Winter ops

 With January here, the weather has been seasonably cold. Whether it's age, the mild fall, my living in Florida now, or the ridiculous amount of daily wind we've gotten, the cold bothers me a lot more than I remember it doing in the past.

       It's seasonably cold too. Not unreasonably so.  

          Like you might expect, winter ops require us to account for the cold.  We have electrical heating elements in our hydraulic tank, in the oil sumps of the engine blocks on our cargo pumps, even in our drinking water tank, which is slung under the house on the HQ. There is heat trace tape on the water drains from the house thst run to the gray and black water tanks underdeck, which also have heater elements in them to prevent freezing.

       They mostly work. Mostly. 

      Our potable water tank and the piping is insulated with a layer of rockwool with a waterproof cover... but the HQ is now 20 years old, and just 2 months away from an extensive shipyard period. We will soon take her out of service for about 10 weeks to see her into her 3rd and final decade of service. 

 But I digress... the 20-year old waterproofing of the water tank insulation has been phoning it in for the past 3 years. The insulation is very absorbant and VERY saturated, so our clean water is pretty much surrounded by ice, and there's a section on either side of the bulkhead connection for the water intake going to the house that can't be accessed and isn't insulated. Long story short, our water freezes up on really cold days.  A week and a half ago we went 2 1/2 days without running water. No washing dishes, no showering...   the inside of the house smelled like old hot dog water on the last day. It was unpleasant.  

      Now, the heating element in the water tank works well. Really, reallly well. Too well. It takes about 48 hours but once it's at temp, there is no cold water. Only scalding hot water that would cook a lobster. In fact, the water is warmer than the water in our water heater, which has an anti-scald thing. 

 Feast or famine.  The hot 'cold' water has allowed us to keep the taps on until it gets under 24 degrees or so for 12+ hours. In addition to this we point an electric heater at the bulkhead fitting where the water pipe enters the house, and let the taps drip to keep water moving, which is why we've only lost water twice this winter so far.

      On the upside, as we're not fans of poor hygeine, we live each day as though we won't have water the next, so it's always tidy inside and there's no temptation to go to bed without showering.  

       Using baby wipes for the morning ablutions isn't awesome, but neither is crapping in a 5-gallon bucket in the generator room. Peeing over the side is what it is, a pleasant experience except for the cold and the risk of a blowback or updraft from the wind. 

    Yesterday was halfway day. I go home in 2 weeks for 2 weeks.  By the time I come back it will be mid-February and the last tour of the true deep winter.    

The International Language

 

 

  In the American bunkering world, foreign mariners can be separated (wrongly) into three ethnic groups. Filipinos, Russians and Indians.

 

  Doesn’t matter what you are, you’re going in one of those groups. I guess Americans don't get in there, but I mean except for areas around Norfolk and San Diego, with their naval fleets, we see American ships like once a year, so our own people can be ignored here.

 

  Yeah, Filipinos, Russians and Indians.

 

 Norwegian? Russian.

 Ukrainian? Russian (Boy isn’t that a fun one, when some dipshit deckhand calls them that).

 Danish? Russian.

French? Russian. (CMA CGM, a French company, usually has a French chief engineer).

 

 Everyone else is a Filipino or an Indian.

 

  For the most part this is not a big problem. The Chinese ships don’t have anyone aboard who speaks English, so it’s not like they get insulted. One Chinese company hired a Chinese-American, a pharmacist in fact, to handle bunkering operations on their ships in NY, what with his language skills, high IQ and charm. Great guy. He is famous and beloved, because at the beginning of every bunker operation he gives the tankermen a box of cookies. Obviously he is treasured and valued, receiving for about $4 worth of cookies the admiration, cooperation and exquisite politeness than only a group of men deprived of many of life’s little joys available to their peers would give a man who gives them cookies when he doesn’t have to.

 

 

  last week I had an attentive young Ordianary Seaman aboard, a tugboater who has just gotten out of training, there to be the tug captain’s eyes and ears and talk us alongside the ship. Whoever trained the kid did it well, as he was one of the ones who ‘gets it’ from the get go- listening more and talking less, but aware that his job is to tell the captain everything that the captain needs to know that distance and parallax error makes hard to see, all the while incorporating my advice and observations while using his own understanding to get us in position for bunkering.

 

  As the kid was obviously interested and willing to learn, I got to talk to him along the way about the value of politeness, and respect and cooperation. He laughed but listened when I talked about being nice to the ship’s deck gang when they were taking our lines, knowing that if we piss them off enough, they’ll try to throw something at our heads, which is not difficult to do when you’re 40 feet up and almost directly overhead.

 

  I was also able to share a warning about cultural sensitivity- not calling every white guy a Russian when he might not be, and when he might be worried that his family is being killed by Russians back home, for example, or making jokes about Filipinos’ good yet heavily accented English when you only speak one fucking language yourself.

 

  I had actually met the kid the day before, when I bunkered one of the Orange Juice tankers that run between here and Brazil. I was talking with the Russ...er Eastern European engineer, and we switched into Portuguese, as we both learned it for the same reason- to talk to good-looking Brazilian women. Me, with Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife, and the engineer with the local girls in Santos and Santa Catarina.

  Me, never passing up an opportunity to be both crude and humorous, on the kid’s asking me: What he hell langauge is that? Spanish? How’d you learn Spanish so good?”

  Me: “No, Portuguese. Ya’ gotta speak it if you wanna bang a Brazilian girl. This ship is homeported in Brazil.”

  The kid: “Oh, OK. Did you work for these guys before?”

  Me: “Naw, Brazil came to me. I met my wife here.” Light dawned on the kid then, as to why a random middle aged and very white tankerman could rattle away 12 to the dozen talking foreign.

  The engineer (Ukranian, turns out), smiling:” Yas, is good spik Porchuguses. . The girls is very nice, very pretty!”

            I mean, I'm living proof that even the laziest American can pick up a 2nd language if properly motivated. 

 

Interesting times and the Brazil house update

 This is a good time for me to be able to put my head down and keep my eyes in the boat, focus on the things within arms' reach.

     The world's gone pretty wild of late. I do wish I wasn't working NY harbor, this place being both awful to be in and also a target for trouble, but so it goes.  Barring TEOTWAWKI, I'm just trying to keep my blood pressure down. Taking care of the things within my own hull, and leaving the rest of the world to those more submerged in it. 

     So, the Brazil house we're building/rebuilding.   Here's a photo of the state of things as of 1/1/25:

         We've got a lawyer on the job, a new architectural engineer and have hired a stonemason. Some serious negligence was going on- the house being brick, and mortar with non-loadbearing walls made of cast hollow brick overcoated with mortar, and load-bearing walls with brick, rebar and concrete, we discovered that not only had the contractor NOT run electrical service to the house past the front gate at the street, he allowed the pool to be built without being plumbed, and the well to be dug without performing soil testing- we are VERY fortunate that the well didn't destabilize the soil in the yard, AND that the soil testing he didn't do, turns out to be adequate for bearing construction. Since no plans, permits or engineering drawings were submitted to city hallf, we have to deal with that, which the local sherriff says is manageable given that we're filing suit for it, and is a bit of a smoking gun, as I wired a shit ton of money for permitting and engineering seperately to fhe builder, which he obviously pocketed.

              There's more for sure; not worth dwelling on.  The architectural engineer did all the testing, new drawings and site plan, and an assessment of construction carried out, the cost of unfucking the mistakes, and a report summarizing everything for the lawyer. 

   We're in the 6 figures in US dollar terms of sheer loss. Might get some back. Inappropriately Hot Foreign wife and I agree that even if a lawsuit is a Pyrrhic victory, we're gonna pursue it.

     In the meanwhile, the stonemason is starting the unfucking, and working with the architect and electrician to wire the house and make it weathertight. After that construction will continue at a very slow pace. 

I drive-a- the boat-a

 OOF, I haven't had much experience handling pleasure boats. I knew, in theory, that they tend to be lightweight and with rudders too small to get the barn door effect that heavier hulls have.  

   I spent a day locally driving a 78' light yacht, one of those clorox jog hulled Euro fast foo-foo things that for all its' size can't do an ocean crossing for lack of ass, per order of the insurance company. 

   Ever see Rodney Dangerfield at the end of Caddyshack? 

 Anyhow, I'm not a yacht guy. If you switch which ass cheek you're leaning on more, the boat starts to swing to that direction but the hull porpoised about 3 degrees back and forth when on a stable course. Annoying.     

  It was fun though. After I finished screaming on the inside the first few minutes. I don't like looking like an asshole. I think I covered up that I was in full Weekend Warrior mode, like a dumbass, before settling into what I hoped was quiet competence. 

         Another funny thing I saw was that as a commercial guy, I was expected to be quiet and competent, moreso than the experienced yachties, as the actual captain was a yacht guy. So when I got a 'you move this thing like it's your daily driver,'   rather than gush and beam, as I wanted to on the inside, I nodded  a thank you and just said 'At some point a boat's a boat; this 'un don't drive like 'n office building on its' side like workboats."    (Author's note: I'm a tankerman. I don't do boathandling on our tugs to speak of unless I'm working over as crew on a tug which I only do about once a year). 

    It WAS nice to get behind the wheel of a boat. I don't do it enough. 

There's blood in my alcohol

 Good morning, and I hope you had a Merry Christmas. We did the Latin thing where you celebrate during Christmas Eve and open presents at midnight, then yesterday after waking up at about 9am,  I cooked a prime rib (my best one yet, too!) and ate and drank too much all day and into the night with family. 

       I think I better go back to work next week. My liver and guts need a break. 

Home alone and

 Time passes so fast, I've already been home for 6 days and it sure doesn't feel like it. Today's my first day with not a lot scheduled and Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife at work. We've been glued together at the hip since I got home. 

 The medical BS continues. Had more testing, still more to do in January when I come home next time, which should be definitive. Don't feel like writing about it while I don't know exactly what's up just yet. 

          But that's an issue for Future Me to deal with. Today Me has enough shit to do already. 

 With Christmas just 2 days away, I'm pretty excited to have the time at home, and after what has been a fairly shitty year, the holidays this year have been really pleasant. The house is decorated well, although I didn't do the yard this year, which is usually a fun time and something I put a fair bit of effort into. Too much happening, something had to give time-wise, so I didn't light the yard up as I normally do.  I pulled a rib roast out of the freezer today, so we'll be having prime rib for Christmas dinner. We're doing Christmas Brazilian style too, which means that on Christmas Eve there's church to go to then late night food and presents opened at midnight before bed some time in the early AM. Christmas day I'll be cooking  a full dinner and my  sister, one of my brothers and nephew will come over- the Florida portion of my nuclear family. I expect a good time. 

       

   Speaking of good times, yesterday we drove to Fort Lauderdale to have lunch with friend, coworker and Youtuber TimBatSea  whose channel is doing well.  Tim and I have been friends for a lot of years, and both of us being goofy ex-New England commercial fishermen with a taste for tropical living and latin women, we've never run out of laughs and things to talk about, but this was the first time we had time to meet up outside of work, and unsurprisingly we had a great time at lunch. Our respective ladies hit it off nicely too, so yeah, it was a good day. 

     I hope everyone else has a Merry Christmas too, wherever you are. 

 

Lead-Foot Ahmoud Delivers

So I am at JFK airport in NY, and it's time to go home. 

       I'm crew changing out a day early, as I have a minor diagnostic medical procedure tomorrow. It was my only chance for an appointment... and honestly this is something that has been hanging over my head for a while, and tomorrow was the only opening left this year. So I get an extra day at home this time, which is nice. 

       Thursday was *supposed* to be the day I left for Brazil, there to spend 3 weeks with Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife's family all the while the good ladies of the fam spend my money and wait on me hand and foot in my new fuckin' house...

       Instead my wife's mom is dead, the house is less than half- finished and I have a lawyer about to commit lawfare on the builder of my house  because instead of building it, he stole much of the building materials and no shit, built a house for himself WITH MY MATERIALS. 

    Yeah, so I'm not bitter or anything. 

       In the meanwhile, though, I may have set a new record for door-to-door time between the company office in Brooklyn and JFK airport out on the edge of Long Island. 

    Mahmoud my driver, in his Toyota minivan, got me there like his ass was on fire and his hair was catching. I never heard a minivan roar before. We didn't drift or anything, but thr dude's mommobile car had some ass today. We did at least a half dozen hole shots, going from 0-60 at Wide Open Throttle, which was surprisingly sporty... and Mahmoud, a short, portly amd swarthy fella, was channeling Mario Frigging Andretti. 

       It was a great drive. 

    There was a shit ton of disorganized yelling latinos at the poor people's security line. People of all ages, loud, generally rude. Absolute chaos. Maybe the tides of humanity are going home prior to the next inauguration? 

         Eh, I can dream.   

  The Precheck line was a breeze. Maybe 45 seconds of delay max, vs. what looked like 45 mins for the hoi polloi. 

     I'm ready to go home.