4 Mar 2008. Delivery Team: Maersk Taurus

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.