we don't stop, we can't stop

but now we stopped.


 And thank God, too, because shit just keeps going WRONG here on HAWSEPIPER's Afloat Global HQ/Dog and Pony Show.


 I came in on a long-ass flight, and the 'Q was transferring heavy fuel oil and diesel to the NY maritime academy's training ship "Empire State" which ALWAYS orders too much fuel, so that we end up with the dreaded R.O.B (Remainder On Board).

 Now, when a ship  orders a ridiculously exaggerated volume of cargo, we'd charge the owner for the cost of returning the untaken volume on board, at least the costs of returning that stuff to the terminal we got it from. For the academy, though, where about 1/3 of my company are alums, even though they ordered some stone-age custom blended oil that is half diesel (easier on the 60-frigging year old turbines), we're just left trying to figure out how the hell to blend it back with some real shit and make normal oil out of it.
 Anyhow, even though we knew it would happen, told everyone it would happen, we left the ship with a couple hundred tons of oil that we weren't planning on leaving with.

 So it goes.


 We had cargo for 3 ships on board when we left for the training ship. Even though we were a half a day late (no one believes us when we tell them that the floating dinosaur that is the EMPIRE STATE takes twice as long as a modern ship to gas up), when we got to the next ship, which was slated to take some fuel oil and some diesel too, they claimed that we switched numbers somehow, and they wanted x number of tons of diesel and y of heavy oil, where we showed up with y tons of diesel and x of heavy oil. Our oil supplier denied this and they fought it out Kumite  style (I assume. It could have also been a peaceable discussion, but I was kind of hoping for a fight to the death), and basically we sat there for 6 hours while third parties duked it out, then we actually worked, and left with MORE oil we didn't want.

 Well, the last job, the third ship? It went to an exposed anchorage, and the anchor wouldn't hold. So we were 5 hours watching them dick around, and then coming alongside, making fast, and then casting off when the ship couldn't hold ground and had to reset the anchor. At any rate, 8 hours late fo that job, we eventually actually finished it.


 After that, purple in the face and hoarse in voice, we headed for our HQ dock, because, wonder of wonders, it was pressure-test day.

 Once a year, all our hoses and cargo piping is pressurized to 150PSI, to make sure it's rugged enough to be used for work. Takes a few hours, and there's office staff there, including my boss, and we get the hairy eyeball, too, making sure we're all legal and shit. On top of that, one of our Fire technicians comes in to swap out our many, many fire extinguishers and test our atmospheric test equipment.

 Oh, and we also got rid of a month's worth of trash and oily waste, and all our papers and such from the jobs we did.

 Pretty full day.