and an above average sausage patty helped a lot.
The hour spent hanging out with Margaret before clearing security was bitter-sweet as usual. It will be close to six months before I see her again, but having her there smoothes the transition for the both of us. Not to mention that good company makes almost any food taste better.
About an hour or so after take off, I fell fast asleep for an hour. Last night didn't provide much rest. Last minute adjustments with my packing kept me up until around midnight. And then, there was the dead rat Wanda, one of our two cats, brought gifted me a little after 2:30 am. I'm certain she knew, from my bags packed in the living room, I was leaving. This has happened more than once before. It almost always happens after we've fallen asleep. The first thing that causes you to wake is a foreign difference in the way her collar bell rings. It has to do with having a rodent hanging out of her mouth and the effect on her posture and gait. And then, what confirms the presence of the gift is her strange vocalization. Is there an actual name for that sound? It's something between a meow and a cackle, though clearly not the cackle cats make when they spy a slow, fat fly buzzing in the house or a flock of birds in a small, low tree. Either way, you have learned to wake up to a preferably dead rodent. I say, "Preferably dead," because chasing a live one in the middle of the night--it having the wide-awake advantage in a room full of luggage, while you're barefoot in your knickers, adrenaline piercing through your sleep like worms through a corpse's skull--is never good. Wanda used to bring me live ones on occasion. I think that ended the night I, in a fit of sleep-deprived rage, dispatched a rat when it scurried up behind the bedroom dresser mirror. I’ll say no more than to mention that the mirror was secured to neither the dresser nor the wall.
Wanda, the demure killer of rodents:
I should mention a few things about the vagaries of often having to fly out to a ship. The flight to Newark included a layover in Phoenix. My seat companions were an African-American mother and daughter. This surprisingly strict young mother made sure her kindergarten child had a copy of Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham to keep her busy. Now here’s my riff: It never ceases to drive me up the bulkheads when I’m done with my time aboard a ship and I’m on a plane with an obnoxious child sitting behind me who spends the whole flight kicking the back of my seat. Typically, the accompanying parent is weak when it comes to controlling the behavior of their child. In this case, though this girl was filled with curiosity and wanted to share her book with me, she was very polite and considerate. I offer my compliments to her.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Arrived at the ship around 10:00 pm. As the U.S. Airway flight I was on descended to the runway, I could see the dock at Howland Hook. The thing was, the Truman wasn’t there. Clearly, the ship was delayed, but no one from APL contacted me with the arrival information. Normally, the ships arrive in the morning, so I became concerned. It had been a week since I accepted the job and received my flight information. In the interim, I heard nothing about the ship’s arrival time. I ended up calling the travel liaison person and found that it due at the dock at 10:00. It was at least half an hour after I got off the plane before I rooted up the information. Is Mercury still in retrograde?
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Saturday at Staten Island, though busy, didn’t last long. First thing in the morning, as the 8 to 12 Able Seaman, I had the coastwise sanitary duties for the first two hours of my day. However, because of the amount of voyage stores the ship was receiving, I had to postpone my normal duties and assist the rest of the deck gang craning aboard and moving food and other provisions (for the Deck and Engine Departments) to their storage locations.
The stores boat from above.
Able Seaman, Chuck Maringer watching the boat gang sling up another pallet. Chuck is in his 70's and still going strong. It must be his rude and crude nature. May we all live as long and have as much verve as he.
At one point in the afternoon, there was an electrical failure in the stores crane, and work ground to a halt. Fortunately, all the food was aboard, and the repair was completed with an hour. The sailing board was originally set for 5:00 pm (cargo was done around 4:00 pm), but departure was delayed to 6:30 (an 18.5 hour port stay) to accommodate a quick replacement of some main engine parts. This is no mean feat.
People tend to see ships from at a distance. They rarely have the opportunity to view them up close. If that were to happen--and if they took it upon themselves to imagine the size of the internal spaces--they might begin to guess the size of the main engine of such a vessel. Certainly these people would not be the ones who are in the habit of calling a ship a “boat.” For one, boats do not have engines that are two stories tall. (Note: Actually, you should never get so close to a ship that you would have these thoughts. If you did, you got too close and should be looking over your shoulder to see if the Coast Guard and Homeland Security are about to slap you down for getting too close to a merchant ship. As it is, we try very hard to keep at least a half mile from boats when in open water. If the water isn't the open ocean and, instead tight quarters, then you're making us nervous. Please don't do that to us. Just keep your thoughts innocent and do your best to stay clear.)
A view down into the engine room hatch. Big cylinder heads, no?
When it comes to changing out a piston, a cylinder liner, or even the head from a piston cylinder, it is no mean feat. It takes a crane to lift one from the dock or a delivery boat and into the engine room. Once inside, there is an overhead lift to position a heavy engine part into position. The weight of these parts are so great, an engineer need only tighten the retaining nuts only by hand.
Here's a picture of Captain Charlie Carubia.
This is his "No pictures! No pictures!" look. He's heading home to NYC, after finishing his 8 week rotation. Talk about an easy commute! Captain Carubia is well liked and respected by all past and present crew. He'll never have a problem getting sailors on his ship. I'm looking forward to seeing him again in 8 weeks. About two hours later, we set sail for Charleston, South Carolina.
Monday, June 08, 2009
I just got off watch. It’s midnight, and I need to get some sleep. The ship will be receiving the Charleston (South Carolina) River pilot at 3:40 am. I will be called out at 3:00 to make ready the pilot ladder. Nightie night!
6:08 AM
Ship all fast at Charleston. What’s the point of going back to sleep when breakfast starts serving at 7:20?
So what did I do this morning--other than take these pictures of the Charleston Bridge? I had to lay down some white paint around the bridge wings. No pictures of that. Like, white paint is photogenic? After the lunch hour, once again I had the sanitation duty until 1500 (3:00 pm), when I was free to go ashore. The union contract spells out that, if the ship is staying overnight and there isn't any pressing work to be done between 1500 and 1700, then the sailor are allowed to go shore early. Gotta make it to the post office!
What did I do when I went ashore? I got a ride to Whole Foods from the Seafarers Center, a volunteer group sponsored by the Catholic Church. These people provide a kind and wonderful service to all seafarers who arrive in port and have no means of going ashore. Often, the sailors from foreign countries have neither adequate money for ground transportation or knowledge of the locale. Here, the volunteers step in and assist the sailors in whatever way they can. They even provide religious services for those who desire.
So what does a sailor buy at Whole Foods? Habanero hot sauce, Red Hot Blues blue corn chips, hommus, baba ghannouj, almond butter, oolong and green teas, a small wedge of Campo de Montalban, three slices of pizza, and The New York Times. Had the Steward, Brendan Maeda, been with me, zaru soba and dipping sauce fixin's would have been on the list.
After the Seafarers Center people picked me back up, we swung by a Barnes & Noble to retrieve another sailor from my ship. Since we were early, I snagged a CD by Esperanza Spalding and another by Luciana Souza. I highly recommend these jazz artists to anyone. The young Esperanza, from the Bay Area, is skilled as a jazz singer and bass player. Make no bones about that! She was featured on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz(NPR). Listen to the podcast. And Souza, from Brazil, is simply amazing (aren't all Brazilians musicians jazz naturals?). I'm still looking for her album of Pablo Neruda poems put to music.
Well, it's time for bed. The sailing board is set for 0700. Savannah, Georgia is next.
Ciao!
--Dave
Another sad-bellied start to joining a ship. Getting up at five in the morning to make an 8:00 flight, you have breakfast at the airport. SeaTac may have Cathy Casey's Dish D'lish, but breakfast is still a fried egg sandwich. Can you say "egg-a-muffin"? Perhaps that’s a little unfair. Though it was an egg sandwich, it’s also safe to say it was probably better than any other of the same found in an airport. The good bread and an above average sausage patty helped a lot.
The hour spent hanging out with Margaret before clearing security was bitter-sweet as usual. It will be close to six months before I see her again, but having her there smoothes the transition for the both of us. Not to mention that good company makes almost any food taste better.
About an hour or so after take off, I fell fast asleep for an hour. Last night didn't provide much rest. Last minute adjustments with my packing kept me up until around midnight. And then, there was the dead rat Wanda, one of our two cats, brought gifted me a little after 2:30 am. I'm certain she knew, from my bags packed in the living room, I was leaving. This has happened more than once before. It almost always happens after we've fallen asleep. The first thing that causes you to wake is a foreign difference in the way her collar bell rings. It has to do with having a rodent hanging out of her mouth and the effect on her posture and gait. And then, what confirms the presence of the gift is her strange vocalization. Is there an actual name for that sound? It's something between a meow and a cackle, though clearly not the cackle cats make when they spy a slow, fat fly buzzing in the house or a flock of birds in a small, low tree. Either way, you have learned to wake up to a preferably dead rodent. I say, "Preferably dead," because chasing a live one in the middle of the night--it having the wide-awake advantage in a room full of luggage, while you're barefoot in your knickers, adrenaline piercing through your sleep like worms through a corpse's skull--is never good. Wanda used to bring me live ones on occasion. I think that ended the night I, in a fit of sleep-deprived rage, dispatched a rat when it scurried up behind the bedroom dresser mirror. I’ll say no more than to mention that the mirror was secured to neither the dresser nor the wall.
Wanda, the demure killer of rodents:
I should mention a few things about the vagaries of often having to fly out to a ship. The flight to Newark included a layover in Phoenix. My seat companions were an African-American mother and daughter. This surprisingly strict young mother made sure her kindergarten child had a copy of Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham to keep her busy. Now here’s my riff: It never ceases to drive me up the bulkheads when I’m done with my time aboard a ship and I’m on a plane with an obnoxious child sitting behind me who spends the whole flight kicking the back of my seat. Typically, the accompanying parent is weak when it comes to controlling the behavior of their child. In this case, though this girl was filled with curiosity and wanted to share her book with me, she was very polite and considerate. I offer my compliments to her.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Arrived at the ship around 10:00 pm. As the U.S. Airway flight I was on descended to the runway, I could see the dock at Howland Hook. The thing was, the Truman wasn’t there. Clearly, the ship was delayed, but no one from APL contacted me with the arrival information. Normally, the ships arrive in the morning, so I became concerned. It had been a week since I accepted the job and received my flight information. In the interim, I heard nothing about the ship’s arrival time. I ended up calling the travel liaison person and found that it due at the dock at 10:00. It was at least half an hour after I got off the plane before I rooted up the information. Is Mercury still in retrograde?
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Saturday at Staten Island, though busy, didn’t last long. First thing in the morning, as the 8 to 12 Able Seaman, I had the coastwise sanitary duties for the first two hours of my day. However, because of the amount of voyage stores the ship was receiving, I had to postpone my normal duties and assist the rest of the deck gang craning aboard and moving food and other provisions (for the Deck and Engine Departments) to their storage locations.
The stores boat from above.
Able Seaman, Chuck Maringer watching the boat gang sling up another pallet. Chuck is in his 70's and still going strong. It must be his rude and crude nature. May we all live as long and have as much verve as he.
At one point in the afternoon, there was an electrical failure in the stores crane, and work ground to a halt. Fortunately, all the food was aboard, and the repair was completed with an hour. The sailing board was originally set for 5:00 pm (cargo was done around 4:00 pm), but departure was delayed to 6:30 (an 18.5 hour port stay) to accommodate a quick replacement of some main engine parts. This is no mean feat.
People tend to see ships from at a distance. They rarely have the opportunity to view them up close. If that were to happen--and if they took it upon themselves to imagine the size of the internal spaces--they might begin to guess the size of the main engine of such a vessel. Certainly these people would not be the ones who are in the habit of calling a ship a “boat.” For one, boats do not have engines that are two stories tall. (Note: Actually, you should never get so close to a ship that you would have these thoughts. If you did, you got too close and should be looking over your shoulder to see if the Coast Guard and Homeland Security are about to slap you down for getting too close to a merchant ship. As it is, we try very hard to keep at least a half mile from boats when in open water. If the water isn't the open ocean and, instead tight quarters, then you're making us nervous. Please don't do that to us. Just keep your thoughts innocent and do your best to stay clear.)
A view down into the engine room hatch. Big cylinder heads, no?
When it comes to changing out a piston, a cylinder liner, or even the head from a piston cylinder, it is no mean feat. It takes a crane to lift one from the dock or a delivery boat and into the engine room. Once inside, there is an overhead lift to position a heavy engine part into position. The weight of these parts are so great, an engineer need only tighten the retaining nuts only by hand.
Here's a picture of Captain Charlie Carubia.
This is his "No pictures! No pictures!" look. He's heading home to NYC, after finishing his 8 week rotation. Talk about an easy commute! Captain Carubia is well liked and respected by all past and present crew. He'll never have a problem getting sailors on his ship. I'm looking forward to seeing him again in 8 weeks. About two hours later, we set sail for Charleston, South Carolina.
Monday, June 08, 2009
I just got off watch. It’s midnight, and I need to get some sleep. The ship will be receiving the Charleston (South Carolina) River pilot at 3:40 am. I will be called out at 3:00 to make ready the pilot ladder. Nightie night!
6:08 AM
Ship all fast at Charleston. What’s the point of going back to sleep when breakfast starts serving at 7:20?
So what did I do this morning--other than take these pictures of the Charleston Bridge? I had to lay down some white paint around the bridge wings. No pictures of that. Like, white paint is photogenic? After the lunch hour, once again I had the sanitation duty until 1500 (3:00 pm), when I was free to go ashore. The union contract spells out that, if the ship is staying overnight and there isn't any pressing work to be done between 1500 and 1700, then the sailor are allowed to go shore early. Gotta make it to the post office!
What did I do when I went ashore? I got a ride to Whole Foods from the Seafarers Center, a volunteer group sponsored by the Catholic Church. These people provide a kind and wonderful service to all seafarers who arrive in port and have no means of going ashore. Often, the sailors from foreign countries have neither adequate money for ground transportation or knowledge of the locale. Here, the volunteers step in and assist the sailors in whatever way they can. They even provide religious services for those who desire.
So what does a sailor buy at Whole Foods? Habanero hot sauce, Red Hot Blues blue corn chips, hommus, baba ghannouj, almond butter, oolong and green teas, a small wedge of Campo de Montalban, three slices of pizza, and The New York Times. Had the Steward, Brendan Maeda, been with me, zaru soba and dipping sauce fixin's would have been on the list.
After the Seafarers Center people picked me back up, we swung by a Barnes & Noble to retrieve another sailor from my ship. Since we were early, I snagged a CD by Esperanza Spalding and another by Luciana Souza. I highly recommend these jazz artists to anyone. The young Esperanza, from the Bay Area, is skilled as a jazz singer and bass player. Make no bones about that! She was featured on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz(NPR). Listen to the podcast. And Souza, from Brazil, is simply amazing (aren't all Brazilians musicians jazz naturals?). I'm still looking for her album of Pablo Neruda poems put to music.
Well, it's time for bed. The sailing board is set for 0700. Savannah, Georgia is next.
Ciao!
--Dave
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