On the upside, my prostate is doing well

 It's been a busy few days here on the HQ.    We worked, then we had a day free to prep for our annual Coast Guard inspection, but then the free day was filled with a quick job running a splash of diesel out to a little bitty ship, and that sucked up 18 hours, so we pulled into the company dock about 15 minutes before Uncle Sugar's Sea Scouts showed up, where we were thoroughly probed. 

    We did very well. My employer sent the Scupper Police to go aboard before the Coasties got to us. The Scupper Police are the 3 guys in the company who do health & safety checks, making sure we're sanitary and in compliance with environmental and safety regs. On tank vessels, the scuppers (drains for rainwater and sea spray on deck) have to be in at all times, and opened only to let rain out while you're standing watching the water go overboard.   Leaving the scuppers out is a bad habit that makes perfect sense but not on an oil tanker. It's better to have a a couple hundred tons of water sloshing around on deck (oh, our decks have a raised edge, about 8 inches tall, to contain water or spilled oil) than a couple of gallons of oil going over the side while nobody's looking. Uncle Sugar gets real soggy and hard to light when the water around your boat looks like a frigging pride flag. 

   At any rate, the Scupper Police were welcomed aboard (not really but I can't say no), and we chatted and he looked things over, checked the logbooks and asked some smart questions about things of mutual concern, upcoming issues, and things to watch out for, as well as it being a perfect opportunity for me to complain about Things The Office Isn't Doing The Way I Would Do It, as if the poor guy didn't already have enough on his plate, lol.  Our local Scupper Cop is actually a good shit. One of those guys who on finding an issue, will physically help you solve it rather than run off and Go Tell Daddy. 

    By then, it was time to get Inspected, and there were 6 inspectors aboard, plus two of our own office people.  What followed was a bunch of  looing at things, pulling out the survival suits and testing the water activated lights that hang on them, etc, etc, plus a lightning round of drill questions; what would you do if... etc etc. 

     We did well. The Coast Guard will always find at least ONE thing wrong, to round out their report. They never allow an inspection to have an All Is Well conclusion. So usually, I move an empty cardboard box in front of the emergency escape hatch in the generator room, and eventually one of them will be all "ah HAH!" and we have our one ding on what is usually an otherwise perfect report. 

    I mean, these are the guys who are trying to be sure we don't die of stupidity or terminally cheap owner shenanigans... to make sure we don't end up in the hands of the Search-And-Rescue people. It behooves us to be cooperative. But there are patterns. 

     Anyhow, second annual inspection in a row where they missed the empty box. Instead our ding was a silly one, a missing item that isn't required on the class of vessel that is our HQ, and one that would have been resolved today, the day after the exam, over the phone. 

   The NY Coasties are a funny bunch. Every year, they pressure me to produce a type of logbook that isn't required of us. Every year I point out "We're not required to have that in our vessel class." and every year the answer is "Well, you should have it anyhow."    In no other US port do they ask for this book, and they didn't ask for it here either, up until 3 years ago. And of course it isn't required, but it's an argument every time now. Asking one of the port managers of my company down in Philadelphia, the answer is not just no but "Fuck no. Why make extra work for you, me, and themselves?"   But I guess never the twain shall meet. When people become worshipfull of Flypaper reports inventorying things that are not required, they worship the process and not the operation. 

 I have enough to do. I'm not a fan of wasting my time when there is no benefit to it but stiffening the erection of someone who really really likes reports. 

            So, not for the lack of looking, but we were probed, questioned and drilled, and we were found worthy.  And best of all, we have a full day off today so I got groceries and went for  a long, long walk this morning to spend a little time away from the HQ and smell the garbage water and urine and weed smell that covers 90% of Brooklyn.