Requiem for a blog

There was a blog
About a sailor that set out to sea
In a big big ship
Making money
For Mr.Moller and company.

Before leaving he started a blog
To tell others his experiences along the way
As he sailed far and wide
Across the ocean currents and tides.

But lo and behold in the distance
Loomed an ISM audit
And the sailor got really busy
So the blog slowly died.

But there is hope in his heart
That after the audit is passed
There'll be time again to pen a few words
And exhume the blog from the dirt.

6th August. 1825 SMT. SMT: GMT-9

Bound for Pusan once more. This time we're going via the Unimak Pass in the Aleutian Isalnds. Then we'll be doing a great circle course to North of Attu Island and finally another great circle to Tsugaru Kaikyo. Glad to be back at sea. It's nice being in port but also very hectic and no work gets done because of the busy scheds. At sea u can plan and have some sort of a routine. Plus we're retarding clocks by 1 hr every night so no one is complaining (except me, as usual, I hate retarding). We'll be reaching Pusan a day ahead of sched so we'll probably be at anchor for a day. Longbeach is a really beautiful city. Clicked some snaps there. Will try and post them when I get the chance to go to a cyber cafe. Until yesterday I was going through my 'I hate everyone on this ship and wanna get down' phase. Now everything is peachy keen once more.
Oh btw people, any requests for exotic booze (read whiskey) at the shaadi, pls let me know in advance. Will try and pick it up from one of the duty frees here. Vodka drinkers will not be entertained. Period. Oh and if ur thinking Blue Label, dream on. Laphroaig is the upper limit.
Absolutely! Okie dokie. Going back to work. Trying to finish all the courses for the entire China-Korea trip cause once we hit the far east there won't be time. Ok zats all folks. U go figure which whiskey u'd like, I'll go figure out some more course lines. Not a fair deal, but such is life.

2 Days to Longbeach

I know, I know, I haven't written in ages. All apologies. I was a bit busy with the new routes, charts, corrections, the radar performance monitor, and finally today one of the VHF DSCs also conked it. Besides, the constant advancing has been driving everyone balmy. People walking around in the middle of the night, complaining that they can't sleep. Chaos. Plus a major intrusion into my space and time. Hear ye, hear ye sea dogs of the Merlion! The night is the second mate's domain - for him to think greater thoughts about life and steer this vessel while ye sleep. So sleep as ye should and do not call up or come on bridge after the witching hours. It is NOT appreciated. Fortunately, I'm the only one unaffected by this constant advancing. That's because my work hours are so vague ass that I'm roaming around in a sleep deprived daze anyway. Aaaaaah Longbeach! Land of beautiful Californian goddessess in bikinis. Land of sunshine, sun lotion, movie stars, and USCG*. USCG!! THe sole damper to California dreaming. We're overdue for a USCG annual inspection and chances are they'll be boarding the ship in Longbeach. So bye bye beach parties. Though I really wanna go out abd buy some music if I get the time. Plus, pick up some magazines for the ship and some protein supplements for the Schwarzennegers-to-be. BTW if I got the spelling of the guy right, all credit to me, cause there's no way I can google for the right spelling here. Okie dokie. That's all folks. Do let me know if I got the spelling right.

*USCG - Google it u lazy bum.

At Anchorage

We'd been wallowing at Changjiang Kou anchorage for the last couple of days because the berth was not empty. Just lifted the hook and we're finally on our way to Shanghai berth. The pilot should be boarding in about half an hour and we ought to be alongside in another 4. The days of inactivity at anchorage are finally over. I can now stop grumbling about how I'm getting so bored and start complaining about the lack of sleep :)

Hopefully, I'll be able to get my hands on some sims and phonecards and call home.

For baby.. Here goes..

Now I'm fresh, dressed
Bathed and sprayed
Ready to hit the bed
And arise in the night
(While half the world sleeps
And the rest is awake)

A lonely watch I keep
Upon these empty seas
Eyes, limbs and senses
Attuned to the things I must do
While my thoughts fly
Far away, to meet you.

3rd July 2007 SMT: GMT+10

Location: Fuck knows it ain't my watch.
Hmm been some time since I typed anything for the blog. Well since I last wrote we've retarded clocks by approximately 7 hours and advanced one day while crossing the date line. I hate night watches during retarding. When there's no traffic and you have to keep twenty minutes extra watch, time really drags. In addition, the visibility has been generally bad so you still have to keep a sharp lookout on the radar, just in case ..... Like I'd told y'all last time our route is changing. We'll be doing 3 ports in China, 1 in Korea and 2 in the States. Speaking of which, does anyone have Chicoo's phone no? He's in LA right? So anyway, now that the new route has been decided it's action time for the 2nd officer and the Chief Engineer. I've gotta figure out which extra charts and publications I need to order, plot the new courses and calculate the distances. I give a rough estimate of the distances to the Chief Engineer so that he can estimate how much bunkers the ship requires. Bunkers refers to the Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) and Diesel Oil (MDO) that the ship uses. The charterers have told us that the bunkering port will be Pusan. So now he's got to work out the amount of bunkers we need until Pusan for the entire voyage. Once he's decided on the quantity of fuel to be ordered, the Chief Officer is going to be asking him which fuel oil tanks he'll be putting the oil in. This is because the Chief Officer needs to figure out the effect of loading these 2000 odd tons of oil on the stability, trim and draft of the ship. Ok children that's my marine engineering lesson for today. BTW does anybody reading this happen to know anyone at Standard Chartered? The freaks there have changed the internet ID and Password and now Avs can't get to the damn money. God how I hate these banks. And Stan Chart is the worst of the lot. Perhaps I should go back to the old system of putting money under my pillow. Hope to catch y'all soon sometime. RFA.

21/06/07 SMT = GMT - 7. E Santa Barbara Channel

Been a busy day today. Had an emergency steering drill in the morning to comply with the US regulations. We'll be picking up pilot at 0400 in the morning on the 22nd. Coming to the US is always a pain in the posterior. The number of rules and regulations in this country stretch the ship's human resources to the breaking point. In addition to doing your own jobs, everyone is expected to carry out many other tasks in order for the ship to be able to comply with their requirements. Plus we've got the Lloyds surveyor coming in the morning for the annual survey. No rest for the wicked. We've just got news that our route is going to be changed. So this may be the first and last time that I touch LA. We'll be going into layby after discharging at Shanghai and Ningbo further orders. I'm sure our charteres MISC, won't allow the ship to sit back on it's ass for long, considering that they're paying 25,000USD for it. I hope they give us news of the new route in sufficient time so that I can order the new charts and plan out the courses.

17 June 2007, 0230 SMT (SMT = GMT - 9) Position: SE of the Aleutian Trench

Still enroute to Los Angeles. We crossed the date line yesterday and retarded a day. I am the master of time! Right now I'm on watch: 12 to 4. No traffic. Bored out of my skull. Got some songs playing on the bridge computer and a talkative filipino lookout man for company. He's also the one who will take the helm in case of any emergency.

Mid ocean watches are invariably boring because there's not a soul aorund for hundreds of miles. In the daytime I catch up on paperwork and do chart corrections during the watch. At night its not possible to work because the bridge is pitch dark, interspersed with the dim glow of the various instruments and the lamp over the chart table. During these four hours of watch I'll be plotting the ship's position hourly, ensuring that she maintains course, observe the radar for any targets and maintain a GMDSS (Global Maritime Distress and Safety Systems) watch, among other things. It may sound likea lot but its really not that much of work. Of course when there's traffic, its a totally different ball game and you're going crazy trying to manage all these different aspects of a navigational watch and trying to avoid hitting a stupid fishing trawler that is hell bent on kissing your bow.

We've got an annual survey coming up in LA so everyone's very busy preparing for it. I finished taking a complete inventory of the medical locker and got the hospital cleaned (took me three bloody days). Tomorrow (no Sundays for sailors), I plan on carrying out a safety area inspection of the engine room and start an invenotry of the stationery locker. I've also got monthly maintenance work on the radar and GMDSS batteries looming nigh and will also have to figure out a way to schedule a safety meeting in between. By then we'll be in LA and it'll be back to hectic 6-on-6-off port watches. Got a new captain joining there so he's gonna be all charged with life and want everybody to do double duty on the voyage back to Shanghai. Maybe someday I'll actually start using the gym that this ship has and try and offset the effects of Mr. Hedges.

Update

13th June 2007, 1730 SMT (UTC+10 hrs). Location - Strait of Tsugaru Kaikyo, North of Honshu. It's been a hectic time since I've joined and I've got blisters on my feet. My whole body aches from all the physical exertion that I had become unused to over the past year. But I'm finally beginning to settle down and get the hang of things. Still haven't found the time to unpack, must really do so one of these days. Note to self - You've been wearing the same clothes for over a week pig! Afternoon watch was quite interesting. The strait of Tsugaru Kaikyo is approximately 10 miles wide and has a lot of fishing vessels and ferries. Was in a bit of a spot because I had about ten odd fishing boats crossing from the stbd bow and a bulk carrier coming down from right ahead. Anyway, it all sorted itself out and I earned my pay once more. From now on the traffic will get lesser and lesser until we reach Los Angeles. We've also been advancing the ship's clocks by one hour every night so everyone is running low on sleep. Time is a luxury, but I guess it is just as well. When you drop onto your bed, dead tired at the end of the day (or the beginning of the day, in my case), you just fall off to sleep without fretting about how much you're missing home.

Winch Trouble!

Stations over. Went well. Took a little long but I don't mind that. The important thing is nobody got hurt and there wasn't any chaos. The reason why it took so long is because one of the winches was not working. We have 6 ropes to tie up and unfortunately the port side winch was busted so we had to heave up all 6 ropes with just one winch. To compound the problem we went port side alongside so all the ropes had to be passed from the port side to the starboard side winch.

Just glad its over. Had a bit of a moment when the Chinese mooring gang got sick of us taking so long and refused to pass our last spring. But, like I said all's well that ends well!

FYI: A mooring winch is what we use to heave up the ropes to tie the ship.

Day One

1905 hrs LT. Just sailed out from Shanghai. We're headed for anchorage. Will be sailing out tomorrow morning. Had a very hectic day. So busy that I didn't even get time to eat dinner. Was at departure stations forward. Major Pain! Only one winch is working and we've got to handle all 6 lines with that. I'll go up now and try to figure out what messages have to be sent to office. Wow! I never worked so hard in the last year, but I'm glad I still have the capacity to do it.

Soldier Side

They were crying when their sons left
All young men must go
He's come so far to find the truth
He's never going home

- System of a Down

The last day and all the tears and last minute embraces interspersed with frenzied packing. The hollowness at the pit of my stomach that refuses to be filled no matter how much of the delicious 'going-away' food that Ava has made, I eat.

Partings are always sorrowful and leave you so empty. Two souls trying to cling on and telling each other that it's OK and that it's 'for the better, really'.

These next few months are going to be very trying for the both of us. Dealing with the loneliness, yet trying to work (and play) normally. My heart goes out to all the men and women that go away (be it the army, or the navy, or a foreign business posting) and the strong, silent partners that are left behind.

I'm feeling too miserable to continue writing. I think I'll turn to the inflight movie for some solace. Baby, I miss you.

An Officer Without A Uniform

Woke up to realize that I need to buy white shirts with shoulder flaps for epaulettes and get another layer of stripes put on the blazer (Yes I've moved up the ranks). Braved the heat and crowds to get to a shop that sells naval uniforms. Realised midway that I have no money: not in my wallet, not in the bank. So, as of now, I'm an officer without a uniform. Five days to go until I join. Lets see if I can come up with some money for the darn white shirts and the stripes. Or maybe, if anyone reads this, you can donate me some money. The captain will not be pleased if his 2nd officer does not have his uniform. Maybe I'll get to come home early ;)

Last Couple Of Days on Terra Firma

Departure looms nigh and I've been busy running around with all the documentation et al. Went for the pre-joining medical check yesterday. Balls are good: no hernia ;) . (I see all the sailors shake their heads sagely). Got the report back today. I am fit to sail. There are no abnormalitities. I am healthy, not too wealthy and about to embark on another 5 month sojourn. These last few days are always a drag. I'm sure Capt Jack Sparrow would have lost much of his swagger if he had to contend with visas and innoculations.

Arrrgh

Arrrgh. They've changed the ship yet again. Most disenchanted with the Company. Now supposed to join a ship in Shanghai. But this time around I'll only believe it if it happens. Aaaah the vagaries of shipping.

Cheap Mate

Finally got my COC as 1st Mate yesterday. Big Relief. This also means that hopefully I won't have to set foot in the stinking halls of the MMD for at least two years. Why are all Government offices like this? They should have a sign at the door saying "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here". But now I'm digressing. The day to leave draws nearer and I grow gloomier. This is the ultimate need based relationship.

Change of Plans

Well lots of activity since yesterday. The travel plans have been changed and now I'm to fly out to Singapore for a briefing on the 31st and then eventually join a different ship in Korea on the 4th. Typical of pre-joining. Dates and ships keep getting shuffled around and generally make a mess of everything you plan. Will spend the weekend in Singapore. Won't really be that much fun without Ava.

Preparations

Just got word from the Company that I'll be flying out on the 10th of June. Lots of work to be done in the interim: visas, medical check-ups, documents, etc, etc. And that sinking feeling again. It's never easy to pack up everything and bid goodbye to the life you've known for 5 to 6 months at a stretch. These are probably the most trying times for me and Ava - my fiancee.