#i dont have my actual tablet even close to set up rn so i had to use my little cheap tablet

[artylovr]

aw yeah there he go

[totentnz]

im almost done complaining

[simplicitynotdefined]

31st May 2017

SMT (Ship Mean Time): 1913 (UTC+1)

Present location: Somewhere slightly north of Lobito, Angola

Pardon the vague location, it's not really my fault. Really. Ever since I woke up for duty at ~0315 this morning (31st), I've been working almost non-stop. A brief overview of my events today:

--------------------------------------------------Start of working day---------------------------------------------

0315: Reveile (Because why not)

0400: Duty

0630: Bridge/bridge wing cleaning (Technically still duty hours)

0800: End of duty, breakfast

0850: Ship's office – Preparation of documents for next 2 ports, Luanda and Soyo.

         Also updating of monthly rest hours and other stuff (end of month reports)

1210: Short lunch break

1225: Back in ship office – Clearing up the remainder of port documents and rest hours

1715: Finished with EOM reports and port documents; Signing of monthly overtime and rest hour

         by deck and galley crew

1750: OT and RH completion, Headed to medical locker to retrieve malaria pills

1800: Distribution of malaria tablets, completed 'A and B' decks and a few others roaming around

1815: Dinner break, completed malaria pills for galley crew, deck crew and majority of officers

1845: Finished distribution of malaria pills, proceeded to bridge to clear navigation locker of items

1900: Garbage disposed, cleaning equipment hidden. Locked out of accomodation.

1910: Back in cabin. Not required to continue evening duty (1600 – 2000)

----------------------------------------------- End of working day ------------------------------------------------

So that was my first last day of the month on board. I didn't get to sleep in the afternoon as planned so that makes me a bit sad. On the other hand I dont need to be on bridge till 2000 hours today so go figure eh.

Anyway, let's be a little chronological with this.

I didn't mention this previously, but a PIL port captain boarded our ship to assist us with our transit in Angolan(??) waters, and possibly for loading of cargo at a new port as well. Captain Richard, the port captain/supernumery, bumps our crew complement to 22. He's also from Ghana, like Chief. He's got a great many experiences to share with everyone, especially since I suppose the reason he is on board with us, about transiting in Angola. Things like the port authorities and other officials being a bit 'mafia' as they call it. Every little thing they will be looking at, closely inspecting all the documents and I'm guessing every inch of the ship, trying to find something to fault. For the sole reason of making us pay a fine. You should understand what I mean by fine. Also because we are sailing in a HRA, High Risk Area, when we were having a security training/meeting a few days ago he also shared some experiences with us and some pointers about general ship security. Looks like I'm going to have to work harder at duty in Angola, since there's a decent chance for there to be stowaways trying to sneak on board. The stories they told us, my goodness. These people are quite creative. One particular one on board another B class I believe it was, was that the stowaway pretended to be a stevedor and continuously embarked and disembarked just as a normal stevedor would. The reason for the continuous boarding and disembarking was because the first time they were on board they were scouting for a place to hide. Every subsequent boarding was him brining more of his belongings on board to hide. I was also told to look out for people who looked like they were wearing excessive clothing. Because within their clothes they were hiding all their personal belongings and whatever else they needed for the journey. The creativity is mindblowing.

Anyway, we entered the HRA yesterday in the afternoon or so. When I came for watch this morning, I kinda felt the gravity of the situation. Like really you don't know if some people would sneak up on the ship kind of a thing. At around 0415 this morning, there was a call of Mayday on the VHF. Twice it was repeated. Mayday Mayday xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. I say xxxxxx because no one could understand the dude on the VHF. This happened again around 0500. Sounded like the same guy. The first time Mayday was called by someone, another person responded. “Vessel in distress, can you repeat your message”, to which there was no reply. When it happened the second time there was no one replying. I told chief about it, and he said it could be possibly pirates trying to lure vessels out. Like they would call for Mayday Mayday, and because we are legally binded to assist wherever possible if nearby and whatever, we would proceed to their 'location', and then get boarded or attacked or whatever pirates do. When the guy called out the first time, there was a vessel on the AIS that suddenly disappeared, which kind of made me a bit suspicious. After like an hour plus or so that vessel appeared again. It should have been the same one since it was in the general area the Houdini-ship was heading towards. I checked the ECDIS to see what was that vessels name, destination and speed. Turns out it was an RN (Royal Navy)Vessel. What type, I do not know. I only know its name, and it was very appropriate. HMS Protector. It was actually very comforting to me, knowing that there was a naval vessel 25NM away from our position. I really actually felt a lot safer transiting the waters in that area.

So to the crew of HMS Protector on 31st May 2017, from when I first realised who you were to whenever you were still in range of us, I thank you for making us feel safer on our voyage. And to all the other naval vessels that patrol the HRA and other places, thank you all as well. You probably wouldn't see this, but I really do appreciate your service to us merchant mariners.  

Which kind of leads me to another point, but that's another story for another time.

I'm not sure if I had been taught this in class, but I found it interesting that naval vessels do not have their IMO number, length, breadth and draught shown on AIS. The reason I can guess why. If you do not have access to the internet (thank you wikipedia?), you wouldn't know what type of naval vessel it was. Depending on the length, breadth and draught, you can guess what kind of ship it was. Be it a patrol boat, destroyer, LST or whatever else these navy types have. That would give an idea of the vessels armament. The draught also, I guess, can give some information on how much ammunition they are carrying. Since draught is derived from displacement. That's entirely my deduction and I am in no position to confirm these things. The ammunition thing is purely speculation. I'm not that familiar with modern navy vessels. Also on that note, thank you based history and Wargaming (partially), for teaching me various things about the world's navies. HMS basically stands for Her Majesty's Service, indicating that the vessel is from the UK. Retrospectivelly on that note, HMAS is Her Majesty's Australian Service, showing the vessel is from Australia. For HMAS, I am not too sure if they still use that nowadays. I only know HMAS Perth (WW2 light cruiser) and a few others that the names at this point of time escape me.

And what a way to end the day. I got locked out of the acommodation just now. I was getting rid of the trash from my room to aft poop deck, where the garbage disposal point is located on board. On the way out of the corridor in the acommodation, I bumped into Chief Cook. He asked me what I was doing with 2 garbage bags, and I just told him it was garbage from the bridge that I needed to dispose before arriving at the next port. Then I went out through the watertight door and saw the steward doing something on the deck. Didn't know what he was doing since it was already so dark. At 1900. If you didn't know the time you would have thought it was already 2300 or something. Anyway I proceeded, very carefully to avoid damaging person(s), to the disposal area. After disposing of said garbage, I returned to the starboard side door, which was from where I exited the acommodation area. Lo and behold it was locked. With the security pin (I think that's what it's called) firmly in place. I panicked for like 5 seconds, then thought it over. I couldn't go down to upper deck since it's basically the same situation. And every door from upper deck to E deck would be locked from the inside. And I didn't really want to climb all the way up to the bridge again, since I've been up and down from there a good few times already. I tried knocking the glass on the porthole, which was at the officer mess room, hoping that the steward would hear. Then I remembered it's unlikely since usually the door between the duty mess room and officer mess room is closed. And it's a heavy fireproof door. So my knocking on the glass would just be stupid. I made the good deduction that at this time, there is usually crew in the crew mess/recreation room, watching TV or whatever else they do. So I crossed over to the port side and knocked on the glass there. I gave the AB quite a shock since they didn't expect anyone to be outside still. He unlocked the door for me and I went in. Looking back, it was kind of funny but I would rather not have that happen again. I kind of blame myself for being so lazy to climb up 7 flights of stairs to reach bridge and enter from there, but then again I don't want to explain to chief as to why im still running around on the deck outside. My guess is that my chief cook is still pissy about the rest hour issue (he had 177 hours of overtime, when in actual fact there was a good reasonable setting of 140 hours maximum, roughly), and he didn't inform the steward that I was still outside throwing rubbish. Then again maybe he thought I was inside already. Shit happens I guess. Also goes to show our security measures work anyway. Can't open no doors with those pins in place.

I got some inkling as to some possible cargo loading. Apart from the copper I mentioned, which is one of the more likely things we'd load (20,000MT of copper granules I think it was), there's also a probability we'd be heading to Ghana to load bauxite. It's kind of like some watery muddy mixture or of similar viscosity (I think it's being used to made metal. Thanks Kancolle for that. And of course to Bauxite Queen Akagi). If we load that, putting aside the work after discharging it, we would be bringing it from Ghana to China, probably Tianjin or something. It would be a 40-45 day voyage, from Ghana to China. We would have to pick up bunker and provisions in Durban, South Africa, to make this journey. Because from South Africa to Singapore it's already nearly 20 days journey, and the remainder is Singapore northwards, and we've used a decent amount of our fresh provisions and I think bunker as well. Chief, and I am guessing the rest of the deck crew, doesn't want to actually load this cargo, since it gives a lot of headache from loading to discharging, but I kind of want to load it just so I'd be coming back towards Singapore and then up to China side. I say this now of course, but when the time comes to discharge it i'll probably be cursing with each sweep of the broom and whatever else we would use to clean off all the muck from the cargo holds. And by muck I actually mean cargo residue. Since this bauxite is akin to a muddy mixture, it sticks everywhere and is actually really hard to clean off the bulkheads. Or so I'm told. Well, we'll figure it out eventually.

Anyway I'll end on that note. I'm pretty tired at this point. It took me a good hour to write all this down. I'll probably play some stalker, go shower and stuff then head to bed. We are arriving early tomorrow morning (again), and we are heading straight to berth upon arrival. No need for anchoring and any of that funky jazz. I'm also going to be keeping all my stuff in my bags. Ok not really everything, but stuff like my supplements, medicines and especially my laptop and phone. I don't really want problems with these port authority mafiosos. So yeah. Off to see some cheeki breekis and the Zone for maybe 15 minutes or so.